The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will propose a regulation later this year that would absolve truck drivers of their duty to file reports about truck and trailer inspections that do not find any equipment defects, a federal official said.
Repealing the “outdated” requirement, first instituted in 1978, would save the trucking industry $1.5 billion a year “without adversely affecting safety,” Polly Trottenberg, undersecretary for policy at the Department of Transportation, said at a hearing of the House Committee on Small Business earlier this month.
“We know that FMCSA’s regulations can have a large impact on the trucking industry, particularly small and independent carriers, and this proposal could make a real dramatic difference for those small carriers,” Trottenberg told the committee.
The action is part of the Obama administration’s Retrospective Regulatory Review plan, launched in January 2011 with the goal of eliminating unnecessary, duplicative or excessively burdensome regulations.
Last June, FMCSA repealed the requirement to file no-defect driver vehicle inspection reports for only intermodal chassis.
Of all of the regulations DOT is considering revising under the regulatory review, the no-defect report rule will save small businesses the most money, Trottenberg said.
For additional coverage, see the May 20 print edition of Transport Topics.
