FMCSA to Have Enough Medical Examiners When Regulation Takes Effect, Official Says

This story appears in the April 7 print edition of Transport Topics.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration remains confident there will be an adequate number of certified medical examiners in six weeks when the U.S. government supplants individual states’ approaches to truck drivers’ physical exams, an agency official said.

Pamela Perry, nurse consultant in FMCSA’s Office of Carrier, Driver and Vehicle Safety, said 11,000 medical examiners have been certified, with 26,000 more in the process of training and testing.

She spoke here March 27 at a seminar during the Mid-America Trucking Show.

While saying that will be adequate to do physicals for the nation’s 3 million commercial vehicle license holders, Perry also said the agency was concerned about the number of federally certified examiners in rural areas, where many truck drivers live.

FMCSA is implementing the nationwide approach after abuses of the process on the state level. One examiner certified a driver whose health problems led to a bus crash that killed 22 people and reported the same blood pressure for everyone. Another one posted a sign saying, “We pass everybody.”

“We need that national regulation to be able to control that kind of thing,” Perry said.

She also said that FMCSA has no idea how many people do the exams on a state level. Last week, FMCSA invalidated certificates issued by Dr. Paul Besdansky and told drivers he examined to get a new one by May 2.

Drivers whose cards expire after May 21 must have their exams done by someone in the registry, she said, while stressing that drivers who have a valid medical card do not have to get an examination until their card expires.

Perry said there are no changes in the health qualifications, and carriers have the responsibility to make sure drivers have medical cards.

In a separate presentation, Jeffrey Loftus, chief of FMCSA’s technology division in the Office of Analysis, Research and Technology, outlined the transition in the agency’s unified carrier registration system.

The goal, Loftus said, is to have a streamlined system that covers carriers, brokers, intermodal equipment providers and hazardous-materials carriers that now register with the agency through separate forms and processes. Each company will have to pay a $300 registration fee under the new system.

The creation of the URS dates to a 1995 law, though the registration process doesn’t take effect until October 2015. The FMCSA final rule that created the registration process took effect in November last year.

That rule also gave the agency the ability to step in and fine carriers that try to move interstate freight if they don’t have an active DOT number.

“We are really cleaning up the data,” Loftus said, while cautioning that the agency still is working on finalizing its website registration form.

That cleanup process is being done by sending out notifications to carriers to update their DOT information, Loftus said. The notification process began last month.

The new system is separate from the UCR, or Unified Carrier Registration, which allows carriers to register in a single state and complete the registration process for intrastate shipping in every state.

He noted that carriers can continue to update their information and register under the existing procedures between now and the October 2015 launch of the new system.

Updating information now, such as the number of power units and miles driven, may affect their ranking in the Compliance, Safety, Accountability ratings program, Loftus said.