CSA Scores Explained: What New Carriers Need to Know

CSA scores determine how often you get inspected, whether brokers call you back, and what you pay for insurance

Your CSA scores are the FMCSA’s report card on your safety. They are percentile rankings — 0% is best, 100% is worst — calculated from every roadside inspection, every violation, and every DOT-reportable crash on your record.

Four things ride on these numbers:

Inspection frequency. Bad scores trigger more inspections. More inspections mean more downtime and more chances for additional violations. The cycle feeds itself.

Broker and shipper access. Many brokers check CSA data before booking loads. High percentiles in Unsafe Driving or Crash Indicator and they stop calling.

Insurance premiums. Underwriters pull your CSA data at quoting and at every renewal. Poor scores mean higher premiums, non-renewals, or inability to find coverage. In a market where 3-5 companies write new authority policies, losing one option is a serious blow.

FMCSA intervention. Exceed intervention thresholds and you get warning letters, investigations, and potentially another audit.

As a new carrier, you start with a clean slate. No data. No violations. That blank record is a strategic advantage — but only if you understand how the scoring works.

The 7 BASIC categories and their intervention thresholds

Exceed the threshold and FMCSA starts paying closer attention — warning letters, targeted investigations, compliance reviews. Exceed 90% in two or more BASICs for 2+ consecutive months and you receive a “High Risk Carrier” designation with priority investigation.

Violations are time-weighted: recent ones hurt three times more

Every violation has a severity weight (1-10 points). That weight gets multiplied by a time factor that decays over 24 months.

A brake violation with severity 6: in month 1, it is worth 18 weighted points. By month 9, 12 points. By month 18, 6 points. By month 25, zero.

Two implications for new carriers. First, any violation in your first months carries maximum weight for half a year. Second, the clock always runs in your favor — every violation is losing potency from the day it is written.

Your weighted score is then compared against carriers with a similar number of inspections to produce a percentile rank. With very few inspections on record, one bad inspection has an outsized effect. One clean inspection has an outsized positive effect.

The ISS score determines what happens at weigh stations

When your truck approaches a scale, the officer’s computer shows an ISS score from 1 to 100, calculated from your CSA data and updated monthly.

New carriers start neutral — no recommendation. Your first inspection sets the trajectory. Clean pushes you toward green. Bad pushes you toward yellow or red immediately because there is no other data to offset it.

The compounding effect: red means more inspections, more inspections mean more opportunities for violations, more violations keep you red. The opposite is also true. Green begets green.

Bypass programs like PrePass and Drivewyze let carriers with good records skip weigh stations electronically. Building a clean record opens this option within months — saving 30-45 minutes per day and reducing inspection exposure.

What gets flagged in each category

Unsafe Driving: Speeding (especially 6-10+ mph over in a CMV zone), texting while driving, improper lane changes, following too close. High severity weights.

Hours-of-Service: Driving beyond 11-hour limit, log falsification, ELD violations. The 2026 CVSA International Roadcheck (May 12-14) specifically targets ELD tampering.

Driver Fitness: Expired medical card is the most common. Wrong CDL class and missing endorsements follow.

Controlled Substances/Alcohol: No testing program, positive results, refusal to test. Career-threatening, not just score issues.

Vehicle Maintenance: Brake defects are the single most common violation category across all roadside inspections. Tire tread depth, inoperative lights, and steering defects follow. This is where pre-trip inspections pay off the most.

Crash Indicator: All DOT-reportable crashes go on your record regardless of fault. Challenge through DataQs if you have supporting evidence.

The DataQs process: 35% of challenges succeed

Inspectors make mistakes. Wrong vehicle, wrong measurement, wrong code. The DataQs system at dataqs.fmcsa.dot.gov is the official challenge process.

How to file

1. Log in with your FMCSA portal credentials.
2. Submit a Request for Data Review identifying the specific record.
3. Explain what is incorrect and why.
4. Attach supporting evidence.
5. State DOT responds (officially ~10 days, actual 1 week to 3 months).
6. Appeal if denied.

Challenge windows: roadside violations up to 3 years, crash data up to 5 years. File within 30 days for the best success rate.

What wins

Mechanic diagnostic reports showing the cited component was within spec. Maintenance receipts showing recent work on the cited system. Photos taken at the time. Calibration records. Evidence the violation was written against the wrong vehicle or with the wrong code.

What loses

“I disagree” without evidence. Arguing the violation was not serious enough. Challenging months later with no documentation.

Every violation that stays on your record for 24 months affects your CSA scores, ISS score, inspection frequency, and insurance premiums. A successful DataQs challenge removes all of that.

New carrier strategy: your first 18 months define your trajectory

The advantage: Zero data. No violations. A blank slate. Your first inspections write the opening chapter.

The vulnerability: With a thin data set, every inspection carries enormous weight. An established carrier with 50 inspections absorbs a bad one without a major score change. A new carrier with 2 inspections who gets a violation on the third just made 33% of their record negative.

Six rules for the first 18 months

Treat every inspection as make-or-break. With a small sample size, each data point has outsized influence. This is not paranoia — it is mathematics.

Welcome clean Level I inspections. A clean Level I adds a positive data point and demonstrates to the ISS system that you are low-risk. The key is being genuinely ready.

Fix violations the same day. The violation is already on your record. You cannot afford the same issue caught twice. A repeat in the same BASIC compounds the damage.

File DataQs challenges for errors within 30 days. With a small data set, every point matters. One in three challenges succeeds.

Monitor your SMS data monthly. Log in at ai.fmcsa.dot.gov/SMS after your first inspection. Watch your BASIC percentiles and ISS score. Do not wait for your insurance renewal to discover a problem.

Build a maintenance paper trail. Document every pre-trip, repair, tire change, and brake adjustment. Your documentation is your defense at inspections and in DataQs challenges. Without it, you have nothing.

CSA scores and insurance premiums are directly connected

Clean scores lead to lower premiums. Lower premiums free up cash for maintenance. Maintenance leads to clean inspections. Clean inspections keep scores low. The virtuous cycle.

The reverse destroys carriers. Poor scores lead to higher premiums. Financial pressure leads to deferred maintenance and longer hours. Shortcuts lead to more violations. Worse scores lead to even higher premiums.

One carrier reported a renewal jump from $14,000 to $19,500 after two bad inspections. Same truck, same routes. The underwriter pulled SMS data and moved them to a higher risk tier. That is $5,500 per year because of two inspections.

Every dollar invested in pre-trips, maintenance, and driving discipline pays for itself many times over at renewal.

Your first 18 months are the cheapest time to build good scores

You start at zero. Clean inspections in your first months establish green ISS status, low percentiles, and a foundation that compounds in your favor for years.

The carriers who waste this window — treating CSA as something to worry about later — end up paying $5,000+ more per year in insurance, getting pulled into every scale, and watching brokers hang up.

For a walkthrough of the safety audit that happens during this period, see our new entrant safety audit guide. For the compliance items that keep your record clean, see the compliance overview.