Proposed Changes to FMCSA Safety Measurement System

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration created its Safety Measurement System as a means of assessing carriers for their potential for operating safely or not safely. Carriers have been rated under the system according to the agency’s Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories (BASIC). It was designed and enforced to identify carriers with low safety ratings with high risk of crashes.

The purpose was to identify high risk carriers and investigate and intervene in their operations in an effort to reduce crashes and improve highway safety. Under the proposed changes, BASICs would be reorganized into safety categories, essentially moving beyond BASICs and within Safety Measurement System (SMS). The intention is to make the identification of high-risk carriers easier to recognize their safety difficulties and enable those carriers to address their issues.