The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration announced Tuesday that during “enforcement activities” such as roadside inspections it will start validating drivers’ medical cards by contacting the certifying medical examiner to verify a driver’s name and date of birth and the card’s date of issuance and any restrictions it indicates.
The agency says the intent of the verification is to ensure that information on the certificate is accurate and not to evaluate drivers medically. Its goal with the new inspection point, FMCSA says, is to weed out fraudulent medical cards and to “keep medically unqualified drivers off our nation’s highways,” the announcement says.
