One national trucking organization continues to lean on Congress to toughen truck driver training and licensing regulations, in an effort to improve highway safety and to make “trucking an appealing and sustainable career for professional drivers.”
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association Monday sent a letter to the leadership of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, and the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation about things the association wants included in the Highway Bill Reauthorization legislation that is being developed.
In the letter signed by OOIDA President and CEO Todd Spencer, the association said, “Simply put, far too many individuals are entering the trucking industry without the basic skills necessary to safely operate a commercial vehicle. Additionally, inconsistent and improper licensing processes among states has permitted hundreds of thousands of unqualified drivers to work on our nation’s roads which has needlessly resulted in numerous fatal crashes.”
To mitigate those issues, the OOIDA urged the committees to address five issues, including:
- Bolstering Entry-Level Driver Training standards
- Have the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration better utilize the Training Provider Registry to remove bad actors
- Strengthen new-entrant audit requirements
- Establish more oversight and accountability for third-party commercial driver’s license testing providers
The OOIDA also reiterated its outlook on the supply of drivers available to carriers, and its role in the current freight downturn.
“The trucking industry has suffered from an overcapacity of truck drivers, which has helped drive the longest- running freight recession in decades,” said the OOIDA letter. “To be clear, there is no “driver shortage” in trucking. Instead, there is tremendous driver turnover as under-trained drivers are put into a new job they are unprepared for.”
OOIDA said Congress should reject legislation, such the DRIVE-Safe Act, that would exacerbate driver turnover by placing younger drivers in challenging and unappealing positions.
“Rather than making it easier for unsafe drivers to enter our industry, Congress should take aggressive action that will strengthen training, licensing, and qualification protocols for commercial truck drivers.”
The OOIDA also said it supports restoring English Language Proficiency violations into the out-of-service criteria and a recently-announced Interim Final Rule on the issuance of non-domiciled commercial driver’s licenses . It said Congress should immediately move to codify the recent IFR by passing Rep. David Rouzer’s Non-Domiciled CDL Integrity Act.
In concluding its letter, OOIDA said it “appreciates the steps USDOT has already taken to improve safety in the trucking industry this year, but we believe Congress must do more to prevent bad actors from ever operating on our nation’s highways.”
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