New Departement Of Transport (DOT) Requirements

You should know that new changes and regulations from the Department of Transportation (DOT) are not uncommon if you work in the trucking industry. This year,  starting from 6th January 2020 the Department of Transportation has implemented several new requirements.

These changes aim to further improve the quality of life, service for all Americans, to increase productivity, safety among workers and businesses. These requirements are going to affect small fleet managers, trucking companies, and truck drivers. The new requirements and how it will affect the trucking industry are as follows;

1 – New ELD Rule

The Electronic Logging Device rule will be in full implementation, all commercial motor vehicles must use these devices to the driver’s Hours of Service (HOS). Although, many drivers are concerned with these rules, thinking it would mean fewer work hours and less pay. But using the ELD in trucks does not mean a decline in the driver’s productivity, it would make your job easier. The electronic logging device automatically tracks the total driving hours by syncing with the truck’s engine. Also, it helps to track the number of miles that one drives within a state and jurisdiction in total. This would be very helpful for International

Fuel Tax Agreement (IFTA). In addition to tracking the number of miles, electronic logging devices will estimate a truck’s tax reporting and payments for IFTA. ELDs saves time and reduces the stress of the IFTA calculations and payments process.

2 – Change in Hours of Service for Drivers

The department of transportation’s federal motor Carrier safety administration (FMCSA) is implementing changes in support of the new electronic logging device rule to reduce the possible challenges faced by the use of ELDs. For commercial vehicles, operating in interstate commerce, there are new regulations for the hours of service.  The changes to the hours of service include five key components;

-For every eight hours of consecutive truck driving, drivers would take a thirty minutes break. Drivers are going to be using the “on duty, not driving” status and no longer the “off duty” status during their breaks. According to FMCSA, this is aimed at improving the safety of drivers and all other public road users and saving the United States economy and American consumers a whopping two hundred and forty-seven million dollars in the estimate.

– The sleeper berth will allow drivers to complete their mandatory hours off duty, which can be split into two periods of at least seven and not less than two hours without interruption, for the required total of ten hours whether they are in the sleeper berth or off duty. However, these periods do not affect the driver’s driving window of fourteen hours.

– Allow every truck driver’s thirty minutes of non-driving time to be equal to the required rest break by using the on-duty not driving status.

– Provided that at the end of a work shift, a truck driver takes a consecutive ten hours off duty break, they are allowed at the least, thirty minutes off duty break but not more than three hours that would count as a pause after a fourteen hours driving window.

– Commercial driver’s short-haul exception will lengthen the driver’s on-duty period from twelve hours to fourteen hours at the maximum and extend the distance limit for a driver’s operation from a hundred air miles to one hundred and fifty air miles.

3 – FMCSA Drug And Alcohol Clearinghouse

The clearinghouse is a website and online database newly implemented which will provide the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and commercial motor vehicle driver’s employers access to information on the driver by using the necessary on drivers to know if the driver has been banned from operating a commercial motor vehicle because of a department of transportation’s drug and alcohol test violations.

The Clearinghouse’s purpose is to enforce the DOT required evaluation and treatment on such commercial vehicle drivers, to make sure that they receive it before they can drive a commercial truck on public roadways. The Clearinghouse house online database retains information that will enable new employers to know the commercial drivers who were fired because they committed a drug or alcohol program violation at their previous work while working there but withheld the information from the new employer. Typically the Clearinghouse maintains records of drug and alcohol program violations for five years, or until the driver completes their return to duty process later.

4 – Over-time Payment

The Department of Transportation implemented a new law that reduces worker’s threshold to be qualified for overtime pay, this also caused an increase in the average salary level of full-time workers. According to the DOT, commercial motor vehicle drivers that earn below 35,568 dollars per year are regarded as non-exempt, and they are entitled to overtime pay. This does not only apply to commercial truck drivers who are paid by the number of miles, they also affect the office staff of a trucking business. In an estimate provided by the DOT, about one and a half million trucking industry workers are eligible for overtime pay.

5 – Entry-Level Driver Training Rule

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration under the Department of Transportation has updated the entry-level driver training rule, ELDT, and requirements for obtaining a commercial driver’s license (CDL). The new rules affect the prospective truck drivers, training providers, training programs, driving instructors, and trucking companies as follows;

-Prospective truck drivers must undergo training in a licensed truck driving school, ensure that they meet the requirements for obtaining a CDL by meeting the minimum age requirement, having a clean record of a felony, drug and alcohol, driving, and providing the necessary personal information and documents as a citizen of the United States.

-The training program’s curriculum topics are extended to cover more areas, the program now consists of 31-course topics and 19 behind the wheels skills training.

– The qualifications of training instructors now include a minimum of two years of clean truck driving record.

– The standard of truck driving schools,  only the truck driving schools that have completed their registration and are listed on the agency’s Training Providers Registry (TPR) are eligible to train truck drivers.