FHWA Grants Exemptions to Drivers

The Federal Highway Administration used new authority granted by the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century to issue exemptions from federal standards to 24 truck drivers with deficient eyesight.

The 24 drivers all had exemplary safety records, but did not meet federal motor carrier safety standards which require drivers to have at least 20/40 vision in each eye.

The agency has been looking into how good vision must be to operate a truck safely ever since a 1992 test program which granted similar exemptions to 2000 drivers with impaired vision in one eye.

In response to a lawsuit filed by Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety in 1994, a federal court ruled that FHWA could not prove the program would not jeopardize safety and shut it down.

FHWA continued with its program anyway and later allowed the drivers who participated to continue driving even after the test ended.

Twelve more exemptions were issued in June by FHWA, after a Minnesota truck driver successfully challenged federal vision standards under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

However, with the passage of TEA-21, the multi-billion dollar highway funding bill Congress passed earlier this year, FHWA was granted even more latitude to grant waivers and exemptions, not just of driver qualification rules like the vision requirements, but of other regulations like hours of service, maintenance and inspection standards as well.

"There’s a whole range of potential inquiries and requests under the new waiver provisions," said Paul Brennan, Director of FHWA's Office of Motor Carrier Research and Standards. "I think in the beginning we’ll probably be over-involved with the physical qualifications, primarily vision, but after that there are many other possibilities."

For the full story, see the Dec. 14 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.