Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/647193
NEWS & NOTES 20 // OWNER OPERATOR // FEBRUARY 2016 Detention time study: The bill requires FMCSA to study and produce a report on how truck driver detention at shippers and receivers impacts drivers, their schedules, their pay and impedance of flow of U.S. freight. Insurance rule study: Likewise, Congress directs FMCSA to further study carrier liabil- ity insurance minimums and before initiating a rule to raise them. The provision essentially adds another hurdle to FMCSA's potential work to increase the amount of liability insur- ance required to be held by motor carriers, cur- rently at $750,000 for general freight haulers. Changes to FMCSA rulemaking process: In producing new regulations, FMCSA must now also include a "regulatory impact analysis," as the bill calls it, for each rule, based on things like effects on carriers of different sizes and ap- plications. It must also use data "representative of commercial motor vehicle operators or mo- tor carriers, or both, that will be impacted by the final rule" and to "formulate its estimates and findings based on the best available science." Military veterans in the trucking industry: The bill requires FMCSA to change rules gov- erning CDL issuance to allow military veterans with experience operating equipment compa- rable to a heavy-duty truck to more easily ob- tain a civilian truck operator job. The changes would let military driving experience count to- ward skills and driving tests. It also would allow military vets to receive their medical certi- fication from Veterans Affairs doctors rather than those in FMCSA's National Registry of Medical Examiners. Windshield-mounted tech: The bill makes a small change to federal regulations on windshield-mounted devices, coming in response to grow- ing interest among carriers and drivers in windshielded- mounted cameras and more. Out: Under-21 truckers: Though both the preliminary House and Sen- ate bills brought to the bicameral conference committee included measures to let states to enter into compacts with one another to al- low 18-21-year-old CDL holders to cross state lines, the final version of the bill does not. It instead sets up a controlled study, to be per- formed by FMCSA, that will collect data on under-21 truckers who are former members of the military or reserves. The agency will study the "benefits and safety impacts," per the bill, of allowing such truckers to drive in interstate commerce. Size/weight reform: No measures to change truck size and weight standards in the U.S. made it in the bill. Some lawmakers and lob- bying groups pushed for raising federal weight limits to 91,000 and increasing maximum-al- lowed length of tandem trailers to 33 feet from the current 28-foot max. 'Carrier hiring standards': The House high- The bill requires FMCSA to produce a study on truck driver detention time at shippers and receivers and its im- pact on safety, drivers and their wages and national freight movement.