DOT Says Delay Hits Progress on Several Key Regulations

By Sean McNally, Senior Reporter

This story appears in the March 17 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

A recent Transportation Department report said work on several key new regulations has fallen behind schedule, including shorter stopping distance for heavy trucks, safety reviews of new trucking companies, medical certification of drivers and a new registration system.

Some of the rules, such as the shorter stopping-distance requirement, have been delayed several times.

Some trucking industry officials said delays in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s regulatory agenda may be the result of the agency’s focus on projects such as revising the hours-of-service rule and opening the southern border to Mexican trucks, charges agency officials denied.

“Those two programs are really taking up a huge chunk of their time. . . . It really, really just taxed them, and I think that’s really what ultimately pushed some of these rulemakings back,” said Steve Keppler, director of policy and programs for the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance.

However, the DOT agency leading the stopping-distance project is the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is not involved with the HOS or Mexican truck projects.

In 2005, NHTSA said it would recommend cutting the maximum allowed stopping distance for Class 8 trucks by 20% to 30% from the current limit of 355 feet.

Last fall, DOT said it expected to have the rule out by this month, but before then, a January 2007 report slated its publication for May 2007. DOT’s most recent report lists September as the target month, but industry officials are pessimistic it will get out by then.

“We’re expecting a delay; this has been delayed now three or four times,” said Paul Johnston, chairman of the Heavy Duty Brake Manufacturers Council and senior director of compression and braking systems for Meritor WABCO.

Johnston said the group understood that the agency was incorporating recently released safety data on truck fatalities into its justification for the regulation.

The rule had been “based on previous data of that same fatality information,” Johnston said. “What we’re hearing is that’s being updated or being adjusted, and that puts it back through the cycle. So we’re concerned.”

Most of the other delayed regulations are the responsibility of FMCSA.

According to DOT’s March report, they include: Unified Registration System; the new entrant audit regulation, scheduled for publication this month but now not expected until September; linking driver medical certification to the commercial driver license, which had been slated for April but now won’t be published until August; and the intermodal chassis safety rule, which has been pushed back to August from a targeted April release.

In September, DOT said URS, which would combine several different federal registration programs and databases, would be unveiled this month, but in the most recent report, it is scheduled for November. The program originally had been scheduled for release in September 2007.

“If I had to guess, I’d say that what’s going on there is a finite number of people and a finite energy source, and they are expending it in other directions,” said Dave Osiecki, director of policy and programs for American Trucking Associations.

Those other directions, some speculated, are the court-ordered revision of the hours-of-service rule that was completed in December and the ongoing, controversial cross-border trucking pilot program.

“It’s simply this: a limited number of taxpayer dollar resources and limited number of hours in the day. It’s conceivable that they can get only so much done,” said Rod Nofziger, director of government affairs for the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association.

FMCSA Administrator John Hill told Transport Topics March 10 that while the Mexican truck program “is a huge amount of work,” he did not believe it was interfering with the agency’s other activities.

“We have been working on this for a number of years, and our regulatory agenda is still moving forward,” he said, adding that the agency’s record “is better now that it ever was before, in terms of deadlines.”

FMCSA spokesman Duane DeBruyne said several of the delayed rules were “noteworthy for their comprehensiveness,” and “the schedules have been revised to ensure that the best possible proposals go forward.”

He also pointed out that the agency had published eight regulations on subjects including driver training, hours of service and registration fees since last fall.

“The record shows that the full scope of the agency’s regulatory responsibilities continue unabated,” DeBruyne said.