Amazon Relay Suspends Carriers for Safety Scores Over 60%

If you drive Amazon Relay and your safety score is over 60%, what should you do to be reinstated?

Amazon offers local and relay delivery opportunities for trucking companies, owner operators, and individuals to deliver Amazon box truck or semi-trailer loads through its Amazon Relay program.

However, Amazon is hesitant to work with carriers that have poor safety scores and conditional safety ratings according to the FMCSA’s Safety Measurement System (SMS).

The current standard Amazon is enforcing is suspending carriers from the Amazon Relay Loadboard if their Company BASIC Score (SMS score) is over 60%.

There are ways to be reinstated, but before we can talk about how to improve your safety score, let’s break down what the scores are first.

What is the FMCSA SAFER Company Snapshot?

The SAFER Company Snapshot is a basic company profile designed to compare your safety records to other carriers. This can be used to understand where you stand, what you’re doing right, and what you can improve.

This snapshot is available online to anyone, so potential prospects, regulatory agencies, brokers, and others interested can swiftly discover how well you attend to key safety issues.

Your Company Snapshot is maintained by the Safety and Fitness Electronic Records (SAFER) system and contains basic business details, such as:

• Company contact information
• USDOT Number
• Number of vehicles (power units) and drivers on record
• MCS-150 miles driver per year
• Operation classification
• Types of cargo you haul, and
• Details about inspections, the times your company has been out of service, and any available crash data from previous events

But this is not what Amazon is looking at. Instead, they look at your BASIC Status percentile.

What is your Company BASICS Status?

A BASIC is a Behavioral Analysis Safety Improvement Category. The BASIC is a score FMCSA calculates based on the following inputs:

• Safety Violations and Inspections
• Severity of violations or accidents
• When the violation occurred
• The number of miles your company drove
• Acute and Critical Violations

Your company’s BASIC is grouped with other carriers with a similar number of safety violations.

Your BASIC percentile is a calculation from the Safety Measurement System (SMS) for each BASIC by combining the time and severity of weighted violations/crashes to make a fair comparison between carriers with different levels of activity.

The SMS converts each carrier’s BASIC measures into percentiles based on rank relative to carriers with similar safety event groupings.

Amazon is cracking down on carriers with scores over 60 percentile, as these are higher risk carriers compared to their peers.

Safety Metric**	Description	Required Score
Unsafe Driving Percentile	Your company’s raw BASIC score for Unsafe Driving as determined by the FMCSA	Below 60%
HOS Compliance Percentile	Your company’s raw BASIC score for HOS Compliance as determined by the FMCSA	Below 60%
Vehicle Maintenance Percentile	Your company’s raw BASIC score for Vehicle Maintenance as determined by the FMCSA.	Below 75%

You must not exceed any of these targets to be eligible to haul loads in the future. Suspension will remain in effect until your company resolves this matter.

You can login to the FMCSA login portal to see your company’s BASIC status.

Can suspended Amazon carriers apply for reinstatement to Amazon Relay?

Yes, if your company is operating within Amazon’s standards, you can send your improved BASIC score to Amazon for further review. Return to Relay will be subject to Amazon’s discretion.

However, while FMCSA may allow your company to legally operate, if your company’s safety record still does not meet Amazon’s strict safety standard, they will not reinstate you.

How do I improve my BASIC percentile or SMS safety score?

The best tip we can provide carriers is to exceed, and not “just meet” the DOT regulations.

At CNS, our DOT Compliance Programs focus on Proactive Safety Management (PSM), a mindset that will ensure your fleet’s safety and compliance is always in order and ahead of the FMCSA.

And our PSM programs work!

A 9-truck carrier approached CNS due to a problem in their operations. CNS reviewed the carrier’s roadside safety, performance, driver files, loss ratio history, systems, and processes.

The company had no losses but high BASIC SMS scores. Upon further investigation there were only two drivers that had bad records.

Our proactive approach to safety management help lower their overall safety scores and improved their maintenance and violation costs.

Our PSM Motor Carrier Program includes:

• ELD management
• Driver Qualification File Management
• New driver on-boarding
• Driver safety meetings
• CSA score management
• Policies and handbooks
• Vehicle maintenance
• and more

Learn more about our DOT Compliance Programs

For more information, contact us or email us at info@cnsprotects.com.