Once the trucking companies at greatest risk of being involved in accidents are identified by the SMS, the FMCSA is able to preemptively intervene in an attempt to try to prevent accidents.
While the design of the CSA is to keep all on the road safe, the program is not without controversy.
As currently designed, the SMS would take into account the total number of accidents that truck drivers are involved in, without regard to whether the truck driver was actually responsible for the accident. Thus, drivers would be accountable for accidents that they were not responsible for causing.
The FMSCA has said that CSA program is designed to determine the trucking companies at most risk of causing accidents and in most need of intervention, thus the FMCSA wants to identify crashes in which the trucking company has the greater responsibility. One way that the FMCSA noted that this could be done is by weighting accidents in which trucking companies are at greater fault differently than other accidents.
Until the FMSCA determines how to assign responsibility for accidents, the final CSA program is on hold. Regardless of how the accidents will be weighted, the program shows potential for improving the safety of all who share the road with these large vehicles.
