Feds Attempt to Plug the Holes in Commercial Driver Licensing

When Amtrak’s City of New Orleans slammed into a steel-laden flatbed trailer rolling over a track in Bourbonnais, Ill., in March, it did more than take the lives of 11 train passengers and raise another outcry about safety at grade crossings.

The crash spotlighted some of the deficiencies that undercut the commercial driver licensing system, which is based on the value and timeliness of state reports and the accuracy of driver histories.

Although professional drivers are largely honoring the one-license mandate behind the CDL, it is not getting all the bad commercial vehicle operators off the road. A series of federal studies indicates that at least 10% of drivers behind the wheel of a big rig may be operating without a valid CDL at all — and most of them get away with it.

The CDL system is likely to come under scrutiny when the National Transportation Safety Board convenes a hearing Sept. 13 to 15 in Chicago on the causes of the Bourbonnais collision. Whether the Illinois Department of Motor Vehicles was aware of the driver’s full history of violations when it handed him a provisional operator’s permit will be one of the significant questions.

Although his CDL had been suspended following a series of traffic violations, truck driver John Stokes was permitted to operate the tractor-trailer as his livelihood under a probationary license granted by the DMV.

Safety researchers contend the modern CDL system, placed into operation by a 1986 act of Congress, has succeeded in squelching most of the advantages commercial drivers may once have found in holding permits from several different states. Drivers say it’s just not worth trying to beat the system with multiple licenses, according to Deborah Jaeger, whose company, TML Information Services, did a study on CDL effectiveness for the federal government.

Yet the system is only as good as the information that backs it.

A driver’s history can be riddled with gaps in the record of moving violations — this goes for commercial drivers as well as private motorists. Much of the weakness lies in the way moving violation convictions are recorded — or not — and in the way driver information is passed from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and on to employers.

For the full story, see the Sept. 6 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.