Blue Ink Tech Blog

The Controlled Substance and Alcohol Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Category (BASIC) is one of seven categories that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) uses to determine how a motor carrier ranks relative to other carriers with a similar number of safety events (i.e., inspections, violations, or crashes). This is used to determine a carrier's CSA score.

In September 2022 the DOT executed 262,785 inspections and issued 137,212 violations across the US. We take a look at the numbers of inspections and violations that were held in each state and see which FMCSA BASIC measure they enforced the most.

The violations are grouped together based on which BASIC category that they fall under. Some violations do not fall under a specific BASIC category and were not counted in the tables.

The "Vehicle Maintenance" category took the largest share of overall violations with 84,705 violations accounting for over 60% of the total violations issued in the US.

Read below to see how many inspections your state started and and how many of those inspections turned into violations.

ELDs or "electronic logging devices" are devices that are required for most commercial motor vehicle drivers to keep their records of duty status (RODS) electronically for their hours-of-service (HOS) logbooks. The FMCSA published the ELD mandate back in December 2017 with strict guidelines on how electronic logging devices have operate in order to be certified for industry use. This guide will help you understand what ELD providers must do under the ELD mandate to be compliant with the FMCSA.

On September 13th, the Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) announced $80,714,223 will be going toward grant awards.  

DOT audits can be a nerve-wracking experience for any carrier, whether you have a fleet with multiple vehicles or you're an owner-operator. However, you should always be prepared for one. Being prepared is to know what a DOT audit is, what exactly triggers one, and what to expect when one happens.