CSA and the BASICs
Glossary · Last reviewed: November 1, 2026 · By VetCarrier
CSA, Compliance, Safety, Accountability, is FMCSA’s data-driven safety compliance and enforcement program, and the BASICs, Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories, are the seven groups its Safety Measurement System (SMS) sorts safety data into. Search for a “CSA score” and what you find are percentiles: the SMS groups carriers with others that have a similar number of safety events in each BASIC, ranks them and assigns a percentile to prioritize them for interventions.
The seven BASICs
- Unsafe Driving, Crash Indicator, Hours-of-Service Compliance, Vehicle Maintenance.
- Controlled Substances/Alcohol, Hazardous Materials Compliance, Driver Fitness.
The SMS uses roadside inspection and crash data from the last two years plus investigation results, and FMCSA updates it once a month. CSA has two other parts: interventions, and the safety fitness determination that produces safety ratings.
What the public can see
For property carriers, the Crash Indicator and Hazardous Materials Compliance BASICs are hidden from public view under the FAST Act, while inspection and crash data and the other BASIC measures stay public. The SMS site warns readers not to draw conclusions about a carrier’s overall safety from its data alone, and says a carrier without an Unsatisfactory rating, or an order to stop operating, is authorized to operate.
What it looks like in a carrier check
VetCarrier does not show BASIC percentiles or any score. It shows the vehicle and driver out-of-service rates from inspections, each next to the national average, under the Out of service row, plus the safety rating on file. Inspection out-of-service rates and BASIC percentiles come from the same roadside inspections but are different measures, so a carrier can have a low rate in one and still be prioritized in a BASIC, or the other way round. To read the rating itself, see What does a carrier’s safety rating mean?.
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This page is general information, not legal or insurance advice.