Are municipal trucks exempt from Federal Annual Inspections

They probably are exempt. Not that it matters, because a DOT wouldn’t ever mess with one anyway.

 

I doubt it if they are over 26,001 pounds. Let one cross the line, hit a school bus or kill a trooper. An ambulance chasing attorney would have a field day with that. It happened to a dairy in Florida a few years back. Agricultural exemption? but it was running the road.

 

Federal annual inspections only apply to interstate motor carriers. A municipal government agency is not a motor carrier, even though they operate large vehicles that require a CDL and sometimes cross state lines (at least where I'm from). Not being considered a interstate motor carrier, or a motor carrier at all, would keep them exempt from the annual inspection requirements found in 49 CFR Part 396. As for other inspections, each state may have their own requirements as to what vehicles get inspected and which do not. Here in Pennsylvania all of our state and local government vehicles get an annual safety inspection and decal, including police and fire vehicles.

The exception to most Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations for government vehicles is found in 390.3(f) as below:

§ 390.3 General applicability.

(f) Exceptions. Unless otherwise specifically provided, the rules in this subchapter do not apply to—

(1) All school bus operations as defined in § 390.5, except for §§ 391.15(e) and (f), 392.15, 392.80, and 392.82 of this chapter;
(2) Transportation performed by the Federal government, a State, or any political subdivision of a State, or an agency established under a compact between States that has been approved by the Congress of the United States;
(3) The occasional transportation of personal property by individuals not for compensation and not in the furtherance of a commercial enterprise;
(4) The transportation of human corpses or sick and injured persons;
(5) The operation of fire trucks and rescue vehicles while involved in emergency and related operations;​

This is why most government employees do not need a medical card unless their state law says different. This would be what an exempt intrastate certification on your CDL would be for, operating government vehicles. Part 390 is in Subchapter B, and provides an exemption from the rules within Subchapter B, which is the majority of the FMCSA safety regulations that drivers are familiar with. The one exclusionary phrase, "unless otherwise specifically provided" is the catch all that allows part 382 and 383 to still apply (drug testing and CDL) plus a few other rules.

 

Let a school bus hit you.
I guarantee they won’t pay, had one hit my pickup and break the mirror off, kept driving. Said she didn’t know it.
She broke the stop sign off the bus that was folded closed.