FMCSA Proposes Ending Drivers' Annual List of Traffic Violations
A December 2020 proposal would drop the yearly driver-prepared list of traffic convictions and require carriers to get annual driving records from Canadian and Mexican licensing authorities too.
In December 2020, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) proposed ending a long-standing paperwork requirement for truck and bus drivers: the annual list of traffic violations. A notice of proposed rulemaking published December 14, 2020, would remove 49 CFR 391.27, "Record of violations," along with references to it elsewhere in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations.
The rule FMCSA wanted to drop
Under section 391.27, a motor carrier had to require each driver, at least once every 12 months, to give the carrier a list of every traffic violation the driver had been convicted of, or forfeited bond or collateral for, during the previous 12 months. Parking violations were excluded. Drivers with nothing to report had to sign a certification saying so. The carrier then kept the list or certification in the driver qualification file.
FMCSA said this requirement largely duplicated another rule, section 391.25(a). That rule required carriers to request each driver's motor vehicle record (MVR) every year from every state where the driver held or had held a commercial licence or permit during the past year, review it, and keep a copy in the qualification file. The agency proposed to keep the annual MVR requirement.
Closing the gap for Canadian and Mexican drivers
FMCSA pointed out one weakness in relying on MVRs alone. As written, the annual inquiry rule only covered records from U.S. states, so it did not reach drivers licensed by a foreign authority.
To fill that gap, FMCSA proposed amending section 391.25(a) so carriers would have to make the annual inquiry to each licensing authority where a driver held or had held a commercial licence or permit. In practice, that meant carriers would need to request the MVR equivalent from Canadian and Mexican licensing authorities. FMCSA also proposed matching changes to the hiring rules in sections 391.21 and 391.23, which deal with employment applications and pre-hire inquiries.
The agency said the effect would be small, since only a small share of drivers working in the U.S. were licensed outside the country. Using its 2018 count of 6.2 million commercial drivers, FMCSA estimated that at most 2.0% worked for Canadian carriers operating in the U.S. and 0.5% for Mexican carriers.
Estimated savings
FMCSA estimated that removing the annual list would save drivers and carriers $40.1 million over 10 years undiscounted, or $28.1 million at a 7% discount rate. That works out to about $4.0 million a year. Drivers would no longer spend time preparing lists, and carriers would no longer file them. The agency said the proposal was part of its regulatory reform effort to remove costly, redundant and burdensome rules, and that it did not expect any negative effect on safety.
Comment period
As a proposal, the change did not alter anything for carriers in December 2020. Section 391.27 remained in force, and carriers still had to collect the annual lists. FMCSA asked for public comments, including on the related information collection, by February 12, 2021, under docket FMCSA-2018-0224.
Archive: this article describes rules and events as of December 2020. Regulations may have changed since, so check the current rule before relying on it.