Got your BASICS in order?

May 21, 2012
Time to get ready for Roadcheck 2012

The Vehicle Maintenance Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Category (BASIC) is one of seven categories that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) program uses to determine how a motor carrier ranks relative to other carriers with a similar number of safety events (i.e., inspections, violations, or crashes).

The Vehicle Maintenance BASIC specifically addresses the requirements within the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSRs)

This June 5 to 7, Roadcheck 2012, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) will conduct its annual the three-day, commercial vehicle safety enforcement and education campaign.

CVSA is an international not-for-profit organization comprised of local, state, provincial, territorial and federal motor carrier safety officials and industry representatives from the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Its mission is to promote commercial motor vehicle safety and security by providing leadership to enforcement, industry and policy makers.

Every year, some 10,000 CVSA-certified local, state, provincial and federal inspectors at 1,500 locations across North America perform the truck and bus inspections.

CVSA sponsors Roadcheck with participation by the Federal Motor Carrier Administration, Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators, Transport Canada, and the Secretariat of Communications and Transportation (Mexico).

Keep in mind, CSA calculates a measure of “safety events” for each BASIC by assigning a value, time weighted against the probability of the violation causing a crash, and the severity.

The time weight of an event decreases with time, resulting in more recent events having a greater impact relative to older violations.

Violations go against bot driver and carrier.

With Roadcheck looming, now is a good time to carefully go over all your vehicles to make sure there are no maintenance and safety violations, especially those things that are easily corrected. For example, inoperative lights, missing reflectors or mud flaps and badly worn tires.

Don’t get “dinged” for something stupid.

About the Author

David A. Kolman | Contributor - Fleet Maintenance

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