The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration wants to know whether or not it’s a good idea to allow the same people who train new truck drivers to decide whether they’ve been trained well enough. They’ve proposed a new rule which would do just that and they’re asking for comment from the public.
Currently, “third party” CDL schools are allowed to train drivers, but they’re not allowed to administer the skills test to their students. This rule was put in place to prevent “pay-to-play” training and fraud.
But according to the FMCSA, this method is inconvenient and costly, so they’re looking at removing the requirement and letting trainers test their own students. The FMCSA says that they think they can eliminate this regulation “without negatively impacting safety.”
Even with current safeguards in place, so-called ‘CDL mills’ churn out barely-trained drivers, some of whom bribe their way past the skills test portion. Just this month, the FBI arrested and charged two Texas Department of Public Services employees with handing out over 200 CDLs in exchange for bribes. Some critics of the FMCSA’s proposed rule say that it would make it that much easier to secure a CDL in exchange for a bribe without having passed or even taken the skills portion of the exam.
Large carrier organizations including the American Trucking Association have spoken in favor of the proposed rule.
“ATA is encouraged that FMCSA is looking for opportunities to make it easier for individuals to obtain their commercial driver’s license,” said ATA spokesman Sean McNally according to TransportTopics. “We believe that the process should be as frictionless and easy to navigate as possible so as to encourage more people to get their CDL.”
You can read the proposed rule and comment on it on the Federal Register website.
Source: truckersreport, overdrive, FMCSA, overdrive, mysanantonio, ttnews
Roger Williamson says
Do not do this. Instructors are under pressure to get these students out. It’s all about numbers. If you stop having a third party do the testing you will be inviting unscrupulous schools to push out students who should not be on the road.
Chad rogers says
Exactly right!
Joel Trout says
They’re already pushing out students who shouldn’t be on the road. This will make it substantially worse and the sad thing about it is that the FMCSA cites safety in their argument.
bill smith says
Only the Government and Truck Driving Schools would think this is a good idea.
Steve says
Oh Yeah that sounds like a Great Idea. Are you People Really that Clueless. Aren’t there enough Knowledge Less Drivers out there now from these so called Drivers Schools. If your going to be that Reckless,Let’s Just start putting CDL’s in a Box Of Cereal. Only Government and The ATA would think this is a Great Idea.
Fozzy says
Who’s kidding who? The vast majority of “trainers” do not have enough experience or the professionalism to train other drivers. The industry has never been serious about the standards of trainers nor are most “trainers”. More rubber stamps to get more unprepared idiots out there into the meat grinder.
Mike says
I mean can you make worse truck drivers than there already are, I say go forth what difference will it make.
Matt says
No! Bad idea!
Does anyone really want companies like Swift, etc, and other less than scrupulous companies and schools, “testing” and giving the thumbs up for a license, especially a trucking co school where the co really needs drivers in the seats?! No!
Plase S. Moore Jr. says
If it’s not broken, dont fix it! Too much government in trucking already. I have 35 years in this industry, and I was judged on a trainers view of my driving skills. Let trucking take care of truck drivers, go fix Washington d.c. we are safer, struggling with eld logs, train the dot on how things dont work like they have been trained, I’m sick and tired of people who don’t know a damn thing about driving and the crap you with stand at shippers, company rules and yes, low pay, and great expectations of a man out on the road with no parking, urine filled parking lots, and unhealthy food. Fix the parking problem and leave trucking alone. You’ve done enough damage already!
Philip Dyar says
What he said!!!!!!
Spyder says
Could’t Have said it better meself
Charlie says
Un f’in believable cram regs down our throat and run the experienced drivers out of the industry. The start churning untrained idiots out into the grinder. More accidents. More regulations. And the ATA thinks it a good idea. Imagine that!!!
Philip Dyar says
Only in the United States
Mongo says
I just retired from trucking due to health reasons. I live near Houston and the news feeds are full of truck ACCIDENTS DAILY! I’ve never seen worse truck drivers! Most are Hispanic driving substandard trucks and trailers. There are too many for DOT to regulate, tailgating, speeding, and just plain road rage between truck drivers and 4 wheelers make Houston the most dangerous city to traverse. I recieved 2 tickets in 20 yrs and 3 million miles and no Accidents! I don’t think I would want to drive truck anymore today.
Danny R Murphy says
The government needs to think about of the stupid things say and do . They put things on paper and say it will work but none has common since yes I said none has common since to what it really takes to be out here on the road day and night. They need to be out here six to eight weeks and not go home.
Randy says
I would definitely recommend that trainers are tested for their knowledge and abilities as I’ve seen trainers who obviously didn’t either know what they were doing or just didn’t give a damn. The bad drivers we have today are a result of the training of poor instructors from major carriers. Now it’s getting worse and worse as time goes on.
Do again Yes to trainers be evaluated.
David Tyler says
Insane would be my comment ! We already have a problem with inexperienced drivers now!
bruce says
The problem is only going to get worse as we go along. Very few people are willing to put up with a job that keeps them away from home for weeks at a time. When you sit down and to the math the pay breaks down $6 bucks an hour in many cases. And this new electronic logs business has many experienced drivers going local instead of interstate.
Steelwheels18 says
“Easier and Frictionless”. Oh by the way newbie here’s your participation trophy. You can pick it up at the door with your complimentary CDL. Welcome to America. WTF. ???? Has Washington and ATA lost their minds?? (Stupid Question) Hire more experienced third party trainers with minimum 3yrs OTR all 48 states Make Prime Swift etc and independent schools be accountable. Also pay the trainer!!’
bruce says
I had a what was suppose to be a career ending injury back in 2007. Twelve years later I was well enough to go back out on the road (as long as I am in an automatic truck and not a manual) so I contacted a few places for a refresher course. Since the state was paying for my retraining I was given a list and had to go where they told me to go. I could not believe the look on the baby faced instructors face when I blew the horn as I was backing up the truck on the range. It was clear he forgot about the rule to let people or a dog or whatever whom might be standing in the back of the truck and you don’t see them know what you are doing. I won’t go into other things that were obvious but I dont think letting these instructors be able to give out licenses is a good idea. That kid would not ride in the truck with me because of how intimidating HE felt. And mind you, he was the instructor, a less than twenty-five year old bubble head.
Randall S North says
Not a rule. Trainers need to avoid polluting a training program with policies and tricks of the trade.
Fred Bacon says
The cdl did not solve any problems. It did create a lot of revenue as do the sleep studies. Too many companies asking drivers to train the newbies they get from dr schools to take them out for a couple weeks and show them the right way to pee in a jug and set it in walmart shopping cart. They only want meat in the seat get the truck out the gate.
Robert says
Yes I knew a jb hunt trainer could not put phone down texting and driving I also giving up cdl and retiring
Brian White says
I received my driver training over 20 years ago, from a state run vo-tech agency.
The instructors turned into test administrators when the time came.
Everything was above board as far as I could tell.
I will say this: If the ATA is pushing for it, it’s probably a bad idea.
Mack says
The hipocrisy of the ATA is apparent in the fact, that on one hand they pushed for E-logs and are pushing for speed limiters on trucks in the name of truck safety, while at the same time advocating for teenagers being allowed to drive their rigs, and now for “making it easier” to get a CDL. Any thinking person, be it a politician, or a truck driver should now realize what really motivates the ATA to do all this lobbying. It isn’t safety. As far as “making it easier” to obtain a CDL, I didn’t think it could get any easier. Apparently I was wrong. Up here in the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario Canada, we have in recent years been flooded by license mills, mostly centred around the South Asian community, some of which have been given the right, or paid for the right to examine their students. The result is: new drivers not only approaching me to back up the truck trailer for them, but asking me questions like “where is the front of the sea container?”, and – hold on to your hats- “how do I turn off the ( fuel) pump?”!!! We now have highways that after years of safety improving, are more dangerous then I ever remember. After 22 years of truck driving throughout the North American continent, only recently, when doing most of my work in Ontario, I have become fearful to drive on our highways. When I see blatantly stupid, foolish, unpredictable, unsafe, super slow in unpleasant weather, or super aggressive toward small vehicles behaviour of a truck, when I look inside the cab, it is almost 100 percent, without a miss, the “new Canadian” driver. Don’t get me wrong, I have no ill will toward the human inside that cab. My frustration is directed first and foremost at the government authorities, who play good lip service to safety, constantly introduce new legislation to appease the lobbyists, the ignorant public and the OTA ( Ontario’s carbon copy of the ATA), that does nothing for safety ( as most recent accident statistics involving trucks show ), but only annoys us and interferes with our job. I have heard the “truck safety” tune from our authorities and the big corporate players since the 1990’s, while at the same time I have observed a rapid detoriation of the driving culture and said safety on our roads. In the past one could at least count on the fellow truck driver to make it easier for you, not to block the centre lane, not to cut you off, and to be predictable. These new drivers drive their rigs, like they drive their cars. There is no difference. And next week we have yet another “truck safety” blitz, which will accomplish nothing other than give juicy statistics to the public in order to show the “hard work” the authorities are doing “with the help and full cooperation of the industry” to improve truck safety on our roads. Please, spare us the b.s.
Mark says
If the FMCSA is truly concerned about safety, we need longer and better training and testing standards. If your going to let trainers do testing then you should allow companies to make their own hours of service rules, it would be the same logic.
Better training and testing along with less restrictive hours of service would improve safety, ie no more racing your clock to find safe parking!
Luke Warm says
Mark gets it!
Grim Reaper says
Well, there was a trainee who was sexually attacked by a so called trainer, not the 1st time this has happened either!!!
Then the schools do 2 weeks of their stuff ( just get em a CDL, DOT Physical and turn em loose)
WHA-DYA-EXPECT!!??????
Jerry miller says
I think the fmcsa should shut there doors and leave the trucking industry alone between the big companies and the government they completely destroyed the trucking industry
Randall S North says
For god sake people google something once before vomiting out your ignorant comments.
The people that will giving these tests are NOT “driver trainers”. They are highly educated, highly skilled, well vetted, and WAY more qualified to give this test than any “driver” that’s posting a comment here.
A child can drive a truck, an idiot can be a driver trainer, but to be an instructor takes a whole different level of intelligence, patience, honor, and skill.
Do you really believe that these instructors are tested regularly on their ability to be an instructor?
Sure, they delegate some of the training to less skilled “drivers”, but only after everything possible has been done to insure the motoring public is safe.
Becoming an instructor isn’t something your boss tells you.
You need to be certified, GOOGLE IT.
Luke Warm says
Obviously not a driver.
Randall S North says
If I were an instructor, I’d think it a bit weird with my education, certification, and skills to not be authorized to give the state skills test.
Luke Warm says
So we can have people selling CDLs again?
Luke Warm says
26 years in this industry. I’ve watched it slowly erode. Now they have a bunch of pencil pushers with absolutely no experience deciding what is “best”. The only people they listen to is the people worried about the bottom line. I say at this point fire up the autonomous trucks and anyone with some sense run. Because in reality no one cares about the driver anymore, only the profit. The truck stops are poisoning us. The government is overregulating us. The companies are abusing us. And the brokers are screwing us in every way possible. I just ain’t worth doing anymore.
Glenn Davis says
Reminds me of when I was a machinist, there was an owner of a company I didn’t work for telling employees that “ a monkey could do your job”. This is the attitude of people that have never had to DO the job in question,
Plan on things getting very monkeyed up, just like his shop did. Who is gonna be accountable for the deaths, injuries, and property damage this will inevitably lead to? Just because a few bad apples have figured out how to exploit the system. That means let everybody do it?
James rollins says
30 years driving pay me enough i will train them
Chris. says
Problem I here that to get a Cdl you have to go through a mill school.
Next problem is tractors are more complex also the loads are more complex, especially chemical tanks. To me the major problem is yes again “ money “. I haul tank with chemical that could kill 1/2 Dallas get paid $50K. I could work at Buckeys for $45K.
That’s a major issue.
Tractor & tank worth $500,00 load worth $3 to $500.000 kill big city get paid $50K yr.
John F. Belcher says
No. It’s a conflict of interest.
David Ford says
I often see some these so called “trainers”that dont have enough experience to be driving let alone giving the ok to someone to get their cdl-ata and fmcsa is a joke-all about safety huh guys-really!!??
Erich E Whaples says
The FMCSA, CONGRESS AND THE DOT have already made this industry 10 times more dangerous with their ignorance. These fraudulent schools are puppy mills, and continue to put dangerous drivers out here.
John c Rodriguez says
I spent 3 year instructing at a driving school and was fired because i taught them how to drive and not just show them how to pass the test. The schools are puppy mills. get them in, get them out. The problem now is the mega company’s are buying out the schools. and who are theses company’s. the same company’s that call themselves “ATA” american trucking alliance. Funneling money to FMCSA members to get things done. They buy out the schools. convert all there fleets to automatic. And the only offer automatic training. That allows them to control all the new drivers because they will only be able to work for company’s with automatic trucks. Removing this rule will only allow ATA company’s to get more people in the seat with no regards on whether or not they belong in the seat. Get them in. Get them out.
Adam Vogt says
Since when does inconvenience out weigh safety. Having trainer test their own students. is risky because these schools earn money by pushing students out door with license how else would the get their kickbacks from swift…cr england.. western Express jb hunt. All those student driver companies. Plus their instructors are inexperienced cdl holders. Which is just as bad as the pencil pushers on capital hill making laws thinking they know how to drive a truck but dont
I have 32 years experience currently licensed 3rd party tester and still wont test anyone I trained.