FMCSA 03-09
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Contact: Candice Tolliver
Tel: (202) 366.2309 or (202) 306.4580
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood Announces Driver Pre-Employment Screening Program
WASHINGTON, DC –The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) today announced that it will launch a new Driver Pre-Employment Screening Program which will allow commercial motor carrier companies to electronically access driver inspection and crash records as a part of the hiring process. The program is expected to begin in December 2009.
“Safety is our number one priority at the Department of Transportation. This new initiative will help trucking companies ensure the safest drivers are behind the wheel of commercial trucks and buses,” said Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “Making this information more transparent will make our roads and highways safer for everyone.”
By using driver safety information during pre-employment screening, motor carriers will be able to better assess potential safety risks of a prospective driver-employee, and drivers will have additional opportunities to verify the data in their driving history and correct any discrepancies.
Commercial driver safety records are currently available to federal and state law enforcement personnel, and accessible to drivers through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Once the pre-employment screening program is launched, driver safety records will be readily available to motor carriers regardless of state or jurisdiction. In accordance with federal privacy laws, drivers must first give written consent in order for their records to be released.
The Driver Pre-Employment Screening Program will be populated by FMCSA’s Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS). The MCMIS is comprised of driver performance data including roadside inspection and compliance review results, enforcement data, state-reported crashes, and motor carrier census data.
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6 comments:
none of these laws address the poor sucker duped into working for these rackateer companies that hire rookies and starve these drivers if they dont break the rules and starve them if they do break the rules and make it impossible for them to make a living turning a decent well intended person into a bitter battered death machine.
# posted by Anonymous : December 7, 2009 1:21 PM
Companies will hire an army of lawyers to find ways to ultimately rig thier contracts to make sure they can continue to abuse drivers and thrust the blame on the shoulders of the drivers and simpley replace these drivers with an endless pool of naive and gullible beginners. Not only that..the government will subsidize the training and keep the pockets of these companies fat. While sucker after sucker watches his career sink and families suffer. Dont you for a moment think that one word of this is anything less than the absolute truth! You want the truth get the truth. Take your studies on the road, door to door and ask the drivers out there who need to pay thier bills and just wanted a job what it cost them and what they lost. Start with the endless list of unemployed Swift and CR England and Central Refridgerated Drivers and remember these arent objects. They are human lives torn and ripped to hell by the legal abuses these companies get away with. If you want to punish drivers then made damn sure you are punishing them for violations they could control and investigate the entire picture! What were the circumstances that led up to this. Make laws that require all exchanges between driver and companies be documented and held accountable. Stop making laws that pit the driver in the center to fix the trucks the loads the shippers the recievers the carriers and the public. They simply cant bear the burden and you will destroy the attraction for any quality human to enter this industry.
# posted by Anonymous : December 7, 2009 1:34 PM
I can assure you few if any of these law makers could survive very long out on the road without severe regret for lack of insight into the position they place these drivers in. Try going home with a paycheck that couldnt feed a cat and face your wife and try to justify the 2 months of dispair you spent on the road facing hell. Driving through icey roads because if you dont you will loose your money. And if you do no matter how good you are, you risk your life and the others around you. But you were sold a bill of BS by the company promising endless support and assistance. Glorious speeches and elegant safety lectures that suggest and imply you dont have to take risk. Its all a front and a facade to get you to sign on and once you are out there with no place to turn in dire need and indebted into a system of servitude. Its easier just to strike the gabel, look away and shun the consquences of the truth. Put one of these plush living bums behind the wheel and leave them stranded in the city center of new jersey for a night and see how look at the laws they impose on these drivers meeting impossible deadlines under impossible circumstances. If they fail. They go hungry! Go home and face the wife and explain to her why you cant pay the bills and look at the heart broken faces of the children who have missed you so much and see the months of your absence toll. Make the laws that make you look good but you will be damned for years if you fail to see the whole picture.
# posted by Anonymous : December 7, 2009 2:27
It is important to note that the carriers safety record will be negatively impacted by each violation a driver receives. A carrier would be damaging their own safety rating by creating circumstances that would require a driver to violate a regulation in order to meet a delivery contract.
One particular company which was put on HOS logs due to the companies extreme log violations (which they would lead you to believe were the source of bad drivers which they heckled daily to drive illegally or find themselves sitting for days without work and or pay)has openly announced it would no longer hire experienced drivers. They claim its because experiencd drivers will not follow the companies procedures. Now you would think company like CRS for example would have an exemplary safety record and well it would make sense to protect that by training people properly. However they dont have such a terrific record and there is nothing extraordinary about thier training that would make a driver any safer except a lotta hip lingo! Matter of fact most of thier trainers drive completely exhausted because they wont make any money training a driver if they dont drive in excess of the students driving. THey are expected to be alert and awake during most of the students driving and thus unless they only run what the student drives and not make money they end up usually quite worn out. The drivers know the real reason why the company wont hire experienced drivers. Its because experienced drivers see through the smoke screen and clever sell. They realize the lease is a fraud meant only to stock the company with trucks. About half thier lease operators tollerate the company just long enough for the truck to depreciate in value and the driver to have worked out the kinks in the vehicle. All cost are deducted from the drivers pay. Drivers who get fed up with empty pay check after empty paycheck just walk away abandoning most monies the company collects from them in such as maintenance accounts and escrow accounts the company collects a couple grand to cover the payments if a driver walks. The driver is out several thousand. His entire investment to become a driver usually wasted unless he gets lucky and lands a better company. The company makes every effort to make sure no actions can be taken against the company cleverly installing clauses in the contracts and always are protected by the big daddy Swift. No district attorney or lawyer will come to the aid of some poor penniless driver to battle these companies so they get away each and everytime. How often? The numbers are staggering. Thousands of drivers. This company has a non stop turn over almost daily. They are constantly hiring new drivers and loosing just as many. Its all part of the plan. This company has been getting away with it for years and not one decent person in washington will step in and stop it. They got em all in thier pockets. lock stock and barrell. So you can make all the laws on earth but you will not save one life until you save the industry from these bandits who are milking all of us. They create a false sense of low cost shipping because the public is really subsidizing the cost. And everyone wants to be buddies with the billionaire. Maybe he will buy them a nice boat for a vote.
The DOT knows the truth. They know whats going on and cant be fooled. You spend the years encountering and talking to driver after driver a picture starts to form. They do what they can within the powers they possess. Its up to the public to learn the truth and do the rest. If you have any doubts to any of this,simply go to a truck stop and sit down with several drivers and you will hear the horror stories one after the next. You will hear a few good ones too. The company has to take care of a percentage of drivers else thered be noone to back thier stories. But the numbers and averages and reasoning will be obvious. The company will vehemently deny wrong doing. But most of the issues that have gotten them in trouble were no suprise. Theyre not new at this business. They knew what they were doing and strove to push it til the levy broke. Check out thier new websight. Send a few undercover prospects to work for them. Or just ask around. There are so many victums that i am sure you wont have to look far. Its funny how many thousands wed blow to save an american at the mercy of some foriegn government but we wont lift a finger for the robbery and abuse of citizens on our own land right under our nose. What the hell is wrong with us? Youve seen it on the back of trucks many times. If trucks stop America Stops. Its no joke people. Until we can transport things through sophisticated electronics like on star trek. We are stuck with the need to move our nations good via trucks with drivers that are maybe are a little gruff looking because of the road hardships but are no less loving parents and giving people than any one of you. See the bigger picture and act.
So, let me get this straight. If a good driver (no violations or tickets of any kind) is working for what this csa program deems as a bad company, then they can get harassed with inspections. Right?
How long will it be before the harassment suits start rolling in? I work for a company that went through a rather rough audit last year, they came out of it, but not after paying a boat load of cash to get out of it. So this means that their slowly recovering safestat score doesn't mean squat, and they could be hit with this load of csa crap? This would mean that my wife and I could get targeted for constant roadside inspections and possibly harassed with no possible legal recourse for us? You'll have to excuse me, I'm going to attempt to find the broom handle the DOT just broke off in my rear....
P.S. It looks like they finally took down the last of the american cowboys with this one.
All of these laws are currently in effect. The scale system is the only new part of all this crap. As a driver, it is your responsibility to do your job... That does not mean, just driving till you fall out of the chair tired. Your responsibility as a driver starts before you even pick up the keys. I am hearing a lot of complaining about companys not holding up their end of the deal... solution, get another job. I fully support this implementation of accountability. I have 3 million miles on the road, and have seen the decline of drivers and companys to the point that it makes me sick just to go into a truck stop. TIME TO THIN THE HERD.
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