Blog Posts Tagged "FMCSA"

With a trucker's schedule, finding time for your DOT physical can be tricky. You need to find a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration–approved medical examiner every two years to maintain your CDL, and sometimes the two-year-deadline approaches when you're out on the road.

The trucking industry can be a dangerous one, especially when so many trucking companies constantly break the rules, or try to take advantages of loopholes in the system. According to a recent article on JOC.com, there is a growing number of trucking companies in the United States that fail to comply with safety regulations and that have been shut down for this or a variety of other reasons.

Last year, legislation supported by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Association that required truckers to take two full consecutive nights of rest following 70 hours of time spent driving passed. While people on both sides of the aisle with concerns about truckers' safety supported the bill, a December 2014 spending bill in Congress includes a provision that would reverse the law.

A recent lawsuit may change training requirements for those seeking to embark on a career in the trucking industry. Though auto fatalities have dropped in recent years, fatalities involving large trucks are on the rise, increasing by 4 percent in 2012. Injuries have also increased 18 percent, racking up an astounding 4,000 deaths and over 70,000 injuries.

Despite setbacks in the struggle, truckers continue to fight for better safety regulations. The changes to trucking laws have negatively impacted productivity by at least 3 to 5 percent, according to the American Trucking Association—without promising any real solution for driver fatigue.

Sleep disorders in commercial truck drivers has been an issue of interest by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for many years, and it's becoming increasingly apparent that FMCSA will make some move to require truck drivers to be screened for sleep apnea in the not too distant future.

Truck drivers were surveyed by ATRI in the spring of 2011 and then again in the Spring of 2012 to gain perspective on how commercial drivers view CSA in terms of employability issues and carrier operations.

Black boxes, electronic logging devices (ELDs), electronic onboard recorders (EOBRs), whatever you choose to call them, have long been a controversial issue in the trucking industry with most drivers considering having one the equivalent of having Big Brother onboard.

Although the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's Compliance Safety and Accountability Program known throughout the industry as CSA was launched on December 12, 2010 there is still confusion among many drivers about their role under the new system and how it impacts their careers.

Here we give credit to the individuals and organizations using the internet to make a difference in the trucking industry and the people who keep it running.

As the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals prepares to issue a final decision in the American Trucking Assns.' (ATA) case against the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) regarding the restart and rest break changes to the driver hours of service rules, the trucking industry should be preparing for the impacts those changes may have on their operations.

Improving truck safety is a priority for everyone. And efforts to reduce truck crashes have been highly successful. Truck accident statistics have shown dramatic improvements over the years and truck crash rates continue to go down even as truck miles increase.

Limiting trucks to a predetermined set speed limit has long been a controversial topic, especially among truck drivers. And while many of the nation's largest carriers already have speed limiters installed on all their rigs, many drivers still refuse to work for fleets that limit the speed on their vehicles.

If you're still hanging on the hope the feds will delay implementing new truck driver hours of service regulations or have just procrastinated preparing for the change, it may be time to get a move on. As it stands now, drivers will need to be ready to comply in just a few short weeks.

With truck driver hours of service rules back in the courts you've most likely noticed an uptick in negative news reports about trucking in the general media stories warning of the dangers of killer truckers sharing the highways with hapless four-wheelers and putting everyone's lives at risk.

Men driving trucks big rigs and pickups are the biggest offenders when it comes to breaking passenger restraint laws, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).

Over a year ago, FMCSA shelved plans to make determinations on crash accountability in favor of further study.

Everyone knows that it takes certain special skills and knowledge in order to properly drive certain types of commercial motor vehicles (CMV). However, before the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) implemented its Commercial Driver's License (CDL) Program, if you held a driver's license (for cars), you could legally operate any type of tractor-trailer or buses in many states, as well as in the District of Columbia.

On July 7, 2011, a North American Free Trade Agreement was signed, with little public notice, to allow Mexican trucking companies to haul products on U.S. soil. This agreement is for a period of three years and is related to a proposal presented in 2009.

Many of the new and used big Semi-tractors now have devices available that can be distracting to the driver. There has been some talk of limiting what gadgets are allowed.

Finding a new truck or trailer is not the easiest thing to do when you are on the road all of the time. The research, the legwork and long distance phone calls easily eat up the little free time that you do have. When you do hit pay dirt, the feeling that you have is overwhelming.

Hours of service regulations affect everyone involved in the trucking industry, including drivers, shippers and company owners. The U.S. Department of Transportation is constantly looking for ways to increase the safety of highways in the United States, so the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has revised the hours of service requirements to reflect the latest research findings in regards to public safety.

Currently, a driver may choose to reset his workweek clock to 70 hours simply by taking a voluntary 34-hour break, with no limit to how many such breaks a driver may take during a week.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's, FMCSA, "Drivers of CMVs: Restricting the Use of [Handheld] Cellular Phones" ruling will be put into effect starting January 3, 2012.

In this post we look at the FMCSA's approach to cell phone restriction proposals: Texting is subject to a nationwide ban under federal regulations; however moves are afoot to extend the ban to all use of cell phones within the cab while driving. With cell phones playing an ever increasingly important role in modern trucking operations, the rules are guaranteed to have serious ramifications for how truckers use cell phones within their day-to-day businesses.

Today we focus on the case of a father and his sons jailed by a federal court for a major trucking scam: A man and his two sons were committed to federal penitentiary for a major trucking scam involving identity theft, double broking and criminal failure to pay legitimate trucking carriers for work performed. This case also underlines the dangers of identity theft for truck drivers and carriers.

There is a federal ban for all interstate truckers from driving and texting, however federal rules apply only to interstate commerce. Or truckers driving solely within a state, federal rules do not apply, however states are promulgating their own rules (which we reported on earlier this month).

Today, the premier online site to find trucks for sale, Trucker to Trucker looks at Peter DeFazio's Excess Detention Time Bill: A new bill has been introduced by Representative Peter DeFazio (D-OR) which aims to compel the US Department of Transportation to conduct studies into detention practices within the trucking industry. The bill acts as an adjunct to the proposals for the Hours of Service rules which are being promulgated by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Association (FMCSA).

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is busy implementing the Compliance Safety Accountability (CSA) program, however the software developer behind it is critical of the failure to provide drivers access to their information. A core platform of the CSA program is that it will allow the exchange of information to flow easily across federal and state agencies, through to fleet managers and intermediate users, such as shipping brokers.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is using a two part study from Washington State University as the basis for revisions to the Hours of Service (HOS) rules. The study is behind the 34 hour restart proposals which also recommends two full nights of rest time. The findings are now being strongly questioned by the trucking industry, particularly in respect of night drivers.

We're staying with the sleep issue for two days on the run here - yesterday we dealt with the FMCSA's proposed HOS rule changes and the listening session coming up on February 17th in Arlington, Virginia. Today, we'll deal with a lesser known, but troubling issue of the FMCSA's sleep apnea study.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has announced a listening session for comments from the trucking industry on the proposed Hours of Service (HOS) changes. The listening session will be broadcast over the Internet and will be held in ArlingtonVa. on February 17th.

The showpiece of the new CSA program is the SMA, or Safety Measurement System. SMS analyzes inspections, law enforcement reports and crash data to assess a carrier's road performance. From these multiple data sources, the SMS will extract the carrier's safety record, especially focusing on safety violations. Using this information, the FMSCA enforcement units will be able to respond proactively to violators, or to provide advice on remedial action for carriers who are borderline cases, before the situation deteriorates.

Once upon a time CSA stood for Confederate States of America, but the Union won and the federal government uses the acronym for its Compliance Safety Accountability Program. A new CSA version was launched a couple of weeks before Christmas in time for carriers to use their holiday home time to brush up on the latest initiative.

The Federal Motor Safety Carrier Administration (FMSCA) introduced a new Electronic OnBoard Recorders (EOBR) ruling in April 2010. The EOBR rule comes into effect on June 4, 2012 and for the first time it mandates EOBR use for nominated groups of carriers. The bottom line is that FMSCA will be able to say who must install EOBR to ensure Hours of Service (HOS) compliance.

The Federal Motor Safety Carrier Administration (FMSCA) introduced a new Electronic OnBoard Recorders (EOBR) ruling in April.