Compliance, Safety, AccountabilityCSA

CSA (Compliance, Safety, Accountability) is FMCSA's enforcement program. It scores carriers across seven BASICs (Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories): Unsafe Driving, Crash Indicator, HOS Compliance, Vehicle Maintenance, Controlled Substances/Alcohol, Hazardous Materials, and Driver Fitness.

Carriers above the FMCSA-defined threshold in any BASIC are flagged for intervention. Brokers and shippers also use CSA scores to vet carriers — many won't tender loads to a carrier with elevated scores.

Roadside inspections that result in violations affect the carrier's CSA score for 24 months. Cleaning up CSA scores requires DataQ challenges (disputing erroneous violations) and operationally fixing the underlying behaviors.