WASHINGTON — Flexibility sought by the state of Florida in the current CDL training regulations could — if approved by safety officials — cut down on lost wages for drivers, according to driver training schools.
In comments filed Wednesday on Florida’s exemption petition, which was filed with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration last month, Danny Bradford, Commercial Vehicle Training Association (CVTA) chairman, said that the additional flexibility that the exemption would give Florida’s CDL testing program would help address skills testing delays.
“These delays put jobs on hold for 258,744 drivers and resulted in over $1 billion in lost wages for these drivers,” Bradford stated, referring to an independent economic analysis commissioned by CVTA in 2016. This in turn caused an estimated loss of $234 million in federal income taxes and $108 million in state and local sales taxes that would have been generated in the absence of skills testing delays, he pointed out.
Such delays would be even more costly now, Bradford contends, because driver wages have improved since CVTA’s analysis. He cited an American Trucking Associations study showing that driver compensation increased 18% between 2019 and 2021.
Federal regulations require the three-part CDL skills test — pre-trip inspection, basic vehicle control skills and on-road skills — to be administered and completed in that order. If an applicant fails one part of the test, he or she is not allowed to start the next part of the test but instead must return on a different day to retake all three parts.
But as it explains in its petition, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (FLHSMV) wants prospective new drivers — at the discretion of skills testers — to be allowed to continue testing subsequent segments of the CDL skills test if they fail the pre-trip inspection or the basic vehicle control skills segments. The applicant would be allowed to return at a later date to retest only the failed segments.
In supporting the agency’s exemption, Bradford also said that skills testing delays can cause a new driver’s skills to deteriorate.
“The longer an applicant must wait to take a CDL skills test, the further they are from the training they received to prepare for the exam,” he said. “Allowing an applicant to test as quickly as possible and begin their job means they will continue repetition in the skills needed to be a safe commercial motor vehicle operator and will retain more of what they learned in their training.”
The National Tank Truck Carriers (NTTC), which represents more than 500 companies that support or specialize in cargo-tank services, agreed with CVTA, noting that if the petition is approved, skills testers in Florida will be able to devote less time to areas in which drivers have already shown they are competent, increasing the efficiency of the CDL credentialing process.
“Given the well documented commercial driver shortage, it is imperative that we reduce barriers to individuals attaining the proper credentials for operating commercial vehicles,” wrote William Lusk, NTTC director of education and government relations.
Others saw potential safety problems, however. “An applicant failing the pre-trip and then being allowed to continue is not only unsafe but irresponsible,” according to one commenter.
“The FMCSA rules set forth say a pre-trip must be done and the driver must be sure the vehicle is in good operating order prior to moving the vehicle. Allowing the test to continue goes against that rule as well as what the CDL schools are trying to teach.”
Another argued that if new driver applicants are having a hard time learning how to successfully conduct a pre-inspection, “maybe we should toughen up on the instructors to do a better job of training individuals,” the commenter wrote. “I have trained and tested thousands of new drivers, and with proper training, none have failed. It’s all in the training.”
Elizabeth Williams
Haven’t you people learned that awarding those who fail does not work. You did this with the education system and in sports… and inches rest of the work force under the guise of “equal opportunity”. All it’s managed to do is plagued the country with a dumbed down unsafe entitled generation of victims who claim a myriad of reasons they “can’t” do what amounts to the basics to actually do what’s required. Don’t worry though just give an unsafe driver that go ahead to operate and the death toll will continue to rise further fueling the push for autonomous robotics technology that will ultimately put us all out of work
Jimmy Byrd
It’s funny now I work for a mail contractor that brings all of there junk tralers to fla never been inspected once in 3 years and cross the same scale 4 times a day 4 days a week in fla I 4 scale & I 75 scale because it says us mail . And was told the dot & local enforcement to turn a blind eye on postal drivers. It’s also called profiling all drivers when the us postal carrier’s have no tags on trucks or tralers no ifta stickers so they pay no road taxes but use them everyday. !!!!!
George Garcia
Florida too funny, so every other state I’m the union will perform this one way and Florida will be different um that alone tells you the problem, if everyone was having this problem then the test would be an issue, that is not the case, doing comparisons to 2016 or other times is not real world economic considerations, it is an attempt to sell an idea, perhaps Florida should fix itself to comply, we have enough dangerous operators on the road as it is
Fred R Ahlberg
The reasoning is Super Flawed. The Applicany had lost wages, sure, but the federal government and state didn’t miss out on ANY money. It’s not like whatever the driver was going to haul didn’t get hauled. Just someone who already is licensed hauled it. And THEY paid the federal tax and spent the money to generate sales tax. It’s all a shell game. ATA really needs to drop this whole DRIVER SHORTAGE Crap. We are still at OVER CAPACITY now.
Rusty
Firstly there is no driver shortage! A 6-8 week course is not even close enough to let a driver on the road solo. Truck driving training schools should not be in existence as they train only to ‘pass the test’ and getting their CDL quickly. They care nothing about public safety as most start on the road without even knowing how the truck operates, etc. We are inundated with drivers that have little or no skills. Mega fleets who run their own schools want rear ends in seats, nothing more. It’s all numbers to them. I shudder to think of drivers being able to ‘dumb down’ something like a CDL. Lastly, “they might forget?” well, it’s called practice and study until you pass the test perfectly.
Paul Pendegraft
I don’t think they need to change the order, either you Lear to do the skills to pass it in the order it is or you go back and study until you can pass them.
What’s next? Maybe just not require testing or additional training? There’s already enough drivers out here who have so little training that they are dangerous to other drivers and give drivers who are experienced a bad name.
Stephen Webster
We need a tiered truck drivers wages just like R N nurses to start out at $21 U s and and to top out at $31 hr plus medical and overtime after 10 yrs
Larry Moms
You have to be joking to even ask for a person to continue to the next level when he or she can’t even pretrip a truck.
No wonder we have all these non-skill driver on the road.