American Trucking Associations is endorsing a competency-based approach to driver training standards. The new ATA policy also provides guidance on the qualifications for driver-instructors and promotes tougher commercial driver’s license testing for new drivers. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration must rewrite its rules for entry-level driver training due to a federal appeals court decision in late 2005. The court ruling means that FMCSA’s new rules must include a requirement for on-road training.
FMCSA will allow motor carriers to use automatic hydraulic inertia brake systems – known as surge brakes – on trailers with gross vehicle weight ratings up to 20,000 lbs., depending on the weight of the towing vehicle. Regulations previously required that brakes on all trailers be capable of being activated at any time. For more, go to this site and search Docket No. 21323.
American Trucking Associations’ advanced seasonally adjusted For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index rose 1.6 percent in February after dropping a revised 3.1 percent in January. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the index rose to 113.3 in February from 111.5 in January. The index dropped 1.7 percent compared with a year earlier, for the eighth straight year-over-year decline.
Freight Transportation Services Index fell 0.4 percent in January to 107.9 from the December level of 108.4, falling after a one-month increase, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported. The January freight index was down 4.4 percent from its peak of 112.8 in January 2005.
The department of Transportation’s pilot program to allow a select group of Mexican trucking companies to operate beyond the commercial zones in the United States was greeted with a chorus of criticism and concern from labor and driver groups, safety advocates and legislators. The American Trucking Associations endorsed the move, emphasizing that expanded access by Mexican carriers was a commitment under the North American Free Trade Agreement and would allow reciprocal access to Mexico by U.S. carriers.
Transportation Secretary Mary Peters announced Feb. 23 that truck safety inspectors working for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration would be allowed into Mexico to conduct extensive safety audits on carriers interested in hauling cargo into and out of the United States. Up to 100 carriers passing such inspections will be allowed to make deliveries beyond the 20- to 25-mile commercial zones now in place along the Southwest border, Peters said during an event at truck inspection facilities in El Paso, Texas. Up to 100 U.S. carriers, in turn, would be granted access to Mexico.
Current rules require a cumbersome and time-consuming transfer of cargo between U.S. and Mexican carriers at border ports. U.S. trucks can’t enter Mexico because the United States has never implemented a NAFTA provision that obligates the U.S. government to grant access to Mexican carriers.
