Trucking Awaits Revised Rule Book
Has endless repetition engraved these numbers forever in your gray matter? Do the thousands of entries scattered through the 400-page code of Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations come to mind as quickly as your significant other’s name? Are you a walking encyclopedia of regulatory references? Do your co-workers turn to you rather than dig through grimy, dog-eared leaves?
Be warned: The federal government is rearranging trucking’s safety rule book. A thoroughly revised rule book will make its debut “soon,” in government time — a draft is due to go public sometime this fall. The result, however, could be thicker than a Tom Clancy novel.
The old FMCSR Parts just will not be the same any more. In fact, they will be useless. The biggest shock of adjustment is going to hit those who know the old references by heart.
Instead, everything pertaining to the vehicle, the driver and carrier operations, now spread through the 33 numbered Parts, all the subsets, six appendices and a collection of interpretations, will be neatly brought together under common headings, according to the people who have been rewriting the book for nearly a decade.
Most significantly, the new rule book for trucking will be written in plain, everyday English, say its authors at the Federal Highway Administration’s Office of Motor Carrier and Highway Safety.
For the full story, see the Sept. 6 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.
