**FMCSA Discusses Changes to Safety Measurement System**
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) held a webinar on January 16 to explain upcoming changes to its Safety Measurement System (SMS). The agency is updating the system to improve fairness, accuracy, and clarity in identifying motor carriers that may need intervention.
### Key Changes to SMS
FMCSA highlighted three major updates:
– **Reorganized Compliance Categories**: The agency is restructuring the vehicle maintenance and unsafe driving categories to focus on carriers with higher crash rates. This aims to better identify unsafe behaviors.
– **Simplified Violation Groups**: Over 2,000 violation codes will be grouped into about 100 categories. This change is meant to prevent inconsistencies when multiple violations stem from the same issue.
– **New Severity Weights**: The current 1-10 severity scale for violations will be replaced with a 1-2 scale. This means similar violations in a single inspection will be counted as one, rather than multiple infractions.
Wesley Russell, a transportation specialist at FMCSA, said the changes will make the system fairer for motor carriers. “If a carrier is cited with all these violations in an inspection, SMS will treat this as a single violation,” he explained ([Land Line](https://landline.media/fmcsa-answers-questions-about-changes-to-sms/)).
### Industry Response
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) supports some of the changes but believes FMCSA should focus more on actual safety performance rather than just compliance. The group argues that identifying at-risk carriers based on real-world safety records would be more effective in reducing crashes.
### Implementation Timeline
FMCSA is currently in the second phase of the update. The agency has not set a date for the final rollout but assured that a notice will be published in the Federal Register before implementation. “There will be sufficient advance notice,” said David Yessen, FMCSA’s compliance division chief.
Once live, the new system will recalculate data based on the previous two years. FMCSA will hold another webinar on February 25 to provide further details.
For more information, FMCSA encourages stakeholders to submit questions through its official channels.