The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has a system for tracking the safety habits of each and every commercial driver in the United States. The Driver Safety Measure System (DSMS) tracks every accident, traffic ticket, out-of-service order and many other factors. Below is a guide for CDL holders who want to understand more about this system and how it can affect them and the carriers that employ them.
The FMSCA’s DSMS is based on the Safety Measurement System (SMS) used to rate carriers. Despite the large amount of information that it tracks and records for each driver, the DSMS does not tabulate a final score, per se. Rather, it generates a “ranking” of each driver in several categories based on its various metrics. The DSMS does not affect a driver’s CDL or a carrier’s safety rating. Moreover, carrier companies cannot view a driver’s DSMS.
DSMS results are used exclusively for FMCSA enforcement officials. FMCSA accesses this information while performing Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) investigations. The safety information that is compiled by the DSMS is also used to provide CDL driver data to the organization’s Pre-Employment Screening Program (PSP). Motor carriers can use the PSP to access driver inspection and crash records during the hiring process; thus, while a carrier cannot see a DSMS, it can see much of (but not all) the information in the system.
Each violation, offense, or other metric is assigned a severity weight. Serious offenses, such as reckless driving, are given a severity weight of 10. Lesser offenses, such as speeding 6 mph over the limit is given a severity weight of 4.
The severity is multiplied by a time weight based on how long ago the incident occurred:
The DSMS does not record information more than 36 months old.
Within each BASIC (see below), a driver is ranked into a percentile based on the total score compared to other drivers in those same categories.
Similar to the carrier SMS, the DSMS breaks down each metric into seven Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories (BASICs).
Since it is impossible for a driver to know his/her DSMS ranking, many drivers opt to do nothing. However, drivers who are charged with traffic offenses, whether it is speeding, texting while driving, or driving while intoxicated, can prevent it from affecting one’s ranking by beating the charges in court. For that reason, any CMV driver would be well advised to hire a skilled traffic ticket attorney to challenge each and every ticket. An attorney can put together a solid strategy for each offense as they occur. Not only will fighting tickets keep them off one’s driving record, which in turn keeps them from affecting one’s DSMS ranking, but it also mitigates or eliminates an impact on one’s driving privileges, insurance rates, and employment opportunities.