Next steps for truck safety should be completion of the speed limiter mandate, more focus on traffic enforcement and improvements in the CSA safety enforcement system, a top Werner Enterprises official told a transportation panel of the Senate Commerce Committee.
President Obama used his State of the Union address to repeat his call to reform corporate taxes and spend some of the proceeds on a long-term highway bill.
The difficulty and cost of including crash fault in the CSA safety enforcement system appears to outweigh the benefits, according to an analysis by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The long-awaited report to Congress, which will be made public today, says that police accident reports probably don’t provide enough information to support determinations of fault.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will release its study on crash accountability in the next couple of weeks, said Jack Van Steenburg, the agency’s chief safety officer.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is on track to launch its study of the 34-hour restart, said Martin Walker, chief of the agency’s research division.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will soon launch a national program to train police officers in traffic enforcement for large trucks. The agency worked with the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance on a curriculum covering the basics of truck safety enforcement.
Fourteen years later, the Mexican cross-border trucking provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement will finally be implemented.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has proper safety controls in place for Mexican carriers operating across the border, but the pilot program to test the system has too few participants to project the outcome of a full border opening, says the DOT Inspector General.
The political slugfest over the 34-hour restart dominated the news from Washington, D.C., in the second half of 2014, but that obscure provision of the hours of service rule is not nearly as important as other developments during the year.
The pre-2013 34-hour restart rule is now in effect. On Tuesday President Obama signed the 2015 appropriations bill, which contains a provision suspending the more restrictive restart that went into effect as part of the hours of service rules enacted in July 2013.
Rep. Tom Petri did not violate House rules and the review of his conduct will be dropped, the House Ethics Committee said in a decision that comes just as Petri ends his 35-year career in Congress.
American Trucking Associations won its fight against the 34-hour restart provision of the hours of service rule. On Saturday night the Senate passed and sent to President Obama a bill that replaces the controversial restart with an earlier, less restrictive, version while the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration does more research on the issue.
As Congress moves toward suspension of the 34-hour restart provision of the hours of service rule, some trucking groups applaud the move while police worry about how they will enforce the change.
Trucking interests are close to victory in their fight to suspend the current 34-hour restart provision of the hours of service rule. The appropriations bill negotiated by the Senate and House will cut off funding for enforcement of the restart while the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration studies its impact.
With Congress up against a December 11 deadline to pass an appropriations bill, trucking interests and safety groups are battling over an amendment that would suspend the current 34-hour restart provision of the hours of service rule.