CSA scores explained

What CSA and SMS are

CSA (Compliance, Safety, Accountability) is FMCSA's data-driven safety compliance and enforcement program. Its scoring tool is the Safety Measurement System (SMS). SMS uses roadside inspections and crash reports from the last two years, plus investigation results, to find carriers FMCSA should look at first. FMCSA updates it once a month.

SMS results are not a safety rating. FMCSA's own disclaimer says that unless a carrier has an Unsatisfactory rating under 49 CFR Part 385 or has been ordered out of service, it is authorized to operate.

The seven BASICs

SMS sorts violations and crashes into seven Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories (BASICs):

There's also an Insurance/Other Indicator, based on investigation findings, that is not public. Brush up on the rules behind the HOS BASIC in our hours of service guide.

How measures and percentiles work

1. Severity weight: each violation gets a weight from 1 to 10 based on its link to crash risk. Some BASICs add weight when the violation put the driver or truck out of service.
2. Time weight: violations from the last 6 months count 3 times, from 6 to 12 months ago 2 times, and from 12 to 24 months ago 1 time. After 24 months they drop off.
3. Measure: the weighted violations are divided by your exposure. For most BASICs that's the number of relevant inspections, so clean inspections lower your measure. Unsafe Driving and Crash Indicator use your power units and miles.
4. Percentile: you're compared with carriers that have a similar number of inspections or crashes, on a 0 to 100 scale. Higher is worse.

You need a minimum amount of data (data sufficiency) in a BASIC before you get a percentile. A small carrier with few inspections may show no percentile at all.

Intervention thresholds

If your percentile is at or above the threshold, you get an alert symbol in that BASIC and FMCSA may prioritize you for interventions such as warning letters and investigations.

You can also get an alert from an acute or critical violation found in an investigation in the past 12 months, such as using a disqualified driver or a pattern of false logs.

What the public can see

• Under the FAST Act of 2015, FMCSA removed property carriers' SMS percentiles and alerts from public display. Brokers and shippers can't see your BASIC percentiles.
• The Crash Indicator and HM Compliance BASICs, and the Insurance/Other Indicator, are not public for any carrier.
• The public view still shows your inspection counts, out-of-service rates (through SAFER), crash counts and inspection details, which many brokers check before booking you.
• You can see your complete SMS results, including percentiles, by logging in to the SMS website with your FMCSA login.

Check what's public about any carrier with our carrier lookup.

How to improve your scores

• Prevent violations: do a real pre-trip every day (our pre-trip checklist helps), fix defects before you roll and keep lights and brakes right.
• Earn clean inspections: inspections with no violations lower your measure in most BASICs.
• Keep logs and files clean: HOS and driver files drive two BASICs. See our ELD checklist and DQ file checklist.
• Challenge wrong data: if a violation or crash is wrong, or a citation was dismissed in court, file a Request for Data Review in DataQs. A dismissed citation removes the violation; a conviction on a different charge drops its weight to 1. See our DataQs guide.
• Not-preventable crashes: through FMCSA's Crash Preventability Determination Program, eligible crashes found not preventable stay listed but are removed from your Crash Indicator measure.
• Wait it out: time weights shrink, and events drop off after 24 months.

Need help setting up the paperwork? See our compliance service.

FMCSA's planned SMS changes

In a November 20, 2024 Federal Register notice, FMCSA approved changes to the SMS methodology. On its CSA Prioritization Preview site, FMCSA says the changes include:

• Renaming the BASICs "compliance categories."
• Moving Controlled Substances/Alcohol violations and all operating-while-out-of-service violations into Unsafe Driving.
• Splitting Vehicle Maintenance into two categories, one for defects a driver could reasonably see on a walk-around.
• Grouping more than 2,000 violation codes into about 100 violation groups, so several violations for the same problem in one inspection count as one.

As of October 2026, FMCSA's Prioritization Preview page says it is still updating SMS to include these changes, and that carriers should keep using the current SMS website until the updated system is in effect. The current SMS Methodology document (version 3.21, dated June 2026) still uses the seven BASICs described above. Carriers can log in to the Preview site to see their results under the new method.

Questions carriers ask