GAO Claims Many Truckers Skirt DOT Health Regulations
By Sean McNally, Senior Reporter
This story appears in the July 28 print edition of Transport Topics.
WASHINGTON — The Government Accountability Office said last week that hundreds of thousands of truck drivers with potentially serious medical conditions are being allowed to drive heavy vehicles, citing loopholes and weaknesses in the federal government’s program to certify drivers.
However, trucking industry officials said concerns raised by the report were overblown. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s medical certification program was also in the cross hairs of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which held a hearing to examine the GAO report and the program’s alleged failings.
In a July 21 report, GAO said that “analysis of commercial license data from [Department of Transportation] and medical disability data from [various federal agencies] found that about 563,000 of such individuals had commercial driver licenses.”
The report, requested by the top two Democrats on the transportation panel, acknowledged that “not all serious medical conditions interfere with the safe operation of a commercial vehicle.”
It’s “impossible to determine from data matching and mining alone the extent to which commercial drivers have medical conditions that preclude them from safely driving a commercial vehicle,” GAO said.
Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), the committee chairman, citing the report and investigations done by his staff, blasted the agency for not putting enough focus on safety and for operating what he felt was a deficient medical program.
“There are simply too many defects in FMCSA’s medical certification program to adequately protect the traveling public,” he said during the July 24 hearing.
The GAO’s report gave examples of drivers who had forged medical certification, obtained certification fraudulently or been improperly examined by a doctor.
FMCSA Administrator John Hill defended the agency’s activities, saying in a statement that his agency was “aggressively pursuing a number of program initiatives to support and strengthen our medical program.”
Hill said FMCSA expected to publish rules to create a registry of certified doctors for drivers’ exams and linking the CDL with the medical certificate “in the next few months.” Trucking industry officials said the GAO’s report added little to the discussion about FMCSA’s medical program.
“It’s anecdotal in nature,” said Dave Osiecki, vice president of safety, security and operations for American Trucking Associations. “There are no real conclusions . . . and it doesn’t add a whole lot of value to the issue.”
Osiecki told Transport Topics that some of the report’s “case studies are consistent with past understanding of the issue. Some drivers ‘doctor shop’ and some medical examiners don’t understand the requirements.”
Todd Spencer, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, said it was “not real news” that the system wasn’t perfect, and even if it were, “accidents that involve physical conditions of drivers don’t show up very prominently in any kind of statistics.”
Osiecki agreed, saying that FMCSA’s study of crashes involving large trucks found that when the truck was at fault, sleep or illness was cited 3% of the time, while “driver inattention, aggressive driving and excessive speed — add those together and you get 77%.”
Osiecki also said GAO reported that its investigation could find only about 1,000 drivers with conditions that impaired vision or hearing or that caused seizures, which would preclude them from getting a CDL.
Advocacy groups said FMCSA was to blame for the allegedly lax standards.
“We have a major public safety problem and we haven’t corrected it,” Gerald Donaldson, senior research director for Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, told The Associated Press.
At the hearing, FMCSA defended its work on the medical regulations.
FMCSA Chief Safety Officer Rose McMurray said the agency was “committed to establishing and maintaining prudent and effective medical standards based on the best available scientific evidence.”
McMurray said that besides the two outstanding rules, FMCSA has a board reviewing its entire docket of medical qualifications and making recommendations to the agency.
That board, she said, has made more than 40 recommendations that the agency is considering.
However, McMurray told the panel she expected it would take three years before the programs were fully up and running.
Osiecki said bolstering all of those areas would improve carriers’ access to accurate medical information and keep unfit drivers from driving. However, he said, the agency should shift focus away from linking the CDL and the certificate, something that has been a priority.
“Improved medical standards and the certification registry — we are supportive of those two,” he said. “Linking is the one that has the most questionable benefits in terms of its costs.”
By creating the examiners registry and toughening health rules, FMCSA would make it easier on carriers, which currently are limited in how much medical information they can ask of prospective drivers, Osiecki said.
This story appears in the July 28 print edition of Transport Topics.
WASHINGTON — The Government Accountability Office said last week that hundreds of thousands of truck drivers with potentially serious medical conditions are being allowed to drive heavy vehicles, citing loopholes and weaknesses in the federal government’s program to certify drivers.
However, trucking industry officials said concerns raised by the report were overblown. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s medical certification program was also in the cross hairs of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which held a hearing to examine the GAO report and the program’s alleged failings.
In a July 21 report, GAO said that “analysis of commercial license data from [Department of Transportation] and medical disability data from [various federal agencies] found that about 563,000 of such individuals had commercial driver licenses.”
The report, requested by the top two Democrats on the transportation panel, acknowledged that “not all serious medical conditions interfere with the safe operation of a commercial vehicle.”
It’s “impossible to determine from data matching and mining alone the extent to which commercial drivers have medical conditions that preclude them from safely driving a commercial vehicle,” GAO said.
Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), the committee chairman, citing the report and investigations done by his staff, blasted the agency for not putting enough focus on safety and for operating what he felt was a deficient medical program.
“There are simply too many defects in FMCSA’s medical certification program to adequately protect the traveling public,” he said during the July 24 hearing.
The GAO’s report gave examples of drivers who had forged medical certification, obtained certification fraudulently or been improperly examined by a doctor.
FMCSA Administrator John Hill defended the agency’s activities, saying in a statement that his agency was “aggressively pursuing a number of program initiatives to support and strengthen our medical program.”
Hill said FMCSA expected to publish rules to create a registry of certified doctors for drivers’ exams and linking the CDL with the medical certificate “in the next few months.” Trucking industry officials said the GAO’s report added little to the discussion about FMCSA’s medical program.
“It’s anecdotal in nature,” said Dave Osiecki, vice president of safety, security and operations for American Trucking Associations. “There are no real conclusions . . . and it doesn’t add a whole lot of value to the issue.”
Osiecki told Transport Topics that some of the report’s “case studies are consistent with past understanding of the issue. Some drivers ‘doctor shop’ and some medical examiners don’t understand the requirements.”
Todd Spencer, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, said it was “not real news” that the system wasn’t perfect, and even if it were, “accidents that involve physical conditions of drivers don’t show up very prominently in any kind of statistics.”
Osiecki agreed, saying that FMCSA’s study of crashes involving large trucks found that when the truck was at fault, sleep or illness was cited 3% of the time, while “driver inattention, aggressive driving and excessive speed — add those together and you get 77%.”
Osiecki also said GAO reported that its investigation could find only about 1,000 drivers with conditions that impaired vision or hearing or that caused seizures, which would preclude them from getting a CDL.
Advocacy groups said FMCSA was to blame for the allegedly lax standards.
“We have a major public safety problem and we haven’t corrected it,” Gerald Donaldson, senior research director for Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, told The Associated Press.
At the hearing, FMCSA defended its work on the medical regulations.
FMCSA Chief Safety Officer Rose McMurray said the agency was “committed to establishing and maintaining prudent and effective medical standards based on the best available scientific evidence.”
McMurray said that besides the two outstanding rules, FMCSA has a board reviewing its entire docket of medical qualifications and making recommendations to the agency.
That board, she said, has made more than 40 recommendations that the agency is considering.
However, McMurray told the panel she expected it would take three years before the programs were fully up and running.
Osiecki said bolstering all of those areas would improve carriers’ access to accurate medical information and keep unfit drivers from driving. However, he said, the agency should shift focus away from linking the CDL and the certificate, something that has been a priority.
“Improved medical standards and the certification registry — we are supportive of those two,” he said. “Linking is the one that has the most questionable benefits in terms of its costs.”
By creating the examiners registry and toughening health rules, FMCSA would make it easier on carriers, which currently are limited in how much medical information they can ask of prospective drivers, Osiecki said.
