How to lower your CSA score

There is no button that lowers a CSA score. What lowers it is whatever lowers the numbers FMCSA’s Safety Measurement System (SMS) actually calculates. This guide goes through each one, using FMCSA’s own methodology and its own advice to carriers: correct data that is wrong, keep your registration accurate, add clean inspections where they count, fix what keeps causing violations, and let time do its part.

If you are not sure how the SMS works, start with what a CSA score is. The short version: there is a percentile in each of seven BASICs, and in most of them it comes from a fraction, weighted violations on top and your exposure on the bottom. You lower it by taking weight off the top or adding honest exposure to the bottom.

Start with your own data

FMCSA’s first advice is to review your inspection and crash reports. Its CSA FAQ asks: “Do all of the inspection and crash reports belong to your company? Is any of the data included in these reports incorrect?” and adds that “all safety-based violations count, not just out-of-service violations.” A property carrier has to log in to the SMS to see its complete results, so log in, list every inspection from the last 24 months, and read each report, not just the summary.

1. Correct what is wrong, through DataQs

A violation that should not be on your record comes off only through a Request for Data Review in FMCSA’s DataQs system. Once it is removed, its weight comes off the top of the fraction at the next monthly update. The SMS already leaves some violations out: those resulting from a crash, those assigned only to another party such as a shipper, and those whose citation was dismissed or found not guilty, once that result is recorded.

What carries a request is a document that contradicts a fact on the report. A detail the report simply leaves out is usually not enough on its own, because the reviewer can check with the inspecting officer. See how to dispute a DOT violation and file a DataQ, an inspection on your record that isn’t yours and when your ticket was dismissed in court. An accurate violation is not removed by any filing. It ages off at 24 months.

2. Keep your MCS-150 accurate

Two BASICs, Unsafe Driving and the Crash Indicator, are not divided by your inspections. They are divided by your size: average power units × a utilization factor. Both numbers come from your registration (Form MCS-150).

• Average power units is the average of three figures: your power units now, six months ago and 18 months ago. Owned, term-leased and trip-leased trucks and tractors all count.
• The utilization factor comes from your most recent vehicle miles travelled (VMT) per average power unit. For a combination fleet (70% or more combination units) it is 1 below 80,000 miles per unit, rises to 1.6 between 80,000 and 160,000, stays 1.6 up to 200,000 and drops back to 1 above 200,000. For a straight-truck fleet it is 1 below 20,000, rises to 3 between 20,000 and 60,000, stays 3 up to 200,000 and drops back to 1 above 200,000. With no VMT on file from the last 24 months, it is 1.

So a registration that still shows last decade’s fleet or mileage can leave the bottom of those two fractions smaller than your real operation. FMCSA’s FAQ tells carriers to check power units, drivers and VMT, to “ensure that VMT reflects the previous calendar year and is accurate”, and to update the MCS-150 whenever the company’s profile changes. Under 49 CFR 390.19T(b) a carrier must also file an update every 24 months, in the month set by the last digit of its USDOT number (a carrier that registers its vehicles in a PRISM State can file the information with that State instead, 390.19T(i)). The goal is accuracy, not a bigger number: above 200,000 miles per unit the factor falls back to 1, and furnishing misleading information on the form carries penalties under 390.19T(g).

A worked example. A hypothetical combination fleet had 4 power units 18 months ago, 5 six months ago and 6 now, so its average is 5. Its Unsafe Driving violations add up to 30 after severity and time weights.

• With no VMT on file from the last 24 months, the factor is 1 and the measure is 30 ÷ (5 × 1) = 6.0.
• With last year’s actual 600,000 miles filed, VMT per unit is 120,000, the factor is 1 + (120,000 − 80,000) ÷ 133,333 = 1.3, and the measure is 30 ÷ 6.5 ≈ 4.6.

Where either number lands as a percentile depends on the other carriers in the same group. The Unsafe Driving BASIC also needs at least three inspections with an Unsafe Driving violation before it ranks a carrier at all.

3. Clean inspections, in the BASICs that count them

In the other five BASICs the bottom of the fraction is the time weight of your relevant inspections, including the ones with no violation. Which inspections are relevant depends on the BASIC:

• Hours of Service, Driver Fitness and Controlled Substances/Alcohol: driver inspections, Levels 1, 2, 3 and 6.
• Vehicle Maintenance: vehicle inspections, Levels 1, 2, 5 and 6. A Level 3 (driver-only) inspection adds nothing here.
• Hazardous Materials: vehicle inspections where placardable quantities of hazmat were being carried.

Each clean inspection adds 3 to the bottom while it is under six months old. Take a fleet whose Vehicle Maintenance bottom is 21 and whose violations weigh 30: its measure is 30 ÷ 21 ≈ 1.43. One clean Level 1 inspection this month makes it 30 ÷ 24 = 1.25. Clean inspections do nothing for Unsafe Driving or the Crash Indicator, which are divided by size instead.

4. Fix what keeps causing violations

FMCSA’s FAQ maps each BASIC to the regulations behind it, so a pattern in one BASIC points to one part of the rules:

• Unsafe Driving: 49 CFR parts 392 and 397.
• Hours of Service: parts 392 and 395.
• Driver Fitness: parts 383 and 391.
• Controlled Substances/Alcohol: parts 382 and 392.
• Vehicle Maintenance: parts 392, 393 and 396.
• Hazardous Materials: part 397 and the hazmat regulations, parts 171 to 180.

Group your last 24 months of violations by code. The same few codes repeating across trucks or drivers is a process problem, and FMCSA’s Safety Management Cycle is its own checklist for finding it: policies and procedures, roles, qualification and hiring, training, monitoring, and what you do when monitoring finds something. Fixing the cause is the only lever that stops new weight arriving on top.

5. Time

Every violation is multiplied by 3 for its first six months, 2 from six to 12 months and 1 from 12 to 24 months, and stops counting after 24 months. A violation from last month weighs three times what it will weigh a year from now.

How fast a change shows up

FMCSA updates the SMS once a month. Its CSA FAQ says a snapshot of the data is taken on the third or last Friday of each month, and processing and validation take about 10 days before the website changes. That applies to a violation removed through DataQs, a corrected MCS-150 and a new inspection alike. A DataQs review itself runs on its own deadlines: under FMCSA’s April 2026 process, 21 days for the initial review, 21 for reconsideration and 45 for the final review.

Sources

• FMCSA, SMS Methodology, Version 3.21 (methodology revised May 2026): excluded violations (p. 2-3), the Unsafe Driving and Crash Indicator measures, average power units, the utilization factor and Tables 3-1 and 3-2 (pp. 3-1 to 3-6), relevant inspections by BASIC and the time weights (Section 3).
• FMCSA, CSA FAQs: “What can a motor carrier do to improve?” (review your data, update the MCS-150, the BASIC-to-regulation map, the Safety Management Cycle) and the monthly snapshot.
• 49 CFR 390.19T: filing the MCS-150 every 24 months and the penalty for misleading information (eCFR, current to 1 Oct 2026).