state driver licensing agencies

FMCSA lifts restrictions on CDL knowledge test proctors

Trucking regulators have issued new guidance that strips away confusion over CDL testing standards and could help deploy entry-level drivers faster.

The guidance filed on Wednesday by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration goes into effect on Thursday. It will allow third-party testers to administer the knowledge portion of CDL tests for all classes and endorsements without a state examiner present.

That seemed to contradict guidance first issued in 1993, and most recently reissued in...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/fmcsa-lifts-restrictions-on-cdl-knowledge-test-proctors

DOT to unveil zero-fatality road safety strategy

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff plan to announce Thursday an ambitious program to tackle what the Biden administration considers to be a national crisis: deaths and serious injuries involving cars and heavy trucks.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Roadway Safety Strategy tasks the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and five other DOT operating agencies involved with roadway safety with working toward a goal of zero fatalities...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/dot-to-unveil-zero-fatality-road-safety-strategy

FMCSA issues new driver-ban rules for drug and alcohol abusers

States have until November 2024 to comply with a new requirement that they ban drivers with drug and alcohol violations from operating a truck before completing the return-to-duty process.

The rule is scheduled to be posted in the Federal Register on Thursday. It resulted from a 2020 Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration proposal requiring state agencies to stop issuing, renewing or upgrading commercial driver’s licenses (CDLs) or commercial learner’s permits (CLPs) to drivers with drug...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/fmcsa-issues-new-driver-ban-rules-for-drug-and-alcohol-abusers

Watchdog knocks FMCSA on CDL compliance oversight

Gaps in how the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration oversees state CDL programs threaten the agency’s ability to prevent large truck crashes, a federal watchdog agency warns.

A performance audit conducted by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) between November 2019 and May 2021 revealed that a portion of state CDL agencies were not properly transmitting electronic notifications of truck driver convictions, the oversight of which is part of FMCSA’s...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/watchdog-knocks-fmcsa-on-cdl-compliance-oversight

IT snags could mean more medical card headaches for drivers, carriers

Drivers and their employers will be responsible until June 2025 for ensuring medical certifications are properly registered so that state and federal regulators will have enough time to work through IT problems that are holding up a more streamlined compliance system.

In a proposed rulemaking scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Thursday, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is looking to extend the final rule for its Medical Examiner’s Certification...

https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/it-snags-could-mean-more-medical-card-headaches-for-drivers-carriers

EFS chat recap: Pushing driver training boundaries

This fireside chat recap is from FreightWaves’ Enterprise Fleet Summit.

FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: Post-pandemic vision for driver training.

DETAILS: Success for enterprise fleets — like all trucking sectors — begins with professionally trained drivers. A. Bailey Wood, the new president and CEO of the Commercial Vehicle Training Association (CVTA), discusses how vigorous outreach combined with revamped training requirements and the rebuilding of the driver supply chain are opening opportunities for...

https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/efs-chat-recap-pushing-driver-training-boundaries

780,000 driver medical exams could be missing from FMCSA database

A seven-month outage of a medical examiner registry maintained by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has resulted in approximately 780,000 driver examinations potentially missing from the database, a federal watchdog has revealed.

An audit report of the FMCSA’s National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners issued Friday by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) also found that 46% of the registry’s 70,208 records of certified medical...

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/780000-driver-medical-exams-could-be-missing-from-fmcsa-database

FMCSA to abolish driver requirement to list traffic violations

Trucking regulators want to eliminate a requirement that drivers provide their employers a list each year of their traffic violations, asserting that it overlaps with provisions that require carriers to obtain the same information.

In a proposed rule scheduled to be published in the Federal Register on Monday, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) stated it does not expect the change to affect safety because the carriers’ annual motor vehicle record (MVR) requirement “would...

https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/news-alert-fmcsa-to-abolish-driver-requirement-to-list-traffic-violations

Knight-Swift gets exemption for driver medical records

Federal regulators have granted Knight-Swift Transportation [NYSE: KNX] a conditional exemption allowing the truckload giant to avoid what it has asserted are costly redundant medical record requirements for its drivers.

After assessing Knight-Swift’s application and three public comments, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) found that the company “would achieve a level of safety that is equivalent to, or greater than, the level that would be achieved absent such exemption,”...

https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/knight-swift-gets-exemption-for-driver-medical-exams

COVID-19 taking bite out of the driver pool

Trucking companies are realigning hiring practices to focus on experienced drivers as the supply of student drivers falls dramatically because of COVID-19.

The shift is a direct result of driving schools that have closed and state driver licensing agencies (SDLAs) that have either cut back hours or shut down entirely during the pandemic. This is constricting the pipeline of entry-level drivers that many carriers rely on for more than half of their driver positions.

“A lot of the driving schools...

https://s29755.pcdn.co/news/covid-19-taking-bite-out-of-the-driver-pool

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