The seven BASICs and their intervention thresholds
Thresholds are percentiles: 65% means you score worse than 65% of carriers in your peer group. The three numbers are for general carriers · hazmat carriers · passenger carriers.
| BASIC | Threshold |
|---|---|
| Unsafe Driving Speeding, reckless driving, improper lane changes, texting, no seat belt. | 65% · 60% · 50% |
| Crash Indicator Pattern of state-reported crashes; crashes ruled not preventable are excluded. Not public. | 65% · 60% · 50% |
| HOS Compliance Driving over the limits, ill or fatigued driving, false or missing logs. | 65% · 60% · 50% |
| Vehicle Maintenance Brakes, lights, tires and other defects; missing inspection or repair records. | 80% · 75% · 65% |
| Controlled Substances/Alcohol Use or possession, and failing to run a testing program. | 80% · 75% · 65% |
| Driver Fitness No valid license or medical certificate, incomplete driver qualification files. | 80% · 75% · 65% |
| HM Compliance Placarding, marking, securing and leaking hazardous materials. Not public. | 80% · 80% · 80% |
A separate Insurance/Other indicator, also not public, flags failures to keep insurance or registration on file found during investigations.
Who can see your scores
Since the FAST Act of 2015, a property carrier's BASIC percentiles and alerts are not shown to the public. You see your full results by logging in to the SMS website; brokers, shippers and insurers see your inspection and crash records, out-of-service rates and safety rating — and many ask you for the scores directly. Passenger carriers' percentiles remain public.
How a BASIC score is calculated
- Severity weight. Every violation carries a weight from 1 to 10 for its link to crash risk. In several BASICs, a violation that put the driver or vehicle out of service gets 2 more.
- Time weight. Violations from the last 6 months count ×3, 6–12 months ×2, and 12–24 months ×1. After 24 months they drop out completely.
- Exposure. The weighted total is divided by your exposure: for Unsafe Driving and Crash, your power units and miles; for HOS, Vehicle Maintenance, Driver Fitness and similar BASICs, the number of relevant inspections. That is why clean inspections bring a score down.
- Peer group. The result is turned into a percentile against carriers with a similar number of inspections or trucks, so the same violations can score differently for a small fleet and a large one.
What happens at the threshold
A BASIC at or above its threshold — or a serious violation found in an investigation — marks the carrier with an alert and prioritizes it for FMCSA intervention, from a warning letter to an offsite or onsite investigation. An investigation can end in a safety rating, and a Conditional rating is now enough for some brokers to stop sending loads.
How to bring a score down
- Challenge wrong data. File a Request for Data Review in DataQs for inspections or crashes that are not yours, are recorded wrongly, or ended with a dismissed or not-guilty citation (with court documents).
- Submit not-preventable crashes to FMCSA's Crash Preventability Determination Program — accepted crashes are excluded from the Crash Indicator.
- Fix the cause, not the score. HOS violations come from dispatch planning and ELD practices; Vehicle Maintenance from inspections and repairs; Driver Fitness from driver files and medical certificates.
- Earn clean inspections. Trucks that pass level 1 and level 2 inspections without violations add to the denominator of the inspection-based BASICs.
- Wait it out, honestly. Time weights fall from ×3 to ×2 to ×1 and then to zero — a clean year visibly lowers a score.
Is CSA changing?
FMCSA announced an enhanced SMS in the Federal Register in November 2024, regrouping violations and renaming BASICs as safety categories. As of its June 2026 methodology (version 3.21), the seven BASICs and the thresholds above are still what the system uses. We will update this page when the new version takes effect.
Know your scores before a broker asks
We track your BASICs monthly, challenge wrong inspections in DataQs, and fix the files behind the violations.
Sources: FMCSA Safety Measurement System (SMS) Methodology, version 3.21 (methodology revised May 2026, document June 2026), Table 2-2 and sections 2–3; Federal Register 2024-27087 (Nov 20, 2024). General information, not legal advice. IFTAX is not affiliated with FMCSA or any government agency.