So here you are, a safe driver. You've been on the road for years, you've got over a million accident-free miles and you're working on your 2nd million. You've got no tickets, you're a defensive driver, and your a multiple-time driver-of-the-month and driver-of-the-year for your company. You are absolutely the driver that EVERYONE wants to hire.

With me so far?

Good.

It's a bright, sunshiney day. Beautiful day for you to haul that Wal Mart drop and hook load. You are cruising on down the interstate, driving safely in the right lane, listening to a good XM station, singing along to your favorite song. You know, all is just plain right with the world.

Suddenly, a car comes barrelling off the on ramp and cuts right in front of you and slams on his brakes because he's a drunk d0uchebag arguing with his drunk girlfriend who is screaming at him from the back seat of their ratted out little one-lung putt-putt piece of crap car! You do a hard brake to avoid planting this tool and his woman 6 feet under and you silently breath a sigh of relief and mumble a quick prayer of thanks that you were aware enough to avoid the accident. However, somewhere within your loaded trailer, several pallets shifted and a case of of grape juice tumbles over, breaking one of the bottles.

You, being the knowledgable driver that you are, make for the very next exit, which happens to be the scale house, so you can fix whatever problems the idiot tool caused you.

On comes Mr. Officer who proceeds to break the seal on your load and do an inspection on loading and securement. He finds that your load has shifted (10 points), your load is not secure (10 points) since it obviously shifted, and of course, you have leakage with the broken grape juice bottle (10 points). So already, you have 30 points in less than a minute.

Happily, you can only be tagged for 3 things per inspection. So you're off the hook on failing to prevent cargo spilling (10 points), failure to re-examine your cargo and load during transportation (10 points, since it must be done withing 50 miles of beginning your run), improper weight distribution since the load shifted and put you over on your drives (7 points), insufficient means to prevent forward movement of said freight (10 points) --

Time out for a second...do you know if you have a load of bowling balls and one comes out of a box and is rolling around on the trailer floor, there are 4 different freight movement violations for that? Insufficient means to prevent forward, rearward, lateral, and vertical movement. Four different ways, 10 points each. No, I am not joking.

-- onward. Vehicle not equiped against vertical movement, since your load is shrink wrapped pallets (10 points), pre-loaded and sealed, cargo not immobilized or secured (10 points), and several others than can be easily and subjectively used to knock you down.

So, with ALL of that, you luckily get smacked with only 30 points because of the tool that jammed in front of you and is now long gone down the highway to kill some unsuspecting mother and her 4 children in a headon collision with her minivan.

But wait! Not so fast! We forgot to talk about the multiplier system. Can't forget about that. The multiplier system? Oh, that's nothing big...it simply means that all points that you've 'earned' in 180 days is given a multiplier of 3. Points between 180 and 365 days is a multiplier of 2. And points between the 365 days and 18 months is only a multiplier of 1, with anything over 18 months dropping off.

So your 30 points just became 90 points. And at that amount, we'll see that topped off with a 2 (X3) = 6 point violation for being put out of service until your cargo issues are fixed.

So there you have it...96 points for this one instance and you're out of service. And since the company gets to share in your points, what do you think the odds are of you keeping your job? Or getting another one after you are instantly fired.

CSA2010...there for your safety, baby!

:roll:

BTW, since CSA is all about safety, can anyone explain how a Log Violation (general/form and manner) is worth 2 points (6 when you factor in the multiplier). Yes, what that means is that if you forget to put your pro# on your log book, you're busted. Of course, we know that failure to do that is certainly a safety issue and puts every motorist on the roads that day at much greater risk.

The sky is falling!!!!!!!!!!

'Tongue in cheek' or not, drivers are screwed. One of the biggest concerns of this CSA 2010 is its subjectivity and zero recourse for a driver. And CSA 2010 is EXACTLY that. Companies, of course, have recourse. They will simply fire the drivers during the intervention phase and all will be right with the world...until they need to hire another one.

But drivers? All I can say is that you better mind your P's and Q's and hope you don't meet up with a DOT officer having a bad day. And for pete's sake, stay away from the Banning scales! :thumbsdown:

Playing Devil's advocate for a moment here, but van and reefer drivers are held to the same standards that flatbed drivers are for proper bracing and securing of the load, it's just not nearly as visible. This means that the driver in your above scenario failed to properly secure his load because if it had been examined, he could have used load locks, van straps or bracing material to prevent the cargo from shifting when he was cut off. The only issue I have with this scenario is if you were to say he picked up a pre-loaded and pre-sealed trailer, thereby preventing him from properly securing the load. As written, even though I agree that the car was the d0uchebag, the truck driver wasn't totally without fault either due to the securement side.

ETA - I just reread the original post and I see where you specify Walmart D/H. Carry on, I'll be quiet

:thumbsup:

Which is another BIG issue that the DOT seems unwilling or unable to answer. What happens when the driver picks up that load? Does he break the seal to check it? And what then happens with the liability of the load integrity? Oh, a Wal Mart employee accompanies the driver on the check and then reseals it? Great. What happens if it's a relay? Gonna have that Wal Mart employee going with the driver on that run?

Implementation of the CSA 2010 is going to be an absolute, total clusterfart. :micro:

Why does WM not do what we do? We ( the spotter ) puts the seal in the door handle or in the back of the trailer and then drops it on the yard. No excuse for not inspecting the load. Also if the seal is missing or lost or broken then the guard issues another one and signs paperwork reflecting the new seal number. ???

The FMCSA has come out saying there are many myths about CSA2010, and the point system is very much part of it.

The most important thing to remember(this comes STRAIGHT from FMCSA's mouth) is that the points are not weighted equally. There are 7 different "buckets" where points are assigned, and you can only compare points in the same bucket.

From there each carrier is put in a peer group of carriers of similar size etc... Only then a percentile is assigned to each carrier for each of the 7 "buckets".

So one carrier with 50 points in a certain bucket might be in the 35th percentile(satisfactory) and another carrier with 35 points might be put in the 85th percentile(yikes!).

Just mores ways to get people fired and into a bread/unemployment/college counseling/ any type of line.

The girly lawyers that make all of these laws up have never ventured out into the countryside and would rather remain safe in their urban strongholds.

Oh well, guess that just means we'll have to do as the above poster said about minding the P's and Q's, which basically means any vehicle out there is a potential force to be reckoned with.

Can't wait to be able to get back out there and get a taste of this new fruit.
I reckon it'll be a "bit nutty".

yeah, but playing "Devil's Advocate myself... it's always been the DRIVER's Right & Responsibility to inspect EVERY load they haul.. shipper sealed or not.. (unless it's a Government SEAL.) the shipper is required to reseal it before you leave the property.

And any driver that would pull into a scale house to Inspect their load after a hard brake-- is kinda dumb in my book. The oldest rule still applies.. never stop at a scale.. piss your pants first, soil your undies. but don't go looking for trouble.. and they say "Safe Haven" it's ok to park here overnight .. we won't bother you. Yeah right!

No myth about the points. What I posted is verbatim out of the Cargo-related bucket.

Correct. There are 7 buckets, as follows.

Unsafe Driving
Fatigued Driving (Hours of Service)
Driver Fitness
Controlled Substance/Alcohol
Vehicle Maintenance
Cargo-related
Crash Indicator

And you are also correct in that points comparisons can only be compared from the same buckets. But that is with carriers only. Drivers are simply the company liability and drivers with a lot of points are not going to have a job for very long. Company gets rid of a driver with points, that qualifies for their intervention reaction and the company points go down. Driver, though, gets to keep his points, including the multipliers, for 18 months.

There is also a difference in carrier liability and driver liability, meaning that a carrier can get hit with points on an inspection and the driver be OK. Let's take a look at those buckets again.

Unsafe Driving -- 15 out of 16 are driver responsibility
Fatigued Driving (Hours of Service) -- 3 out of 3 are driver responsibility
Driver Fitness -- 15 out of 15 are driver responsibility
Controlled Substance/Alcohol -- 9 out of 11 are driver responsibility
Vehicle Maintenance -- 11 out of 13 are driver responsibility
Cargo-related -- 50 out ot 50 are driver responsibility
Crash Indicator -- subjective...no specific violations, but is actually based on driver history and patterns of high crash involvement. So it will all be on the driver.

So, 103 out of 108 potential violations are solely the driver responsibility, including ALL of the FIFTY cargo-related ones, of which I based my example solely on. Again, the difference in the carriers and drivers is that a carrier can eliminate a driver, thus eliminating the points. The driver cannot do that...he/she is stuck with those points and their multiplyer through the 18 months.

That makes it really hard to keep a job and even harder to get a new job because a new company that hires a driver, automatically inherits whatever points the driver currently has.

Look, I see and understand what the CSA 2010 is supposed to accomplish and I'm all for more safety on the roads. But the implementation and even the entire design of this program is ridiculously horrid at best. When it goes into full effect, there's going to be a lot of really surprised drivers and companies. There is still time to step away from the precipice and/or make some serious changes to it, but I don't see that happening.

Well, if the scale is open, you obviously have to stop and there is going to be a whole lot more of the "bring her around back, driver" going on than ever before, especially in the first 6 to 12 months of the program. So, we can change my example to just indicate that the driver got flagged for an inspection and the outcome is exactly the same.

In the end, the program will get rid of the unsafe drivers and the fly-by-night operations. But there will be a massive amount of collateral damage, as well, and that's the fear from both drivers and companies.