FMCSA to delay rule that would eliminate drivers’ need to carry medical cards

April 27, 2018

Mark Schremmer

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The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration plans to push back the compliance date three years for a federal rule that would eliminate the need for truck drivers to carry their medical cards.

A notice was published to the Federal Register on Friday, April 27, that FMCSA’s Medical Examiner’s Certification Integration final rule that was scheduled to go into effect on June 22 would be delayed until June 22, 2021.

The rule requires the FMCSA to electronically transmit from the National Registry to the state driver’s license agencies the driver identification information, examination results, and restriction information from examinations performed for commercial motor vehicle drivers. In addition, it requires FMCSA to transmit electronically to state driver’s license agencies the medical variance information for all commercial vehicle drivers and to post the driver identification, examination results, and restriction information received electronically from FMCSA.

However, the National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners website suffered a security breach on Dec. 1, and has been down for nearly five months.

“FMCSA has reluctantly concluded that it will not be able to electronically transmit medical examiner certification information from the national registry to the state driver’s licensing agencies nor will the state driver’s licensing agencies be able to electronically receive the medical examiner certification information from the national registry for posting to the CDL information system driver record as intended by the Medical Examiner’s Certification Integration final rule,” the FMCSA notice said.

The agency vaguely referenced the website hack as a reason for moving the compliance date.

“Due to a number of delays, including an incident that occurred in early December 2017 causing the agency to take the national registry offline leading to interruptions in the development of the process for the electronic transmission of medical examiner certification information and medical variances, the final specifications … have not been completed,” the notice said.

FMCSA said moving the compliance date back three years will give the state driver’s licensing agencies sufficient time to make the necessary information technology program changes.

However, beginning on June 2, certified medical examiners will be required to report results of all complete commercial motor vehicle drivers’ medical examinations to FMCSA by midnight (local time) the day following an examination, but they must continue issuing the original paper medical examiner certificate to qualified drivers. All drivers will continue to provide the state driver’s licensing agency with proof of medical certification.

FMCSA is accepting public comments on the notice for the next 60 days.