Tougher Enforcement Against Unsafe Carriers
 
Bill Quade, FMCSA's Associate Administrator of Enforcement and Program Development, addressed ATA's annual meeting. Here's a recap of what's ahead:

FMCSA plans to step up enforcement on unsafe carriers, especially newly established or re-established carriers. Stepped-up "vetting of all new operators," has started with buses and household goods movers. Later this year, FMCSA will implement the new-entrant rule which will subject new carriers to a review of 16 "threshold violations," such as failing to establish a drug and alcohol testing program within the first 18 months a company is in business.

The previous new-entrant program mostly was an educational outreach program. If the new carriers that are joining do not improve their compliance, FMCSA expects up to 40% to fail these audits. The poor performers who are not bothering to pay attention to the rules and regulations will be targeted.

FMCSA currently subjects new bus and moving companies to "intense vetting", which is so intense that the agency is finding that about 10% of companies do not follow through with their applications when asked the basic questions about who you are and who your owners are. The vetting is manually intensive so trucking companies are not yet subject to the review but eventually with improvements to FMCSA's information technology they will be.
 
*** Questions about this info? Contact Linda Norman at 703-821-0000 or linda@donnormanassociates.com ***