FMCSA Delays Part of Chassis Rule to 2012 to Review Driver Inspection Reports Process

This story appears in the May 30 print edition of Transport Topics.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is again delaying one of the last steps to complete implementation of its chassis maintenance rule that’s meant to make the equipment safer.

The agency on May 20 said it would postpone a requirement that drayage drivers submit an inspection report when chassis are returned to an intermodal terminal, which was scheduled to take effect on June 30. Instead, FMCSA set a new deadline of June 30, 2012, for the report filing requirement, saying it needed the additional time for review and public comment.

Implementation of the rule — which still hasn’t fully taken effect nearly six years after Congress mandated it in August 2005 — began in 2009 and made the equipment provider responsible for providing a safe chassis, the intent being to relieve the trucker of legal responsibility for chassis condition. The driver’s vehicle inspection report, or DVIR, was created as a means of alerting the equipment provider to defects needing repair before the chassis goes out on the street again.

“This action is being taken to provide the agency with sufficient time to address, through a notice-and-comment rulemaking proceeding, a petition to rescind the requirement for no-defect DVIRs,” the Federal Register notice said.

Last year, the Ocean Carrier Equipment Management Association and the Institute of International Container Lessors, asked for and received a delay of the DVIR filing requirement until June 30 of this year. The two groups, which represent container owners and lessors, said reports shouldn’t have to be filed on the 94% to 96% of chassis that don’t have a defect.

Truckers in the late 1990s began the fight to make chassis owners responsible for the equipment’s safety and maintenance, and they finally succeeded in the 2005 federal transportation spending legislation.

Three years later, FMCSA published proposed rules and set a timetable for gradual implementation that at first stretched into 2010.

The DVIR reporting requirement was one of the last two steps needed before all provisions of the rule were to go fully into effect.

The other step, currently slated to start July 1, is formal audits meant to gauge how well the equipment providers — primarily ocean carriers or lessors — are complying with the rule.

Curtis Whalen, executive director of the Intermodal Motor Carriers Conference, welcomed the closer look at the DVIRs.

“We still need more time to look at this issue,” he told Transport Topics on May 21, adding that FMCSA needs to pay more attention to the pre-trip inspections that drivers must do when they pick up the equipment.

Pre-trip inspections need to be improved, Whalen said, so drivers always have full access to the chassis, which often are stored in such a way that brakes or other parts can’t be fully inspected.

As a result, he said, drivers are being wrongly charged with violations they aren’t able to detect before taking the chassis on the road.

“The implementation is not going well,” Whalen said. “There are still too many defects being charged to drivers.”

He also expressed concern that the start of “live” audits on July 1 would detect extensive problems with chassis maintenance as well as paperwork errors such as inspection stickers that are missing or out-of-date.

“FMCSA shares the motor carrier industry’s concern regarding the accuracy of recording violations found during roadside inspections,” agency spokeswoman Candice Tolliver told TT. “FMCSA will continue to work closely with inspectors to ensure that enforcement of this safety-critical rule is effectively implemented.”

Whalen said he based that view on comments he has heard about the agency’s experience in test audits that were done earlier this year.