The safety of the employees and the general public should always be one of the highest priorities of any organization. Drivers represent the company. Their safety and service reliability defines the company image.
The prevention of crashes has been an ongoing battle for years. Auto crashes still account for the highest number of severe injuries and fatalities in the workplace and are the leading cause of death from the ages of 5 to 35 throughout the world. According to the "2013 Motor Vehicle Crashes: Overview" published by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the U.S. experienced 5.7 million crashes in 2013 which resulted in 32,719 fatalities leaving 2.3 million injured. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also stated in their "Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries Summary, 2013" that transportation incidents accounted for 2 out of every 5 (40%#37;) fatal work injuries in 2013.
Auto crashes are no longer the cost of doing business; they are a failure of business. Without a comprehensive safety process, accident and fatality trends will go up and down over the years with no consistent improvement or solution. Many consider auto crashes based purely on chance or bad luck. Nothing is further from the truth. All crashes can be reduced by the reduction of unsafe driving behaviors and fatality crashes can only be reduced by the reduction of all crashes. While changing these long entrenched mindsets is not easy, businesses no longer have a choice. Reduce your crashes or face enforcement.
Every Commercial Motor Vehicle must be operated in accordance with the laws and regulations of the jurisdiction in which it is operated. The Department of Transportation (DOT) through the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) continues to hold motor carriers responsible for driver behavior and job performance. The Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) initiative is the FMCSA enforcement and compliance program used to reduce vehicle crashes, injuries, and fatalities. The program leverages the use of technology by using safety performance data collected during roadside stops and through crash reports to identify unsafe carriers and drivers and to identify safety performance problems. Within the CSA, the Safety Measurement System (SMS) quantifies the on-road performance of carriers and drivers to identify candidates for intervention, determine the specific safety problems exhibited, and to monitor whether safety concerns are improving.
The SMS uses a motor carrier's data from roadside inspections, including all safety-based violations, State-reported crashes, and the Federal motor carrier census to quantify performance in the following Seven Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories (BASICs).
