Clearly, safety is not the priority

For decades, OOIDA has fought for stricter driver training standards for professional truck drivers. Finally, in February the entry-level driver training rule took effect.

Was this exactly what OOIDA wanted? No, because it lacks a minimum number of hours behind the wheel. Interestingly enough, you actually need more training hours to be a barber than you do to become a truck driver. It’s crazy!

However, like with everything else in government, this rule is a start. It’s a seed we can grow from – unless we allow it to be killed by an herbicide of exemptions.

Since the driver training regulation went into effect, FMCSA has been flooded with a plethora of exemption requests.

Take a moment and think about this. Since the inception of the CDL, we have had no meaningful training standards. The only “requirements” were set by each state so that a driver could get his or her CDL. Now that we have federal training standards, groups and companies are requesting exemptions from those bare minimum requirements. To whose benefit?

For the very first time, steps have been taken to raise the professionalism and accountability of truck driving schools and the individuals that will be trainers. Doesn’t that honestly make sense? Why wouldn’t we want our trainers to have a minimum amount of time of real-world experience in the field they teach?

Yet, we continue to see request after request for an exemption from the requirement that instructors have “minimum of two years’ experience operating a commercial motor vehicle requiring a CDL of the same (or higher) class, or the same endorsement.” Could someone read the training rule and understand the regulation to teach it in a class? Of course. What they can’t do is put that knowledge into real-world perspective from actual experience on the road.

Not to be outdone by the trucking schools, certain vocations and states are seeking exemptions from either certain parts or all of the driver training standards altogether.

Why? Do they think that some of the people they hire will never leave these states or this part of the industry to do something else? It just doesn’t make good sense.

Finally, my favorite has to be large carriers asking to keep their own “training” programs or expecting relief from having to register each one of their training locations. Come back? Once again, big trucking is focused on profit over safety. Ridiculous!

Anyone who has been in the trucking business for very long knows safety starts at the beginning. Proper training and education for new entrants is a must to elevate our industry and make roads safer. Until the mentality of treating drivers like an endless commodity shifts to investing in the person and his or her safety, there will be no meaningful change in the retention of drivers or in safety for the trucking industry.

If FMCSA truly wants to make the roads safer, it will not grant a single exemption to the driver training regulations. Instead, it will monitor the program for folks trying to bypass it.

Additionally, FMCSA should do the difficult things, such as investing in the person behind the wheel through more meaningful training guidance. That will equip these new drivers to know how to navigate the truck through the best and worst situations. Nothing is a substitute for proper and thorough training. Nothing. LL