BASICs (Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Categories) are the seven safety-performance categories that make up FMCSA's Safety Measurement System (SMS), the analytics engine behind the CSA (Compliance, Safety, Accountability) program. The categories are Unsafe Driving, Hours-of-Service Compliance, Driver Fitness, Controlled Substances/Alcohol, Vehicle Maintenance, Hazardous Materials Compliance, and Crash Indicator. For each BASIC, FMCSA calculates a percentile (0-100) for every carrier with enough recent roadside inspection and violation data, comparing it against peer carriers of similar size and mileage. A lower percentile is better — it means fewer or less severe violations relative to peers. When a carrier's percentile in a BASIC exceeds an intervention threshold, FMCSA may flag it for further monitoring or enforcement, though carriers below the threshold aren't automatically "safe" and those above it aren't automatically unsafe — BASICs are a prioritization tool, not a certification. Data refreshes monthly as new inspections are reported. Two of the seven BASICs (Hazmat Compliance and Crash Indicator) aren't always publicly displayed for every carrier, due to data-sufficiency and legal constraints on using crash data before fault has been determined.
A carrier sitting at the 15th percentile in Vehicle Maintenance is performing better than 85% of its peers in that category — the goal is to be as low as possible.
The full seven-category breakdown appears in the BASICs Safety Breakdown section of every carrier profile, with a percentile bar for each.