Just this week, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s final rule on non-domiciled CDLs took effect.

However, it was only the start of FMCSA’s efforts to clean up the trucking industry. The agency wants to ensure that only well-trained and skilled drivers take the wheel of an 80,000-pound commercial motor vehicle.

FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs, at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Keep America Moving Summit on Tuesday, March 17, announced that the agency has about nine rulemakings in the works.

“We have around nine rules that I think we will try to push out this year,” Barrs said. “I know that’s probably pretty aggressive, but that’s our charge, and that’s what we’re going to do, because at the end of the day, this is about safety and making sure that we have the right carriers and the right drivers hauling our freight across the country.”

On Feb. 20, Barrs and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy outlined a broad plan of attack to remove unsafe truck drivers and motor carriers. The non-domiciled rule is expected to remove nearly 200,000 CDL holders. However, the agency announced additional efforts to crack down on CDL mills, chameleon carriers and fraudulent ELD manufacturers.

“The work is just beginning,” Duffy said at the Feb. 20 news conference.

During Wednesday’s summit, Barrs provided a few more details about plans from the DOT and FMCSA to clean up trucking.

FMCSA has already placed more than 7,000 driver training schools out of operation.

“At the first of the year, we sent investigators across the country to look at the driver training schools to see if they’re complying with the rules and regulations,” Barrs said. “Do they actually have a curriculum to be able to train drivers? Do they have a truck to be able to do the training that’s required? Well, come to find out that wasn’t happening in a lot of the places.”

Although FMCSA has not formally introduced a notice of proposed rulemaking regarding driver training schools, Barrs said he wants a fresh start.

“My thought is to just scrap the entire program the way it is today and start all over,” Barrs said. “That way, we can get the bad actors out. Whatever the reform looks like through our rulemaking process, we’d just start from that day moving forward. The people who want to do it right have no problem doing that.”

FMCSA also plans to create some requirements for new motor carriers.

“New entrant training and testing should be making sure that if you want to be a new motor carrier, you should be able to show some proficiency in the motor carrier operational piece of this,” Barrs said. “There is a requirement for FMCSA to implement this. It should have been done in 2012. We will move forward with that, fulfilling that statutory requirement that was mandated back in that time frame. From the driver training school to getting your CDL to then also coming into the industry, we have to start at the beginning and make sure we strengthen that up … We need to do everything we can to make sure you’ve passed all the barriers on the front end.” LL