DOT focuses on regulatory reform

For decades, truck drivers have complained that they are overregulated and that many of the regulations on the books have no connection to highway safety.

The current administration heard the complaints and is in the process of reducing the number of regulations in the trucking industry.

On June 27, the U.S. Department of Transportation reaffirmed its commitment to a regulatory rollback when it announced nine “Pro-Trucker” initiatives.

“FMCSA’s deregulatory initiative is slashing red tape and eliminating burdensome regulations, which generated nearly 25,000 unnecessary violations in 2024,” the agency wrote in a fact sheet about its “Pro-Trucker Package.” “The proposed actions eliminate over 1,800 words from federal regulations and are estimated to save the motor carrier industry millions annually.”

Regulatory rollback

Reducing regulations was a focus of President Donald Trump’s first term in office. That focus has been turbocharged in his second term.

In 2017, Trump said that before a new regulation could be added, two others needed to be removed. Days after being sworn in for his second term, Trump issued an executive order requiring that at least 10 regulations be identified for elimination before a new regulation is finalized.

In April, the DOT asked the public to help identify regulations that could be modified, repealed or amended without hindering safety. The public, including truck drivers, responded with more than 900 comments providing recommendations on regulations they believed could be removed.

Many of the comments from truckers focused on big-ticket issues, such as hours-of-service regulations, the electronic logging device mandate and the speed limiter proposal.

Although the DOT didn’t repeal any regulations directly tied to those three issues, it did address all three topics in the “Pro-Trucker Package.” The DOT proposed two pilot programs aimed at providing truckers more flexibility in the hours of service, killed a rulemaking to mandate speed limiters and confirmed that an ELD exemption would remain in place for older trucks.

FMCSA also already has taken steps to rescind some of the lesser-known regulations.

In May, the DOT announced that it had targeted 50 proposals or final rules that could be rolled back. Twenty of those involved FMCSA.

“Big government has been a big failure,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in May. “Under President Trump’s leadership, my department is slashing duplicative and outdated regulations that are unnecessarily burdensome, waste taxpayer dollars and fail to ensure safety. These are commonsense changes that will help us build a more efficient government that better reflects the needs of the American people.”

One of those proposals involves rescinding the requirement that rear impact guards must be permanently marked or labeled with a certification from the manufacturer. There were instances of motor carriers being cited for missing or faded labels. However, FMCSA is moving the focus to the condition of the guards and not the label.

“The certification label or marking provides motor carriers purchasing new trailers or new impact guards to replace damaged devices with a means to determine whether the equipment is certified as meeting the FMVSS,” the agency wrote. “However, the labeling or marking requirement has proven problematic for motor carriers when the label or marking becomes illegible or wears off during the service life of the trailer or guard.”

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association has long advocated for more focus on actual safety rather than compliance with regulations that often have nothing to do with the likelihood of a crash.

On June 27, the DOT announced a commitment to improving the profession for truck drivers by reducing burdensome regulations, modernizing driver resources and cracking down on bad actors.

The nine initiatives: