Trucking groups want Congress, FMCSA to crack down on bad actors

Congress and the U.S. Department of Transportation have taken steps to ensure that only skilled and well-trained truck drivers receive a CDL.

Now, two trucking groups are asking lawmakers to prevent unsafe motor carriers from entering the industry.

“Removing unsafe drivers from the road is only part of the solution. To complement this effort, Congress and regulators must do more to prevent unsafe motor carriers from joining the trucking industry in the first place,” OOIDA President Todd Spencer and ATA President Chris Spear wrote in a letter to the leaders of the House Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development. “This will require addressing the resource gap that has left FMCSA’s New Entrant Safety Assurance Program unable to keep pace with the volume of new carriers entering the freight market.”

OOIDA and ATA told lawmakers that although federal law anticipates that new entrant safety audits will occur within the first year of a motor carrier’s operation, that’s not how it works in practice.

“Many carriers wait well beyond a year for an audit, and some never receive one at all,” the trucking groups wrote. “FMCSA data shows that the total number of new entrant safety audits conducted routinely covered less than a quarter of all motor carriers enrolled in the new entrant Program. Even worse, of the audits that were actually conducted, only 58.5% were completed on time. It should be noted that well over 95% of annual new entrant audits are performed by state enforcement agencies, which struggle to recruit and retain commercial vehicle enforcement officers and similarly lack robust resources to focus on these audits. These conditions and the resulting backlog create a dangerous gap that allows chameleon carriers and other bad actors to operate for extended periods – often until a crash or enforcement action reveals underlying fraud or safety violations.”

OOIDA and ATA want Congress to prioritize investments that will allow FMCSA to modernize and expand the New Entrant Safety Assurance Program.

“Strengthening the New Entrant Safety Assurance Program and raising entry qualifications are essential steps toward a more proactive, effective and prevention-focused safety environment for carriers, drivers and the motoring public,” the letter stated. “Earlier and more consistent engagement, coupled with meaningful entry qualifications and checks, will improve safety outcomes, reduce chronic noncompliance, and strengthen DOT’s oversight and enforcement efforts.”

Earlier in March, FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs said the agency plans to create some requirements for new motor carriers.

“New entrant training and testing should be making sure that if you want to be a new motor carrier, you should be able to show some proficiency in the motor carrier operational piece of this,” Barrs said. “There is a requirement for FMCSA to implement this. It should have been done in 2012. We will move forward with that, fulfilling that statutory requirement that was mandated back in that time frame. From the driver training school to getting your CDL to then also coming into the industry, we have to start at the beginning and make sure we strengthen that up … We need to do everything we can to make sure you’ve passed all the barriers on the front end.”

On Feb. 20, Barrs and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy outlined a broad plan of attack to remove unsafe truck drivers and motor carriers. The non-domiciled rule is expected to remove nearly 200,000 CDL holders. However, the agency announced additional efforts to crack down on CDL mills, chameleon carriers and fraudulent ELD manufacturers.

FMCSA has already placed more than 7,000 driver training schools out of operation.

“At the first of the year, we sent investigators across the country to look at the driver training schools to see if they’re complying with the rules and regulations,” Barrs said. “Do they actually have a curriculum to be able to train drivers? Do they have a truck to be able to do the training that’s required? Well, come to find out that wasn’t happening in a lot of the places.”

Although FMCSA has not formally introduced a notice of proposed rulemaking regarding driver training schools, Barrs said he wants a fresh start.

“My thought is to just scrap the entire program the way it is today and start all over,” Barrs said. “That way, we can get the bad actors out. Whatever the reform looks like through our rulemaking process, we’d just start from that day moving forward. The people who want to do it right have no problem doing that.”

The agency wants to ensure that only well-trained and skilled drivers take the wheel of an 80,000-pound commercial motor vehicle.

In all, Barrs said the agency is expected to unveil about nine rules before 2026 is over.

“We have around nine rules that I think we will try to push out this year,” Barrs said. “I know that’s probably pretty aggressive, but that’s our charge, and that’s what we’re going to do, because at the end of the day, this is about safety and making sure that we have the right carriers and the right drivers hauling our freight across the country.” LL