Can you explain how safety event groups work in the new Safety Measurement System (SMS)?
To account for the differences among carriers, the SMS places carriers in safety event groups with similar exposure. Through the use of statistics, safety event grouping allows SMS to deal with the widely diverse motor carrier population, while ensuring that similarly situated carriers are treated with the same standards. The tables below outline the safety event groups for each of the Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories (BASICs) and can be found in the SMS Methodology document (http://csa2010.fmcsa.dot.gov/documents/SMSMethodology.pdf.) Safety event groups do not compare carriers by the commodities they haul or their industry segment. FMCSA’s foremost concern is safety and it accomplishes this by addressing the carriers that pose the greatest crash risk, irrespective of their industry segment. For Fatigue Driving (Hours-of-Service), Driver Fitness, Vehicle Maintenance, and Cargo-Related BASICs Safety Event Group Category Number of Relevant Inspections* 1 3 – 10 (Fatigu
