FMCSA Office of Analysis, Research and Technology (ART) to Host Webinar: FMCSA Pre-employment Screening Program
Mark your calendar!
Date/Time: Wednesday, February 24, 2010, 1:00–2:00 p.m. Eastern Time
The Pre-employment Screening Program (PSP) is a new, national-level program designed to allow motor carriers to see a driver’s crash and inspection file when they apply for employment with the motor carrier. The program, required by Congress through the latest transportation reauthorization bill, SAFETEA-LU, is voluntary, and the driver must give consent to allow his or her records to be viewed by their potential employer. The driver record will be comprised of data found in FMCSA’s Motor Carrier Information Management System (MCMIS). FMCSA is taking every possible measure to assure the data is protected and handled according to all applicable laws and regulations. The Analysis Division’s Michael Johnsen will provide an update of the PSP, which is currently under development and expected to be available to the public Spring 2010.
How to Register
You can register by going to http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/facts-research/art-webinars-future.asp and clicking on the heading “FMCSA Pre-employment Screening Program.” You will be emailed a confirmation notice within 24 hours of registration that will provide information on how to participate as well as contact information for technical questions on the webinar or for special accommodations.
Please register no later than COB on Tuesday, February 23, 2010.We welcome all interested parties, including carriers and their safety managers, our State partners, and FMCSA headquarters and field staff. An International phone number will also be provided.
FROM:The Lucas County Traffic Safety Program, the Lucas County Truck Safety Committee and the Toledo Trucking Association
RE: Safety Posters
In 2010, the members of the Lucas County Truck Safety Committee, a standing committee of the Lucas County Traffic Safety Program, will develop a series of four posters targeting commercial drivers and providing them with safety tips and information. There will be four posters designed in the year 2010.
The posters are designed with safety messages and information specifically for the commercial driver and are being emailed to members of the Toledo Trucking Association and the Ohio Trucking Association.You can print the posters in 8.5 X 11, 8.5 X 13 or 11 X 17 sizes.We are asking your company to print out the poster for display in the break room, at the time clock, or wherever drivers might congregate.They could also be used as pay check stuffers.
There is no charge to receive these posters.In 2010, the Truck Safety Committee will be sending you posters in early January, April, July, and September and once again all will be directed at commercial drivers and their safety.
If you have questions, please feel free to contact either Lonnie Hoepf or myself.Thank you in advance for your assistance in getting these safety messages out to commercial drivers.
Sincerely,
Gwen Neundorfer, CoordinatorLonnie Hoepf, Safety Director
Yesterday morning US DOT Secretary Ray LaHood and FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro have announced a new ban on texting by commercial motor vehicle drivers,
with new “regulatory guidance” to be officially published in the Federal Register later this week.
Although current safety regulations do not include an explicit prohibition against texting while driving, FMCSA feels that an existing general restriction against the use of additional equipment and accessories that decrease safety applies to the use of electronic devices for texting. FMCSA will further explain that handheld or otherwise wireless electronic devices that are brought into a CMV are considered
additional equipment. The agency will define texting as the review of, or preparation and transmission of, typed messages though any such device or the engagement in any form of electronic data retrieval through any such device.
FMCSA will state that it knows the concerns of carriers
that have invested significant money in electronic dispatching tools and clearly says that this new guidance should not be construed to prohibit the use of such technology. Guidance will also not be construed to prohibit the use of cell phones for purposes other than text messaging.
TRUCK-INVOLVED FATALITIES DROP AGAIN
The rate of truck-involved fatalities in the United States dropped 12.3% in 2008 to a record low, the American Trucking
Assns. said last week. The figure fell to 1.86 fatalities
per 100 million miles, the lowest since records began being kept in 1975, from 2.12 per 100 million miles in 2007.
ATA calculated the figures based on vehicle miles traveled data recently released from the Federal Highway Administration and crash data previously released by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. The drop is the largest year-to-year drop on record and the fifth consecutive drop in the annual rate. Injuries from truck-involved crashes fell 11 % to 39.6 per 100 million miles, from 44.4 per 100 million in 2007. ATA attributes the declines to the hours-of-service regulations that took effect in 2005. The truck-involved fatality rate fell more than 20% since that year.
ATA’s Dave Osiecki was the first speaker in Tuesday’s “listening session” in Arlington, Va., the first of four such sessions FMCSA is holding around the country on the HOS rules. “In the very real world of trucking, highway safety has improved in the past six years under these rules,” said Osiecki, ATA’s senior vice president of policy and regulatory affairs.
FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro opened the session by saying the agency wanted “to reach out and gather as much information and as many comments as possible — the good, bad and the ugly. “One fatality on the road is one too many and we owe it to the public to do better than we have been doing and I am committed to getting there,” she said.
Ferro told Transport Topics last week that the agency was committed to meeting a July deadline to revise the HOS rule for truck drivers.
Osiecki said the rule could be tweaked by adding a more flexible sleeper-berth provision and that FMCSA should focus its resources on:
• sleep disorder awareness, training and screening;
• promoting the use of fatigue risk management programs;
• increasing the availability of truck parking on important freight corridors; and
• partnering with the trucking and shipping communities to develop an educational process that identifies for drivers the location of available truck parking.
FMCSA has scheduled three more sessions: Friday, Jan. 22, in Dallas, Monday, Jan. 25, in Los Angeles and Thursday, Jan. 28, in Davenport, Iowa. Visit the FMCSA website for more information.
By Transport Topics
July 1, 2009
TO:Trucking Company Managers
FROM:The Lucas County Traffic Safety Program, the Lucas County Truck Safety Committee, and the Toledo Trucking Association
RE:Safety Posters
The members of the Lucas County Truck Safety Committee, a standing committee of the Lucas County Traffic Safety Program, have developed a series of four posters targeting commercial drivers and providing them with safety tips and information.Attached to this email is the third of the four posters.
The posters are designed with safety messages and information specifically for the commercial driver and are being emailed to members of the Toledo Trucking Association and the Ohio Trucking Association.You can print the posters in 8.5 X 11, 8.5 X 13 or 11 X 17 sizes.We are asking your company to print out the poster for display in the break room, at the time clock, or wherever drivers might congregate.They could also be used as pay check stuffers.
There is no charge to receive these posters.The remaining poster will be emailed to you approximately September 1st and will have a different theme or message; however all will be directed at commercial drivers and their safety.
If you have questions, please feel free to contact either Lonnie Hoepf or myself.Thank you in advance for your assistance in getting these safety messages out to commercial drivers.
Sincerely,
Gwen Neundorfer, CoordinatorLonnie Hoepf, Safety Director
