Registration Paperwork Too Long, Confusing, Carriers, Brokers Tell FMCSA

This story appears in the Jan. 9 print edition of Transport Topics.

Trade organizations representing motor carriers and freight brokers generally backed a federal move to streamline the federal registration process, but complained that the registration form is too long and complicated for many in the industry.

In comments last month on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s proposed Unified Registration System, several trade groups complained that the agency’s MCSA-1 registration application form is in dire need of some streamlining itself.

The form is part of an effort to simplify FMCSA’s registration process for motor carriers, brokers and freight forwarders, and is eventually intended to help the agency identify so-called “chameleon” operators.

A chameleon carrier is one that attempts to register as a new entrant to evade enforcement actions taken by the FMCSA under the carrier’s current name.

The 90-page supplemental proposed rule announced Oct. 26 would add to a 2005 proposal that never went into effect. It will combine the Department of Transportation’s identification number system, single state registration system and financial responsibility system into a single online federal system and raise the fee to $300 from $200.

The proposal also calls for all filing to be done electronically.

The new system, mandated by Congress in 1995, will “consolidate and simplify” current registration processes and increase public accessibility to data about motor carriers and motor coach companies, FMCSA said.

The URS is “separate and apart” from the Unified Carrier Registration program, which collects fees from interstate carriers, brokers and freight forwarders to pay for motor carrier enforcement programs, according to Bob Pitcher, vice president of state laws for American Trucking Associations.

ATA called the MCSA-1 proposed 30-page form — and the accompanying 20 pages of instructions — “far too lengthy, awkward, and complicated to encourage, or even to permit, compliance by the hundreds of thousands of entities that would be obligated to use it.”

ATA said the agency should “rethink its entire approach to the form.”

ATA also urged the agency to keep in place a current requirement that registered entities notify FMCSA of changes in certain data within 45 days, rather than impose a new requirement of only 20 days.

The National Private Truck Council also criticized the proposed new registration form, calling it too long and complicated for applicants to use “without professional assistance.”

“The FMCSA should attempt to restructure the form to present clear explanations of who must file, which documents must be filed, and how the process will proceed,” NPTC President Gary Petty said in Dec. 27 written comments. “The form as currently constructed appears overwhelming even to experienced transportation personnel.”

NPTC also said it questioned the need to require private motor carriers transporting hazardous materials in interstate commence to file evidence of financial responsibility with the FMCSA to obtain registration.

“The FMCSA has offered no compelling policy reason for requiring private hazmat carriers to now file evidence of liability coverage,” NPTC said.

Douglas Greenhaus, chief regulatory counsel for the American Truck Dealers Division of the National Automobile Dealers Association, said that while his organization supports the mandatory online filing system, the MCSA-1 form is not “conducive to the online filing requirement the URS requires.”

“The form is unnecessarily long and overly complex for the FMCSA to expect accurate compliance,” Greenhaus said.

Robert Voltmann, president of the Transportation Intermediaries Association, said the agency should use the new registration system to prevent unauthorized re-brokering of freight by motor carriers. FMCSA should issue separate operating authority numbers for motor carrier and property broker authority held by the same or related entities, he said, to make it clear to shippers who they are dealing with.

TIA also urged FMCSA to prohibit the practice of reinstating authority numbers that have been inactive for more than 12 months.

“Neither the DOT nor the companies in the industry know what companies are still in business,” Voltmann wrote. “Requiring every licensed company to register its authority every year and requiring DOT to cancel any authorities not re-registered will allow everyone to know what companies are still in business.”

In a speech at American Trucking Associations Management Conference & Exhibition, FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro said the new system will offer the agency better vetting tools to red-flag motor carriers that have their operating authority revoked, only to reemerge with a different name.

“We’ve got to make sure that folks who are operating in the industry are maintaining high standards and stay there,” Ferro told ATA’s safety policy committee on Oct. 16.

Ferro said the new system, which has been tested over the past two years, ultimately will help the agency, trucking industry, and law enforcement “make sure we can identify the folks who shouldn’t be behind the wheel, that we can identify the equipment that shouldn’t be on the road, and that we can identify the carriers who have no business being motor carriers.”