The Unsafe Driving 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.
What is the Unsafe Driving BASIC?
The Unsafe Driving BASIC is a commonly enforced area of the FMCSA's BASIC categories. These violations are tied to the driver's driving habits and how they operate a CMV.
There are 45 sections in the FMCSA CFR that relate to unsafe driving. These include areas such as Failing to use hazard warning flashers, speeding, texting, all the way up to Reckless driving.
Getting violations in this FMCSA BASIC category can lead to DOT audits and other penalties by the FMCSA.
What are the Unsafe Driving groups?
Unsafe driving violations are broken into twelve different groups. These groups help determine the severity of the infraction as it relates to safety. Items such as failing to use hazard warning flashers are less severe while items like reckless driving are the most severe.
| Violation Group | Severity Weight |
| Dangerous Driving | 5 |
| HM Related | 1 |
| Misc Violations | 3 |
| Other Driver Violations | 1 |
| Phone Call | 10 |
| Reckless Driving | 10 |
| Seat Belt | 7 |
| Speeding 2 | 4 |
| Speeding 3 | 7 |
| Speeding 4 | 10 |
| Speeding Related | 5 |
| Texting | 10 |
Top 10 most issued unsafe driving violations
Below are the top 10 most issued unsafe driving violations issued across the country for 2021. This gives some indication into what the DOT finds most important in terms of unsafe driving.
| Violation | Count |
| Failure to obey traffic control device, Following too close, Inattentive Driving, Improper lane change, Failure to Maintain Lane, Improper passing, Improper turns, Failure to yield right of way | 294,506 |
| Failing to use seat belt while operating a CMV | 16,560 |
| Using a hand-held mobile telephone while operating a CMV | 5,460 |
| Failing to use hazard warning flashers | 932 |
| Operating a property-carrying commercial motor vehicle while all other occupants are not properly restrained. | 896 |
| Using or equipping a CMV with radar detector | 524 |
| Unauthorized passenger on board CMV | 385 |
| Operating a CMV while texting | 367 |
| Driving a commercial motor vehicle while Texting | 288 |
| State/local laws ordinances regulations | 166 |
If you are ever wrongfully issued a violation keep all of your documentation and fill out a DataQ to have the violation reviewed by the FMCSA
To see the full list of unsafe driving violations that make up the unsafe driving basic you can download here.
