FMCSA Proposes Changes to SMS System
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has been in the news quite a bit lately, and this article is no different. Here is a taste of what the FMCSA is planning on changing to its Safety Measurement Systems (SMS).
Relearning the BASICs
Some modeling that the FMCSA uses to determine high-risk drivers is the Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories (BASICs). There were seven metrics used to determine risk factor:
- Hours-of-service.
- Driver fitness.
- Controlled substances/alcohol.
- Vehicle maintenance.
- Crash indicator.
- Unsafe driving.
- Hazardous materials.
Now, like how the MyPlate replaced the Food Pyramid in 2011, the BASICs are being changed and will no longer be called BASICs. The replacement seven are:
- Unsafe driving.
- Crash indicator,
- Hours-of-service.
- Vehicle maintenance.
- Vehicle maintenance: driver observed.
- Hazardous materials.
- Driver fitness.
The difference being that controlled substances and alcohol was rolled into unsafe driving, and that vehicle maintenance now has two categories: one for service issues that are readily noticeable by a driver, and those that are not.
IRT Gets the AXE
Item Response Theory (IRT) is a statistical model that calls into question not only the score an individual gets on an item, but how difficult that item is. A driver who keeps his truck in tip-top shape but has heavy alcohol use will naturally perform differently than someone who avoids firewater but drives a hunk of junk, and IRT would factor this fact in to determine which driver is less dangerous.
It is complicated statistics-degree calculations, which is part of the reason why the FMCSA has opted not to do it: the current SMS system is easier to understand and calculate so that anyone can determine how to increase their score with a glance. Another reason why the FMCSA will not use IRT is because calculating it takes fourteen times as long as the SMS, meaning even small changes to the system would be hard to do, let alone something like changing the categories themselves.
Conclusion
As with all things regulation, it will take some time before any of this becomes official and impacts you on the road.
Wondering how the changes are going to impact your score? The FMCSA already has a webpage that predicts a user’s score, and also says that the new methodology increases predicted crash rates by 10% on average. The FMCSA hopes that by using this new system, they can more accurately analyze drivers who are at a higher risk for truck crashes than they did when the SMS started in 2010.
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