Assembly Bill 258, effective January 1, 2016, revises the Biennial Inspection of Terminals (BIT) program implemented and enforced by the CHP. Heretofore, carriers had to be inspected by CHP for safety of operations every 25 months. The new BIT program will be a performance based inspection system to allow CHP to focus efforts on “non-compliant” carriers. In order to determine which carriers to review, CHP will consider safety scoring methodologies in use by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), also known as the Safety Management System (SMS).
ADVICE: California carriers should: (1) inform themselves of how CHP will implement AB 259, and (2) be familiar with the SMS and how their operations score or might score under the SMS methodology. Now, more than ever, you do not want to be one of the “non-compliant” carriers subject to enhanced CHP oversight and scrutiny.
Presentations from the Commercial Vehicle Safety Summit (CVSS) are available in PDF here.
