Driving Skill Outweighs Classroom Time for New Truckers, Training Experts Say

Getting students to demonstrate competence at necessary skills is a better way to train future truck drivers compared with setting standards for hours logged in classrooms, several driver-training professionals said during a Transport Topics Web broadcast.

The March 18 program looked at best practices for driver training and at the current effort by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to comply with a congressional mandate and write a rule setting driver-training standards at the entry level.

TT Editorial Director Neil Abt hosted the roundtable discussion, along with senior features writer Daniel Bearth. A replay of the program is available at liveonweb.ttnews.com.

“We give them a firm foundation on basics. We try to give them every situation we can put them in,” said Tomy Fox, a driver trainer for Con-way Truckload who participated in the program. Fox said Con-way sends new drivers through a 7,000-mile training program after a new driver gets a commercial driver license.

LIVEONWEB: Watch replay of show focused on driver training

Fox and Con-way operate a finishing school of sorts for licensed drivers, but FMCSA is working on applicants who are at an earlier stage.

“We’re looking at minimum standards to get a CDL, not finishing schools, but those will never go away. Companies want those,” said Boyd Stephenson, a member of the FMCSA advisory committee that is helping to write the rule and American Trucking Associations’ director of hazardous material and commercial licensing policy.

“Actually demonstrating a skill is better than spending a mandatory three hours in class,” Stephenson said.

The quest for entry-level standards dates to the mid-1980s, Stephenson said, and hours-based versus

performance-based training has been a critical issue. He said a federal appeals court in 2007 ordered that training for rookie drivers must include time behind a wheel.

The Commercial Vehicle Training Association, which represents driver-training schools, also backs performance-based standards, said Donald Lefeve, its president.

“CVTA led the fight against hourly standards [the basis of the 2007 training rule]. Hours trained is not related to safety,” he said. One of Lefeve’s vice presidents also is on the FMCSA advisory committee.

Bearth recounted how UPS has erected “miniature cities” to help train its parcel-delivery drivers.

In addition to training the drivers, Doug Akers, Transport Training Institute program manager at Ozarks Technical Community College in Springfield, Missouri, recommended that schools and carriers analyze them. Turnover among new drivers is rapid, so schools and employers should examine if candidates are likely to stay around.

“We look at a psychological profile to see who’s more likely to stay,” Akers said.

The FMCSA process continued March 19-20, the second two-day set of meetings in a six-stage process to run through the end of May. At the conclusion of the May 29 meeting, FMCSA’s 26-member group is expected to reach a consensus — 23-3 or more — on what the entry-level driver training rule should contain.

If that happens as scheduled, the committee then would deliver a final report to FMCSA in mid-June, and agency officials would write the formal rule.

ATA’s Stephenson described the process as a “very, very ambitious pace for a contentious issue.” He expressed optimism on the likelihood of consensus, though, saying, “There is universal agreement we do need an entry-level driver-training rule.”

Lefeve explained that any proposal must pass a cost-benefit analysis from the White House Office of Management and Budget. Regulators cannot propose rules without considering cost, he said.

“There are lots of hurdles the committee has to overcome, and cost-benefit analysis is a huge one,” Lefeve said, adding that the anticipated benefits from training can be hard to quantify.

The committee includes representatives of trucking, bus companies, training schools, safety advocacy groups, FMCSA and state motor vehicle administrations.