South Of The Border - The Latest In Regulatory Developments By Carmen Daecher

Greetings from South of the Border. Since my last article, there are many exciting and interesting activities related to commercial vehicle safety regulations. Many of them parallel activities in Canada.

Before we detail final and proposed rule-makings by the US DOT, many of you probably heard about a proposed truck and bus summit which was scheduled to be held December 7 - 9, 1998, in Atlanta, GA. This summit was scheduled and arranged by the Office of Motor-carriers in US DOT. Hundreds of invitees had prepared to attend this gathering of diverse interests to discuss and determine safety needs and issues for the commercial motor vehicle industry. Astonishingly, DOT Secretary Rodney Slater withdrew from participating in this summit and effectively cancelled it only two weeks before it was to occur. His official reasons were that all parties of interest were not effectively represented in the process of developing the summit.

It is extremely disappointing that such an action was taken by the Secretary of Transportation since it undermines the very intent of such a summit - namely to bring together diverse groups interested in commercial motor vehicle safety to gain a broad consensus of issues and actions necessary to improve commercial vehicle safety for the benefit of all highway users.

Hopefully a truck and bus summit will be rescheduled for sometime in 1999. We will keep you apprized of developments as they occur.

The following are a list of regulations which are final, including a brief description and effective dates:

• The final rules for the Americans with Disabilities Act for over-the-road buses have been issued, and become effective October 28, 1998. The changes from the proposed rules which were detailed in my previous articles principally revolve around the allowance for small bus companies (less than $5.3 million or more per year in operating revenues) to provide accessible service through alternative means to owning accessible vehicles. Also, large fleets may ask for time extensions to the 50 and 100 percent fleet requirement if necessary.
• Demand responsive providers are required only to meet service requirements, whether it is through ownership of accessible vehicles or through provision of service by other providers.
• Small mixed service operators (75% or more of whose fleets are devoted to demand responsive service) can meet requirements for both fixed route and demand responsive service through 48 hour advance notice service.
• Fixed route carriers who interline are required to send and receive information to one another to insure that all accessible service needed for a trip is provided.
• Finally, companies providing demand responsive service must provide an accessible over-the-road bus on 48 hours advance notice beginning in October 2001 for large companies and in October 2002 for small companies.
• An advanced notice of proposed rule-making was issued by the Federal Highway Administration seeking comments concerning adopting the out-of-service criteria established by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance as part of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. CVSA opposes such a proposal, as do many others, principally because of the slowness of change to such criteria if they become regulations.
• The Federal Highway Administration is also seeking comments concerning how medical examination forms can be simplified to reduce errors and provide uniformity for the qualification of drivers.
• The hours-of-service debate rages on. The Federal Highway Administration has just hired "Conveners" to consider the feasibility of negotiated rule-making as an approach to developing hours-of-service rules for commercial drivers. No new rules concerning hours-of-service should be expected until the second half of 1999.
• In conjunction with hours-of-service rules, we hear that a project may be funded by the Federal Highway Administration to specifically study motorcoach operations and hours-of-service. If such a study is funded by Federal Highway Administration, it should be known within the first quarter of this year.

That's it for now from the South. Have a safe and enjoyable winter.

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