Statistics from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) show that some 5.9 million commercial motor vehicle drivers operate across the country, helping to move the goods we need for daily life where they need to go and keeping many popular industries going. From grocery stores to schools and gourmet restaurants, the food and other supplies that truck drivers carry are vital to our communities. When new laws and regulations are passed that impact the way truck drivers, bus drivers, and delivery drivers work, these nearly six million people have to make changes or risk being hit with fees or having their licenses taken away.
The latest changes to the freight industry and commercial licensing have been in the words for some five years. Back in 2017, the FMCSA announced plans to make the standards for getting a truck driver's license more uniform across the country. These new and improved rules are aimed at standardizing the way new drivers are trained in order to make sure that they know how to handle large tractor trailers and reduce the average amount of accidents involving trucks. Because commercial trucks are so large and travel some of the most popular thoroughfares through busy cities, crashes involving them are often fatal and can involve multiple vehicles.
Entry-Level Driver Changes
The biggest change to the way drivers are trained is in the new Entry-Level Driver Training (ELDT) rule that will be implemented. This rule sets requirements for the training of new drivers coming into the industry at a federal level instead of leaving it up to each state. It sets a minimum level of education for the drivers, establishes who can be a teacher and what kind of instruction needs to be given to new drivers. This is intended to help make our roadways as a whole safer, by ensuring all drivers with a CDL are trained the same way and following the same procedures no matter where they are trained. These students will study safety processes in the classroom as well as get practical, hands-on instruction from a qualified professional. They will even learn more nuanced parts of the job, such as the fact that sealant can take over 24 hours to dry, so it is best to avoid driving over it.
In addition, the FMCSA is supposed to create a national registry from which new trucking students can choose a teacher who certifies they are running a program that complies with the rules. The Training Provider Registry will be easy for newcomers to the field to access and navigate, and offer the names and information of where new drivers can go to be trained correctly. This registry is voluntary, and may not include every provider in your area, only those that want to be added to the list.
Why Is Trucking Under the Microscope?
However, the process of putting these regulations in place has proven to take longer than predicted, leading to national news stories and increased scrutiny of the industry. The newest deadline for the ELDT rule was recently moved from February 2020 to February 2022. This change is designed to give more time for the IT infrastructure behind the registry to get built out. Thanks to the sheer magnitude of the project ad the specific requirements it has, the registry needs to be set up properly before it can go live and allow input from teaching organization.
With this added time, the FMCSA should have the registry up and running by the deadline, helping to make putting the process of new drivers on the road much safer. It remains to be seen if these changes to truck driver training will actually happen in 2022, or if the industry will need more time to get the right database in place to make these goals a reality.
Comment
Comments