BASIC’s: Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories
-
The Six BASIC’s
- Unsafe Driving
- Fatigued Driving (Hours of Service)
- Driver Fitness
- Controlled Substances and Alcohol
- Vehicle Maintenance
- Cargo Related
-
One Final Measure:
- Crash Indicator
If you’ll look at the list on the right you’ll see that there are six BASIC’s regarding the CSA 2010 implementation and one last measure called “Crash Indicator”. The CSA 2010 team developed the BASICs under the premise that commercial motor vehicle crashes can be traced to the behavior of motor carriers and/or drivers.
The drivers will receive a score based upon their performance all of these categories combined and their score will be compared with all other drivers to basically determine how “safe” a driver is. The companies will also be rated on each of these categories and will be compared with other companies in their peer group. The peer groups for trucking companies are based on the average number of trucks a company has had over the previous three years:
- • 0-15
- • 15-50
- • 50-100
- • 100-500
- • 500+
Defining The Six BASIC’s and Crash Indicator
Here are each of the six basics along with the last measure – Crash Indicator – and what they mean:
- Unsafe Driving: Operation of commercial motor vehicles in a dangerous or careless manner. Example violations: speeding, reckless driving, improper lane change, and inattention. This is pretty straight forward. It will cover most moving violations and anything deemed to be the unsafe operation of a vehicle.
- Fatigued Driving: Operation of commercial motor vehicles by drivers who are ill, fatigued, or in non-compliance with the hours-of-service (HOS) regulations. Example violations: HOS, logbook, and operating a commercial motor vehicle while ill or fatigued. Yap, this is the logbook one! But keep in mind that this can also include drivers who are deemed unfit to drive by the judgement of the enforcement officer – which applies if you appear obviously impaired by illness or fatigue even if your logbook shows you have time available to drive.
- Driver Fitness: Operation of commercial motor vehicles by drivers who are unfit to operate a commercial motor vehicle due to lack of training, experience, or medical qualifications. Example violations: failure to have a valid and appropriate commercial driver’s license and being medically unqualified to operate a commercial motor vehicle. Now there has been a lot of talk recently regarding the application of driver health qualifications – like BMI (body mass index) calculations to disqualify drivers that are extremely overweight. This is not part of the Driver Fitness BASIC. At this point, any rules regarding BMI calculations are created and enforced by individual companies. There are no rules regarding BMI in trucking at the Federal Level as of this writing.
- Controlled Substances and Alcohol: Operation of commercial motor vehicles by drivers who are impaired due to alcohol, illegal drugs, and misuse of prescription or over-the-counter medications. Example violations: use or possession of controlled substances or alcohol.
- Vehicle Maintenance: A commercial motor vehicle failure due to improper or inadequate maintenance. Example violations: brakes, lights, and other mechanical defects, and failure to make required repairs. Now keep in mind that although your company is financially responsible for the maintenance of the truck for company drivers, the driver is ultimately responsible for making sure the truck is safe for operation on the highway. So if you get a ticket for improper vehicle maintenance, the driver will indeed have this on his/her record as well as the trucking company.
- Improper Loading/Cargo Securement: commercial motor vehicle incident resulting from shifting loads, spilled or dropped cargo, and unsafe handling of hazardous materials. Example violations: improper load securement, cargo retention, and hazardous material handling.
- Crash Indicator: Histories or patterns of high crash involvement, including frequency and severity. It is based on information from state-reported crash reports.
Protecting Your CDL
As you can see, the FMCSA has clearly defined the items that will be taken into consideration when evaluating the safety of a driver or a trucking company. And as you would expect, pretty much everything other than how you grip your fork while eating mashed potatoes will be taken into consideration – as it should be.
Safety over the long run is the ability for drivers and companies to pay attention to all safety-related details at all times, not just some of them some of the time. As a driver, if you want to keep a clean safety record you must make safety your number one priority at all times. Things can go wrong in trucking in a big hurry. If you slip up, even just one time, the consequences could be severe and permanent. Please don’t ever forget this – not even for a moment.
body mass index rule is nonsense, whay will we do with thosands of drivers who become unemployed because of their weight? this will have a major impact on the economy when you dont have enough drivers. And maybe those empty drivers jobs will too be outsorced to mexico too Huh? I hope someone sues over these dumb laws. By the way are we going after the railroad too? they are heavy haulers to.
you pencil pushers do our jobs and see if you stay fit. We have no time for exercise when on the road 3 weeks at a time.Oh yeah not to mention all the truckstop foods. healthy? no way! Do we wanna be fat ? no! lets put treadmills in truckstops and better food!
I would LOVE to see fitness rooms in truck stops – that would be great! But I'm not holding my breath.
I ran as hard as anyone out there over the years and I found the time and available food to eat healthy and exercise 5 days a week. I would go jogging wherever I was at when I had the chance, brought weights with me to tone up, and carried tons of healthy food with me. We all have the time and the resources to eat healthy and exercise. If the President Of The United States can find the time, so can us truck drivers.
I run a Truckers Wives Support Group- It seems that many many drivers are concerned about this. The Physical Fitness seems to be the biggest concern. As we know, many many drivers will stand to lose their jobs!
This new BMI is a joke.Why don't the feds look at these dam truck stop's that only serve fast food and not a good home cooked meal.I wish I could open a truck stop there would only be good southern cooking at it and no freakn fast food.
The BMI calculations that FMCSA proposed have nothing to do with the driver fitness standards. This proposal has been brought before different levels of government many times and shot down as many times. This is totally separate from the CSA BASIC test and was supposed to be part of obtaining one's DOT physical. The driver fitness standards are post physical not pre physical. Basically if you show up to a doctor for a physical and you're above the BMI calculations or have other indicators that you may have sleep apnea, your doctor would have to force a sleep apnea test before issuing a medical card. This can still happen now but the difference is that now it's doctor's choice and not a forced decision. And having sleep apnea is no longer a disqualifying disorder as long as you're willing to wear the fancy mask.
And you can absolutely eat healthy at almost any truck stop in this country. It may not be what you've been dreaming of eating but that's not really the point of eating anyway. I have Hashimoto's thyroiditis and I'm female. My metabolism dropped so low a few years ago I went into a three day coma. I took a synthetic thyroid hormone and desiccated thyroid hormones about a year. Now I'm pill free and living with a very low metabolism but no energy loss and no weight gain. I keep a little binder in my truck of brochures and printed menus with nutrition facts of every restaurant chain I could possibly go to. If I know I'm stopping at Pilot with McDonald's I look for healthy foods that appeal to me before I go in. I also keep a small notepad and write down the amount of fat, calories, etc. I eat in a day. I thought I ate healthy before I did this but was shocked when my previous idea of "healthy" amounted to 3000 calories and 50g of fat or so a day. I still eat ice cream and hamburgers too (or there would be a trail of dead across this nation) but not every day. Sunday is Junk Food Day and I eat whatever I want in whatever quantity I want. The other six days I eat like a starving hippie, but it makes the bad food oh so much more tasty… My doctor recommended the book Body for Life to me years ago and that's sort of what I go by but with my own ideas in the mix. I've lost 125 lbs in 2 years as female driver with one of the most severe metabolic diseases around. It's totally possible.
I work for a trucking company and do the hiring. I think this is humilating! I have a few obese drivers and they are our best drivers. They have been with us for years and I would not want to address this issue with any of them. They pass the physicals and have had had injuries. Just sad.. no one is going to want to be in the trucking industry anymore. Next they will disqualify them for smoking too.