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Costly Detour Towards Trucking Certification

By Jay Barry Harris

Safe driving is a paramount goal of every motor carrier. From driver training to utilizing the finest technology available, the trucking industry strives to keep the highways as safe as possible and to ensure the smooth flow of cargo across our country. In conjunction with self-imposed industry standards, the federal government also plays a role in achieving safer highways chiefly through the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). It adopts regulations, which then become a necessary component of any interstate trucking company’s means of conducting business.

Ostensibly proposed to further this goal, the FMCSA regulations mandating comprehensive training for new drivers to obtain a commercial drivers’ license are counter productive. Under these regulations, the FMCSA requires 120 hours of classroom training, of which 44 hours include behind-the-wheel training, before a new driver can qualify to receive his CDL. Upon completion of the training, an applicant will receive a certification that can only be issued by an accredited school. The FMCSA estimates that it will cost a CDL applicant $3,000 (at an estimated $25 per hour) to complete this training.

The FMCSA contends this training is essential to promoting safety. It asserts that new drivers have the greatest propensity to become involved in accidents, many of which are serious, and that additional training will help address this increasingly costly problem. The proposed regulations are not only a costly and inefficient means to increase driver safety, but they will also be an impediment to attracting new drivers to an industry in which driver shortage is already an acute problem.

Certainly increasing highway safety is a noble goal. At first blush, the proposed regulations requiring enhanced training of the inexperienced driver seem like a rational means to achieve that goal. However, this approach has several fundamental flaws.

First, the FMSCA proposed regulations equate competency, as represented by this new certification process, with driver skill. The FMCSA assumes all new drivers need and will benefit from 120 hours of training. This assumption ignores each driver’s individual capabilities. Some drivers can master the skills provided by the training with less time and money than the required 120 hours.

Second, the proposed regulations are based upon an early 1980s Federal Highway Administration (FWHA) study and a 1995 FMCSA study entitled the “Adequacy Report.” The FHWA study was completed before the advent of the CDL licensing requirements. The Adequacy Report recommended that entry-level driver training include behind-the-wheel training without any mention of mandating a certain number of hours. Clearly, these studies do not take into account or evaluate the current state of new driver training in the trucking industry.

Third, the FMCSA seeks to impose these mandates while acknowledging that no studies correlate the proposed curriculum with increased highway safety. In fact, it invites comment from the trucking industry or others who might have information either supporting or discrediting this supposed link. Regardless of the evidence, the FMCSA recommends moving forward with the three-year phase-in of the regulations. Ironically, despite no substantiation of the policy resulting in fewer accidents, it will impose significant costs upon new CDL applicants and possibly discourage potential qualified drivers from entering the trucking industry.

Fourth, as a federal agency, the FMSCA only has jurisdiction over interstate commerce. Left untouched by this proposal are the intrastate drivers, not an insignificant segment of the driving pool. It seems illogical that interstate drivers need the additional training while intrastate drivers do not.
Finally, one cannot ignore the impact that these proposed regulations could have upon civil litigation that is generated from accidents in which trucks are involved. Plaintiff’s counsel or their experts may try to use the FMCSA regulations to discredit the trucking companies’ programs in an attempt to obtain larger verdicts and even possibly punitive damages.

The FMCSA effort to increase highway safety is praiseworthy. But to mandate a costly certification process for new drivers without any data that supports its objective is an unwise and potentially ineffective solution. Perhaps a more reasonable approach would be for the federal government to use its “power of the purse” to encourage the states to adopt more stringent testing for new CDL applicants.

The states could test those areas that the FMCSA believes are critical to increasing driver skill. If behind-the-wheel training is a key component, the states could require each CDL applicant to furnish a certificate, confirming that the applicant has satisfied the required number of hours behind the wheel. Passing the CDL test would then reflect the same level of competency as the proposed certification from the accredited institution. This system would also allow each applicant to decide how he or she wanted to best prepare for the CDL test and eliminate the need to establish government accredited institutions.

The industry should also be allowed the opportunity to respond to this perceived need. Many trucking companies have incorporated intensive new driver training courses. Yet, the proposed regulations do not account for the role that these programs can play in increasing safety.

By ignoring specific needs and trying to treat the problem nationwide by enacting generalized regulations, the FMCSA could be imposing costly and potentially dangerous problems to the industry they are trying to protect.

Jay Barry Harris is a shareholder with Fineman Krekstein & Harris and is a member of the DRI Board of Directors, a former chair of the DRI Trucking Law Committee and defends numerous trucking companies and insurers throughout the United States.

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