FMCSA Panel Starts Review to Simplify Rules’ Language
Eric Miller/TTThis story appears in the June 20 print edition of Transport Topics.
A Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration advisory committee last week began a comprehensive review of the agency’s plain language “guidance documents,” aimed at helping carriers, drivers and inspectors interpret the 700 regulations that govern the industry.
Col. Scott Hernandez, chief of the Colorado Department of Public Safety and chairman of the agency’s Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee, or MCSAC, said the nearly 20-year-old guidance in some cases was outdated, redundant or so confusing that law enforcement officers in some states were not enforcing some of the regulations.
“When in doubt, don’t document at all,” Hernandez told the committee.
FMCSA requested the 20-member advisory committee’s assistance in meeting a FAST Act mandate that the agency review the documents.
The current hours-of-service guidance documents will be the first addressed.
The FAST Act requires that, not later than Dec. 4, the agency conduct the initial review of all its guidance documents and ensure that they are current and are made readily accessible to the public.
The advisory committee plans to meet again for two or three days in October to prepare its final report.
MCSAC includes representatives from trucking, busing, law enforcement, trade unions, driver training schools and public safety groups.
The latest comprehensive review of the guidance documents, which pose and answer questions related to specific situations and how they will be enforced, was in 1997.
The congressional requirement is for the agency’s guidance documents to be “consistent and clear, uniformly and consistently enforced, and still necessary.”
At Hernandez’s suggestion, the committee began going through the current hours-of-service guidance documents first, tossing some aside, retaining others and calling for clearer language in still others.
“Hours-of-service requirements make up the majority of all DataQs inquiries/reviews,” according to a memo written to Hernandez that outlined the primary guidance document concerns of law enforcement. “Several of these interpretations were not updated to align with the property carrier hours-of-service rules enacted in 2003.”
The DataQs process allows commercial motor vehicle drivers and carriers to request and track a review of federal and state violations and other safety data that they feel may be incomplete or incorrect.
For example, during the first day of its two-day meeting last week, MCSAC recommended retaining the following guidance:
Question: Are there allowances made in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSRs) for delays caused by loading and unloading?
Guidance: No. Although the regulations do make some allowances for unforeseen contingencies, such as in adverse driving conditions and emergency conditions, loading and unloading delays are not covered by these sections.
Committee members agreed that a current guidance question for a sleeper berth issue needed to be revised to align with current regulations. It reads:
Question: May sleeper berth time and off-duty periods be combined to meet the eight-hour off-duty requirement?
Guidance: Yes, as long as the eight-hour period is consecutive and not broken by on-duty or driving activities. This does not apply to drivers at natural gas or oil well locations who may separate the periods.
Other regulatory guidance issues that Hernandez said need attention included:
• Conflicts that highlight the need for drivers to have an appropriate understanding of commercial driver license regulations.
• A section that contains interpretations that need to be clarified or put into regulations to be consistent with current enforcement philosophies.
• A section that does not take into account new speed limits and changes to hours-of-service rules.
• A failure to include a significant number of enforcement memorandums that have not been included in the interpretations or regulations to clarify specific issues.
Committee member Jane Mathis, a Florida real estate agent and board member of Parents Against Tired Truckers, questioned the need for guidance.
“Why can’t the regulations be written clearly in the first place?” she asked.
Larry Minor, FMCSA’s associate administrator for policy, said they are written in plain English but because of legal considerations are not always clear.
Although the guidance is helpful, Hernandez said in an interview that attempting to clarify how regulations might be enforced in every situation is impossible.
While not all states officially adopt the federal guidance, they all enforce the regulations.
