Is there any way to bring your CSA score down??

You can contest the points being assessed. But, if the officer was in the right, the points will likely stay with you for the next 3 years. If you have 24 points, then you got 8 points and they are triple the first year. Points drop by 1/3 each year until they finally drop off completely after the 3rd year or 36 months. There is really nothing you can do but challenge the infractions that resulted in the points other than to wait them out until the drop off. Good inspections won't help you, so you need to keep your nose clean for the next 3 years. If you get too many points, you could find it difficult to get a job. Many carriers cancelled leases of owner operators and terminated drivers who had too many points when CSA first went into effect. High points mean more inspections and higher insurance rates.

 

Drivers do not have an actual CSA score but most companies assign points in the same way and call it a CSA score. The best way to reduce your score or ranking is to get good clean DOT inspections and stay out of trouble. Each year the points assesed to carriers under CSA get reduced, the first year after a violation the points are multiplied by 3 and it goes down after that. Time will be your only real option since you can't chose when you get a DOT inspection. Also see if your carrier has a point reduction program if you take some safety classes or meetings, a lot of carriers will reduce your points for showing effort to improve.

 

They're making up the score in some sort of internal system. They shouldn't do that because they're using different math than what the FMCSA uses, and that's what is important. The reason I say this is under some BASICs clean relevant inspections bring the score down, and in some they don't (crash indicator for example). So two drivers that got the same infraction at the same time may not be the same CSA wise because one may have 5 clean inspections and the other have zero.

 

Kinda/sorta true. If you look close at the math, the time multiplier is the same on the top as the bottom, so it cancels itself out. The only time the time multiplier actually matters is when you have clean inspections. Again this also depends on which BASIC the violation is under. Too many people just think its 2x or 3x and that's it, which isn't true at all. It's sad that a truck driver knows more about the CSA system than RookieJ1987s safety department.

 

i dn't think it matters for clean inspections. you just get zero points. doesn't really do anything for your score when you've got 24.

i look at my report and it says weight factor and multiplier.

 

Trust me I've been through the methodology paper deeper than most safety supervisors, clean inspections do bring the score down for most BASICs but not all. Where did you get your report from? If it's not from FMCSA it's probably bogus.

http://csa2010.fmcsa.dot.gov/documents/smsmethodology.pdf

Have at it if you'd like. Most but not all scores are calculated like this:

BASIC Measure = Total of time and severity weighted applicable violations

Total time weight of relevant inspections
​

So if you get a violation with severity weight of 8 (please don't use the word "points", it does not exist in the methodology) the math works out like this:

Basic Measure = 8 X 3

3
​

Since the 3s both cancel each other out, the "score" is 8. But that isn't relevant, because the carrier will have many other violations and clear inspections, and the driver probably hasn't hit the minimum inspections to trigger a score on his personal CSA. The other thing is clean inspections are included as relevant inspections, so they bring down the score. For example if the carrier had 4 other clean inspections in the past 6 months it would work like this:

Basic measure = 8 X 3

15
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Which is a score of 1.6

To top it off the "score" itself isn't relevant, since there isn't a threshold or anything like that. The important thing is how you're ranked among your peers. You could keep the same score, but if your peers all improve now you could go from the 60th percentile to 80th and now you have a FMCSA intervention.

 

The best thing the OP can do is

#1, stay put as long as they'll keep him on
#2, don't screw up
#3, work hard and be a good "company hand"

I suspect that is an "internal score" they are referring to and if you can prove yourself to be a "git'r done" type to the management looking at your internal performance numbers, a lot of "overlooking" of past performance can be realized. The bean-counters look at productivity, bottom line, produce, move forward into other options, don't produce, you're stuck wherever you are, praying you don't get let go in the next round of [culling] "cut-backs"

... And no, you don't have to run illegal to be a high producer. You just have to postition yourself properly, be punctual, be available, and be responsive.

 

my advice 1st try not to have any accidents or tickets 2nd just wait until the person they did hire cant make the run for some reason, when they call you tell them your csa score is to low to pull that load. 3rd wait for the poop storm that will follow. i could never understand why some companies will lie when they dont have to, in your case they could have told you the truth,other driver been here longer, you need a little more time in the seat, ect ect. but know they come up with some wopper about your csa score. then they complain about driver turn over. lots of luck and be careful out there