Comments on: TD69: The CSA (Crappy Sucky Administration)

By: Are all these changes good for the trucking industry?

Are all these changes good for the trucking industry? — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 05:00:48 +0000

[...] (I actually wasn’t). Even though I didn’t get a ticket, I still got points on my CSA. Here’s that story and my complete thoughts on the CSA. Also, if a tail light burns out in mid trip, that’s considered unsafe and I get points. But [...]

By: Are all these changes good for the trucking industry? « About Trucking Jobs Blog

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:02:56 +0000

By: Todd McCann

Todd McCann — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 13:37:48 +0000

Well Greg, you’ve got an excellent point there. The FMCSA and the CSA have to be in this together. Thanks for pointing that out.

I have a feeling this is going to go down just as every other change does. Driver’s say they’ll leave the industry if the rules change. Or if their company gets e-logs. Or… or… or…

The fact of the matter is, we’ll all suck it up like we always do, whine for a while, then fall into line. Sad, but true.

The only light I see is that if the CSA does wind up costing the industry too many drivers, they’ll hopefully back off the strictness of the penalties. At least we can hope. Who else is going to haul the freight? The carriers already can’t find enough drivers.

Thanks for the comment. Now go have a beer and take a deep breath. Relax, man. LOL Thanks for leaving your thoughts.

By: Greg R.

Greg R. — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 15:23:42 +0000

As a driver of 14 years, I’m completely blown away at the stupidity and total lack of knowledge our government officials continue to display!!!!!!!!
Come on, you talk about a slap in the face to every driver on the road. The email claiming the fmcsa has no control over a carriers driver threshold is total B.S!!!!!! They clearly designed and implemented the CSA 2010 system. They clearly give the carriers a performance threshold to stay in business. And they clearly put the heart of the trucking industry, (drivers), as the ultimate target.

Who takes the carriers equipment out on the road to be subjected to these new rules? If the equipment didn’t move from the carriers yard then they would all have no problems meeting CSA 2010.
Oh my, I just gotta scratch my head at this crap!

There will be thousands of drivers who will end up loosing their jobs because a carrier chooses to “role the dice” with our employment on the line. It’s simple! If a driver gets points while operating their equipment, just get rid of the driver. Carriers have to stay under a threshold to avoid DOT intervention. Unfortunately, it will be the driver who pays the ultimate price!!! How screwed up is this?

Companies are already turning away drivers with too many points on their record, even if the company desperately needs drivers!
Yes, even if they need drivers in the worst way. If that doesn’t wake up every single driver out there, I don’t know what will.

Cover your butt’s guys and gals. Stay away from companies that are willing to put your families income on the line. If that just isn’t possible in your particular situation, then use your smartphones to record conversations with these low lifes. Take pictures, pictures, pictures….to show an ongoing history of equipment neglect. So at least when you are let go, they won’t be able to fight your unemployment.

Punish people who are willing to sacrifice a normal family life and put in 70 hour weeks!! What the heck!

Good luck to you all

By: Todd McCann

Todd McCann — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 07:43:31 +0000

I’m sure we both know that the folks over at CSA mean well. Like you said though, it’s too bad it brings down the good along with the bad.

I think you’ve brought up a point that EVERY driver should pay attention too. No longer can we drivers tolerate driving inferior equipment or driving illegal. That’s as simple as it gets. I’ve heard other drivers talking about driving defective equipment, but your ex-employer seems to be worse than most. I have to ask why you continued to work for them after they continually lied to you? I can only imagine that it’s associated with the crappy economy and lack of available jobs. You know, I’ll let the first lie slide, but lie to me again and someone is getting a talking too.

No one likes a narc, but I think that this may be a prime example of justifying “narciness.” Think about it. They “force” you to drive unsafe equipment, putting your life at risk. When they are forced to make repairs, they jury rig them instead of fixing them properly. They keep lying to you like you’re some kind of a moron, even though you keep catching them in the act by doing thorough pre-trip inspections. I’m sorry, but these guys have it coming.

If it were me, I’d have narced. I guess I’d have started with the DOT and gone from there until someone listened. What’s the worst that could happen? You might get fired, collect unemployment during your next job search, and keep from racking up all those CSA points. And if for some strange reason you wanted to keep working for these lying jerks after you’d been fired, well, I imagine you’d have no problem getting your job back if you threatened to sue them. I can’t imagine anyone who would think it’s right to fire someone for whistle-blowing to make the roads safer.

In close, I’m glad you quit that company. I wish you’d have done it earlier, but seeing as how this all took place in one short month, I see why you didn’t. Let’s hope that the CSA manages to run these guys out of business. That is their purpose after all. If this crappy carrier manages to stay in business without straightening up their act, clearly the CSA should clean out their offices and look for other jobs. Maybe the lying jerks will hire them?

By: Autoped

Autoped — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 20:53:32 +0000

I’m not a big fan of this CSA as well for other reasons. My particular instance involves a bad carrier forcing me to drive unsafe vehicles. I was given ultimatums of “Roll with it or get fired”. Well, the government isn’t going to feed my family, and I remember filling out truck driving applications including, “Have you ever been fired from a job?” in the application being a heavy question. What other recourse does a truck driver have? It’s easy to find new truck drivers with clean records who don’t mind marring it up, but for those people who make this a CAREER, it is devestating.
My particular case involved hauling heavy equipment on an RGN in Texas. I told my company when I came aboard that the trailer brakes on the trailer were all out of adjustment, as well as other issues with the rig itself. Here it is, a month later, NOTHING has been repaired and I’m being called to make a 400 mile haul while Texas DPS is doing a 72 hour DOT sting. I advise them that the truck and trailer will be put out of service, and I get the same old, “roll with it” response. After arguing with my bosses about the situation, I get the ultimatum, and I’m forced to drive the truck, broken and without 50% of the brakes. Lo and behold, I’m stopped for a level 1 inspection by Texas. They went over the rig with a fine toothed comb and found a good two pages of violations. All but the brakes were warnings, and the brake issue was a violation. I was put out of service, and called my boss to tell him, “I told you so!” The hard part about this was that the company didn’t even fix the brakes until almost a month AFTER the violation!
Just before that particular violation, I was inspecting a 1.5 ton pickup/gooseneck trailer combo for a trip from Texas to Kansas. I found that the brakes on THIS trailer didn’t work either. In early July, I was coming back from a trip in the 18 wheeler (brakes finally fixed, but now, I lost power in my dash), and I was told that I needed to take the P/U/GN combo for a short local haul. I pre-tripped the truck and trailer, and still no brakes. Well, same threats, and I get stuck on the road with it. And luck so be my lady, I got pulled over for suspicion of the lack of a Class A CDL. I show him the CDL, and the officer is relieved, and then starts a level 1 inspection. They find the brake issue, put me OOS, and I get a ticket for it too. My boss comes to the site and pays off the cops to allow the company to drive an OOS vehicle back to their shop. When the truck got back to the shop, I saw some workers loading up a piece of machinery on my rig, and I asked if my rig was fixed. He said yes. I do a THOROUGH inspection, and find that the dashboard accessories, gauges, and A/C work with the key off. After a while, I found a wire jumped from one end of the fuse block to the other! Thats a good way to burn a truck down, let me tell you! I told my boss that the truck wasn’t fixed, and I wasn’t driving it. After yet ANOTHER argument, my boss said, “So what are you gonna do?” I was finally fed up, and quit right then and there. One month, consisting of 2 level 1 inspections, both putting me out of service, and a grand total of 89 points on my CSA record. I’ve had my CDL for 5 years now (not to mention spotless), and one company comes and destroys it, and now I’m left wondering if those points are going to get me fired from my current job.
I’m currently looking for an attorney to sue my old job for damages.
Don’t you just love how federal laws designed to remove the unsafe drag down the good as well?
If we could file a class action suit against this CSA BS, maybe then, they will learn that they can’t standardize an issue this crucial not only to the livelyhoods of several honest workers, but to an already fragile economy.

By: Todd McCann

Todd McCann — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 10:52:48 +0000

Thanks for the update, Driver. It’s good to know that it’s not the government deciding what a good CSA score is. Although it’s not going to be easy to know how strict a carrier is until they give you the axe.

Glad to hear you’ve had multiple job offers though. Let’s hope your new company isn’t so strict on the CSA rules.

Good luck!!

By: Todd McCann

Todd McCann — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 09:45:58 +0000

Sorry that I’m just getting around to reading and answering your comment. For some reason, the notification never showed up in the email.

For all you non-truckers, the pigtail is the electrical cord that runs from the tractor to trailer. So now that that’s explained, let me just say…

What a crock of crap! I don’t even know where to start with this. If you had pulled over on the side of the highway to plug the pigtail back in, he could’ve issued you a ticket for parking on a roadway (been there, done that). Yet when you immediately told the officer you knew what was wrong, he ticketed you anyway. SEVEN FREAKIN’ TIMES!!!!! Wow.

Now see, that’s the problem with this CSA crap. In the past, you would’ve just paid the fine and gone about your life. These violations wouldn’t have been grounds to lose your license or anything. But now with the CSA points, you get fired. Unbelievable. This is exactly the type of thing I was talking about in my article. When something goes wrong while you’re going down the road, what do they expect us to do?

I’m really sorry you lost your job over this. I was talking with my Safety Director the other day and he’s been expecting this to happen ever since the CSA was first introduced. He expects a lot of others to walk away from the industry before the CSA has a chance to boot them out.

Thanks for leaving a comment with this experience. I hope you find a new driving job soon. And please, keep me informed on what happens with your driving career. I’m curious to know how this is going to affect you getting re-hired. I’m wondering if all companies have the same “bad driver” thresholds. Please notice the quotes there.

By: Driver

Driver — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 02:06:25 +0000

Hey Todd thanks for the support. I apologize for any miscommunication on my part, I never received any tickets, the violations were on my dot inspection report and I signed driver made repair for the oos violations.
I decided to write a email to CSA feedback found in the FMSCA website. I let them know about New Mexico, and the reasons for my termination given to me from my former company.

This is a quote from the email I received

“Since FMCSA does not have a formal way to evaluate drivers, carriers make up their own system. Something their system uses parts of DSMS or Carrier SMS. FMCSA does not have any driver thresholds, so that figure is coming from your carrier. Often carriers buy third party software to help with their calculations. ”

Now as far as employment, Companies like Swift, US Express etc some of the very large companies wont hire me on until I have been employed by another trucking company for six months. I’m probably better off. I’ve had 4 different trucking companies willing to hire me on. I’ve been taking my time looking and I ‘m feeling better about getting behind the wheel now that the dot blitz is over.
Be safe out there,
Stephanie

By: Driver

Driver — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 04:28:33 +0000

01/25/11 I was in NM on Hwy 54 my pigtail disconnected from the trailer. I noticed my lights out on my trailer and before I could pull over too fix it, a car came up on me and was tailgating. Then the blue lights came on and I was pulled over. I let the officer know that my pigtail probably disconnected and he did the normal routine log books, reg check etc. He came back to the truck and I asked him if he wanted me to fix the pigtail, he said yeah and he’s going to do a quick walk around. I plug my pigtail in and he did his walk around while my lights are on and hazards flashing. Now on the dot inspection report he put every single light on the trailer as a violation. I had 7 violations for lights, they were either inoperable/no light or defective. Three of those are OOS violations. I also had to ask the officer to put in the comments that the pigtail was disconnected. I asked him with this csa 2010 going on how is this going to affect me or my company, his reply was I don’t know, they haven’t told us about that stuff yet.
I’m a driver of four years, i’m not a perfect driver but I haven’t been in any accidents, no speeding tickets, one warning for speeding and I don’t have a awful inspection history. From what I was told by my F/M and safety that I was fired because of this inspection and said this inspection drove my score to be too high to keep me.