Editorial: Cheers for FMCSA

We applaud the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for its decisions last week to scrap its proposed rule on truck driver training standards and to proceed with a formal rulemaking on sleep apnea testing.

In both cases, the agency’s decision to take a slower and more informed approach is sure to result in what should be the goal of any regulation: safer highways for all Americans.

It is virtually unanimous within the trucking industry that driver training standards are needed. However, about the only other thing that was clear from the 700 comments the agency received after it issued the proposal in 2007 was that no one can agree on what those standards should be.

In scrapping the rule, FMCSA said, the comments “raised substantive issues which have led the agency to conclude that it would be inappropriate to move forward with a final rule based on the proposal.”

With so much disagreement over how many total training hours should be required, how many of those hours should be spent on the road and about the value of full accreditation for trainers, it was wise of FMCSA to restart the process.

Just before press time, the agency told us it had notified Congress it would not meet a mandate to issue the training rule by Sept. 30. It said research was under way to ensure the best methods are implemented.

ATA and other trucking groups also have been vocal in supporting a need to test drivers for sleep apnea so they can be treated. But trucking has opposed FMCSA’s plan to issue guidance to medical examiners that drivers with a body mass index of 35 or higher should be tested for sleep apnea and treated if diagnosed.

ATA feared it would create a “de facto standard” and clearly explained at its 2012 Management Conference & Exhibition why a formal rulemaking was the correct path.

“The rulemaking process allows for public input. It requires a cost-benefit analysis; that is the right process and the one we want to see and the process that should be taken going forward,” said Dave Osiecki, ATA’s senior vice president for policy and regulatory affairs.

In addition, ATA President Bill Graves said last week that testing of truck drivers could cost the industry nearly $1 billion.

Even if it was not ATA’s sound position, but rather a growing movement in the U.S. House of Representatives, to require the rulemaking, it is a another decision FMCSA should be commended for all the same.