What Are the 7 CSA BASICs and How Are They Scored?

The seven CSA BASICs and how they are scored come down to this: the FMCSA sorts every roadside violation, crash, and audit finding into seven Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories, then converts that data into a 0-to-100 percentile ranking within a peer group of similar carriers. The seven categories are Unsafe Driving, Crash Indicator, Hours-of-Service Compliance, Vehicle Maintenance, Controlled Substances and Alcohol, Hazardous Materials Compliance, and Driver Fitness. Each violation gets a severity weight from 1 to 10, a time weight of 3x, 2x, or 1x based on how recently it happened, and the weighted total is compared against carriers with similar amounts of safety data.

The Seven BASIC Categories

Unsafe Driving

This category captures dangerous behavior behind the wheel: speeding, following too closely, texting, running red lights, and failing to wear a seat belt. Federal rules also require drivers to exercise extreme caution in hazardous weather and to stop entirely when conditions make continued driving unsafe. Violations flagged during roadside stops and traffic encounters feed directly into the score.

Crash Indicator

This BASIC tracks a carrier’s history of reportable crashes. A crash is “reportable” when at least one vehicle is towed from the scene, someone is killed, or someone requires immediate medical treatment away from the scene.¹ Every qualifying crash counts regardless of fault. A driver rear-ended at a stoplight and a driver who ran a red light both show up here. The rationale is that crash frequency itself signals risk. Carriers can challenge specific crashes through the Crash Preventability Determination Program, covered below.

Hours-of-Service Compliance

Property-carrying drivers face an 11-hour daily driving limit within a 14-hour on-duty window, and must take at least a 30-minute break after eight consecutive hours of driving.² Passenger-carrying drivers have a 10-hour driving limit within a 15-hour window. Violations include exceeding those limits, falsifying electronic logging device records, and failing to document ELD malfunctions. An unregistered ELD or a driver who ignores the malfunction reporting process each carry a severity weight of 5 out of 10.³

Vehicle Maintenance

Brakes, tires, lights, coupling devices, load securement. Federal regulations require carriers to systematically inspect, repair, and maintain every vehicle under their control, and all parts must be in safe operating condition at all times.⁴ A burned-out marker light carries far less scoring weight than defective brakes. This is often where small carriers accumulate violations fastest.

Controlled Substances and Alcohol

Drivers are prohibited from using controlled substances and from performing any safety-sensitive function within four hours of consuming alcohol.⁵ Carriers must conduct pre-employment drug tests, random drug testing at a minimum annual rate of 50% of driver positions, and random alcohol testing at a minimum rate of 10%. A positive test or refusal results in immediate removal from safety-sensitive duties.

Since January 2020, the FMCSA’s Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse gives employers a central database to check whether a prospective driver has unresolved violations. Employers must query the Clearinghouse before hiring a CDL holder and must report violations by their own drivers.⁶ A driver with an unresolved violation cannot legally perform safety-sensitive functions for any employer until completing the return-to-duty process.

Hazardous Materials Compliance

Carriers that transport placarded quantities of hazardous materials face additional scrutiny here. Federal hazmat regulations span packaging, labeling, placarding, shipping documentation, and driver training.⁷ A mislabeled container of flammable liquid or missing shipping papers can trigger violations with heavy severity weights, because a hazmat incident can force evacuations and contaminate the surrounding environment.

Driver Fitness

This is the paperwork BASIC. Every driver needs a valid commercial driver’s license, a current medical examiner’s certificate, and a complete qualification file maintained by the carrier.⁸ That file must include the driver’s employment application, road test certificate, annual motor vehicle record from the licensing state, annual driving record review, and medical examiner’s certificate.⁹ An expired medical card or a missing annual review note is enough to generate a violation.

How BASIC Scores Are Calculated

The Safety Measurement System converts raw violation data into percentile rankings through three layers of weighting.

Severity Weights

Every violation receives a severity weight from 1 to 10, reflecting how strongly that violation correlates with crash risk.¹⁰ A portable ELD not mounted in the driver’s line of sight carries a weight of 1. An unregistered ELD, or a driver who fails to reconstruct records after a device failure, carries a 5. Defective brakes sit near the top of the scale. The weight is baked into each violation code, so any given finding has a known scoring cost.

Time Weights

Recent violations hit harder than old ones. The system multiplies each violation’s severity weight by a time factor: violations from the past six months get a 3x multiplier, those between six and twelve months old get 2x, and anything older than twelve months but within the 24-month scoring window gets 1x.¹¹ Violations older than 24 months drop off entirely. A carrier’s score can improve just by going several months without new violations, because the worst multiplier ages off.

Peer Groups and Percentile Rankings

After weighting, the system doesn’t compare a raw score to every carrier in the country. Instead, it groups carriers by the number of relevant safety events (inspections, crashes, or violations, depending on the BASIC) and ranks each carrier within its group on a percentile scale from 0 to 100.¹¹ A percentile of 75 means the carrier performed worse than 75% of peers in its safety event group. This prevents small carriers with a handful of inspections from being lumped in with mega-fleets.

Not every carrier gets a percentile. The system requires minimum data before generating a score. At least three inspections with violations are needed for Unsafe Driving, at least five relevant inspections for Vehicle Maintenance, and at least two applicable crashes for the Crash Indicator.¹¹ Carriers below those thresholds won’t have a percentile in that category and won’t trigger interventions based on it.

The Clean Inspection Effect

Inspections with zero violations still get recorded, and they work in the carrier’s favor. A clean inspection raises the count of relevant inspections without adding any violation points, which dilutes the overall score.¹² For carriers near an intervention threshold, a run of clean inspections can shift the number meaningfully.

What the Scores Trigger

A high percentile doesn’t just look bad on paper. It triggers a structured enforcement process. For general freight carriers, the intervention thresholds are 65% for Unsafe Driving, Crash Indicator, and Hours-of-Service Compliance, and 80% for Vehicle Maintenance, Controlled Substances/Alcohol, Driver Fitness, and Hazardous Materials Compliance.¹³ Passenger carriers and carriers hauling placarded hazardous materials face lower thresholds that trigger attention sooner.

Once a threshold is crossed, the FMCSA’s process escalates in three stages:¹⁴

Early contact. The agency sends a warning letter identifying safety problems and the consequences of not improving. Targeted roadside inspections focused on the carrier’s problem areas may follow.
Investigation. If nothing improves, a safety investigator steps in. This ranges from an offsite document review to a focused onsite visit up to a comprehensive investigation at the carrier’s place of business.
Follow-on enforcement. Depending on findings, the carrier may receive a Notice of Violation (corrective action, no financial penalty), a Notice of Claim (financial penalties), or an Operations Out-of-Service Order shutting the carrier down immediately.

Which BASIC Scores the Public Can See

Not all seven percentiles are visible to everyone. The general public can see Unsafe Driving, Hours-of-Service Compliance, Vehicle Maintenance, Controlled Substances/Alcohol, and Driver Fitness. The Crash Indicator and Hazardous Materials Compliance percentiles are restricted to the carrier itself and law enforcement.¹⁵ The underlying inspection and crash data remains publicly accessible even where the calculated percentile isn’t displayed.

Anyone can look up a carrier’s public scores at the FMCSA’s Safety Measurement System website by entering the carrier’s name or USDOT number. Carriers can log in to view all seven, including the two non-public BASICs. Shippers, brokers, and insurance underwriters routinely check these scores.

Correcting Errors Through DataQs

Bad data happens. A violation gets coded to the wrong carrier, a crash report lists the wrong USDOT number, or an inspector records a violation that didn’t actually exist. Carriers can challenge these through the FMCSA’s DataQs system by filing a Request for Data Review.¹⁶

The carrier logs in through the FMCSA Portal and selects the type of record being disputed (crash report, inspection violation, or driver information), then walks through screens to identify the record and describe the error. Supporting documentation is critical. State inspection reports, crash reports, shipping papers, and lease agreements are common attachments that help prove the data is wrong.¹⁷ A request without evidence is unlikely to succeed.

The FMCSA’s goal is a response within 10 business days, though more complex requests and certain program-specific challenges may take longer.¹⁶

Removing Non-Preventable Crashes

Because the Crash Indicator counts every reportable crash regardless of fault, the Crash Preventability Determination Program lets carriers request a review of specific crash types. If the FMCSA determines the crash was “not preventable,” it gets excluded from the Crash Indicator calculation.¹⁸

Eligible scenarios include a CMV that was rear-ended, struck by a wrong-way driver, hit while legally parked, struck by a distracted or impaired motorist, involved in a crash caused by an infrastructure failure, or hit by cargo or debris from another vehicle. Crashes involving animals, suicide attempts, and unusual events like being struck by an airplane also qualify. As a catch-all, any crash where the carrier can submit video demonstrating the sequence of events may be considered, even if it doesn’t fit a listed category.¹⁸

Requests can be submitted for crashes up to five years old, the maximum age the FMCSA’s safety systems retain crash data.¹⁹ Removing even one crash from the Crash Indicator can shift a percentile noticeably, especially for smaller carriers with limited crash data.

1
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. What is a Crash? (390.5T)
2
eCFR. 49 CFR Part 395 – Hours of Service of Drivers
3
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. SMS Methodology Appendix A – Violations List
4
eCFR. 49 CFR Part 396 – Inspection, Repair, and Maintenance
5
eCFR. 49 CFR Part 382 – Controlled Substances and Alcohol Use and Testing
6
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. How Does the Clearinghouse Impact Employers of CDL and CLP Holders
7
eCFR. 49 CFR Chapter I Subchapter C – Hazardous Materials Regulations
8
eCFR. 49 CFR Part 391 – Qualifications of Drivers and LCV Driver Instructors
9
eCFR. 49 CFR Part 383 – Commercial Drivers License Standards, Requirements and Penalties
10
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Roadside Violation Severity Weights of the Safety Measurement System
11
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Safety Measurement System Methodology
12
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. What Happens After an Inspection?
13
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Safety Measurement System – Intervention Threshold
14
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. CSA Interventions
15
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Safety Measurement System
16
Department of Transportation. DataQs Help Center – FAQs
17
Department of Transportation. DataQs Help Center
18
Federal Register. Crash Preventability Determination Program
19
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Crash Preventability Determination Program FAQs