The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration announced this week that it intends to survey truck operators, licensed within the past three years and have also received an inspection within the past twelve months, as part of the data gathering process in producing an entry level driver training rule. The agency says it seeks to determine what type of entry-level training truck operators received to obtain a CDL and what additional training hazmat haulers received. FMCSA says it also will survey motor coach and bus drivers.
FMCSA will send invitations to complete the confidential 12 – 21 minute survey to approximately 82,000 CDL holders, both those with hazardous materials endorsements and those without. The agency’s goal is to obtain a better understanding of the amount and type of total training received by the CDL holders, and its composition between that received before obtaining the CDL, and that received after obtaining the CDL.
ATA’s Safety Management Council urges you to encourage your drivers to participate in this important survey if they are invited by FMCSA to do so. Outside of individual companies submitting comments to the docket, the FMCSA driver survey will be one of the better mechanisms for the trucking industry to provide significant data and insight in support of the ATA position on pre-CDL education standards.
