Here is a real-world CSA item that happened just this morning.
Diane and I woke up this morning at the rest area on I-5 near Camp Pendleton, CA, where we spent the night. Our left fog lamp worked last night. It did not work this morning, a fact discovered on my pre-trip inspection.
Replacing the lamp meant removing the light housing from the front bumper, which required a 10 mm wrench and knowing that the housing must be removed to replace the lamp. For someone who does not have the manual or has not seen the repair done before, it is not an intuitive fix. I had the bulb, wrench and knowledge, so I fixed it and we were on our way.
Now, say a company driver or owner-operator was in that situation, under load, with the required spare bulb but without the tool and knowledge to fix it.
Just north of that rest area is a chicken coop (scale) that is often open. That leaves a borderline-CSA-point driver with the choice of taking a carrer-ending chance by heading out and going through the scale or staying put and calling road service to come out and make a repair. If the driver was friendly enough, he or she might be able to find another driver to make the repair.
The situation would be even worse if the driver ran with a carrier that was itself on thin ice regarding CSA. Under the CSA program when fully implemented, such carriers will be specifically targeted for inspections when the scale cop puts the truck DOT number into the system and the system tells the officer that carrier is targeted.
Points lead to additional inspections. Additional inspections lead to more points. More points lead to a former driver.
This is something to think deeply about and learn more about if you are a driver with a less than stelar driving record and want to buy a new truck. If your CSA points get the better of you, you will have a hard time finding a carrier to lease your truck to.
Note also that you already have a CSA points score based on your last three years of driving. It has already been compiled from your existing record. Note too that things that were no big deal in the past now matter in a big way.
For example, the warning ticket you got for speeding two years ago was meaningless then. The very same letter today is scored as a violation under CSA and those points are on your record right now. That's another criticism of the program. How do you fight a warning ticket in court to get the CSA points removed. Answer now: You can't.
It's getting to be a rough world out there for old-salt truckers who cared little for their driving record over the years as long as they could keep driving over the speed limit in the left lane while running a hot log book. Their credit has dried up making it hard to buy a new truck and if they can find credit they may not want to buy a truck because their CSA points put them just one or two more violations away from being unable to drive it.
The days of the cowboy trucker are not numbered. They are over.
