In November, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration finalized a new regulation banning commercial drivers from using hand-held mobile phones.

On January 3, that new rule came into effect and today, the FMCSA released new materials to help commercial fleet operators ensure they stay in compliance with the changing regulatory landscape.

Fact sheets are now available from the FMCSA’s Compliance, Safety and Accountability (CSA) program, outlining the agency’s seven BASICs – that is, the seven Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories used to “determine how a motor carrier ranks relative to other carriers with a similar number of safety events.”

The seven BASICs are:

• Unsafe Driving
• Fatigued Driving (Hours-of-Service)
• Driver Fitness
• Controlled Substances/Alcohol
• Vehicle Maintenance
• Cargo-Related
• Crash Indicator

The new Unsafe Driving fact sheet explains that commercial drivers and fleet operators must abide by FMCSR 392 — the newly-amended federal regulation which specifically prohibits drivers from using hand-held mobile phones and forbids their employers from requiring them to do so.

Employers caught violating the ban, either by requiring employees to use hand-held phones or by failing to ensure that they don’t, not only carries a fine of up to $11,000 – but it could also negatively impact the Safety Measurement System (SMS) score a carrier receives from CSA. According to the new fact sheet, violations will stay on carriers’ records for at least 24 months – and only “time and clean inspections” will erase the damage done by a cell phone ban violation.

So getting caught in violation could be a painful double-whammy – first a hit to your bottom line, followed by a hit to your safety score.

Image via claudiogennari