FMCSA

An advisory committee for the CSA safety enforcement program dove deep into the complex details and emerged with some consensus and some irreconcilable differences.

In his "On the Road" blog, Equipment Editor and former driver and owner-operator Jim Park wonders if three months of mandatory entry-level training would have made him a better driver.

Two carriers based in Mexico have had their applications dismissed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to participate in the long-haul cross-border trucking program between the U.S. and its neighbor to the south.

FMCSA and the U.S. DOT have no influence over what happens in Canada, but Canada has plenty of its own regulatory agencies and ministries whose rules will affect American carriers' privileges and ability to operate there.

In response to petitions from states and the industry, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is changing provisions of its commercial driver’s license rule.

Despite all of the folklore that has been built around it, at its core, CSA (Compliance, Safety, Accountability) is simply a program used by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to track and evaluate carriers based on compliance and crash history. Carriers that do not score well in the system are the ones FMCSA will spend time warning or investigating.

In a Friday "listening session" the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration hosted regarding its proposed entry-level driver training stories, truck driver training school officials warned that the proposal would make the current driver shortage even worse.

Transportation legislators in the Senate and House are pressing Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration chief Anne Ferro to reconsider her decision not to postpone the effective date of the hours of service rule.

A court heard oral arguments Friday in a legal move attempting to stop the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s plan to implement revised hours-of-service regulations, but there is no indication if the three-judge panel in the District of Columbia will issue a decision before the new rules take effect.

Required driver pre-trip inspections have garnered more attention under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s new Compliance, Safety, Accountability enforcement program. And it’s not only the actual inspections you need to think about – it’s also the paperwork component.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will begin issuing official recommendations to members of the commercial trucking industry on the proper uses of Global Positioning System navigation devices and incorporate GPS training into new entry-level certification programs for commercial motor vehicle operators.

The driver qualifications regulations, which are found in Part 391 of the FMCSA regulations, apply to all interstate drivers and most intrastate drivers that operate a commercial motor vehicle – no matter whether your company employs one driver or 1,000.