Electronic Recorder Rule Sent to DOT
This story appears in the Sept. 28 print edition of Transport Topics.
BALTIMORE — The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has sent its final electronic onboard recorders rule to the U.S. Department of Transportation for review, acting agency Administrator Rose McMurray told Transport Topics last week.
“It is out of [FMCSA] and is under review within the secretary’s office,” McMurray said. She added that any perceived delay in publishing the regulation was “not a matter of policy concerns, but more an issue of the immense workload of the administration.”
The Bush administration was close to finalizing the rule, which former FMCSA Administrator John Hill said would expand the number of carriers required to use the devices, but withdrew its proposal in order to let the Obama team review it.
Once approved by DOT, the rule then must go to the White House Office of Management and Budget for a final review.
Speaking here Sept. 21 at the annual meeting of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, McMurray said the agency was getting closer to implementing its new safety rating system for carriers, known as Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010, or CSA 2010.
FMCSA hopes the program, which will incorporate more data and targeted enforcement action, will be “fully launched nationwide next summer,” she said.
CSA 2010 aims to make “significant changes in the way we assess [carriers’] individual safety fitness,” she said. FMCSA will look at more data than ever before, and intervene sooner so fleets can get into compliance without additional enforcement.
She said the program will enhance the monitoring of driver violations, and eventually should allow for the agency to make the safety record of individual drivers available to motor carriers.
During her comments, McMurray also cited the agency’s work on a national registry of certified medical examiners and revising the standards for obtaining a commercial driver license as “two important safety rules that we will be coming out with very soon.”
In addition, FMCSA is working to expand its efforts to prevent rogue carriers that lose operating authority from re-opening under new names, she said.
Using tax data and other information, McMurray said FMCSA is trying to match data from new entrants into the industry to information from shuttered bus and moving firms.
“So far, as a result, we had denied, or had withdrawn, 320 applications, out of more than 1,700,” she said.
“We believe it’s working,” McMurray said, “and there’s a great deal of pressure to expand it to all carriers, including trucking companies, which is a very big population.”
