WASHINGTON — The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration says only 113 motor carriers have applied for its under-21 truck driver apprenticeship program since the agency began accepting applications in July 2022, a dismal sign for an initiative that had been expected to recruit up to 1,000 carriers and 3,000 drivers.
The data, included in a fiscal year 2022 report submitted to Congress last week by FMCSA, also revealed that as of February 2024, FMCSA has rejected 34% – or 38 of the 113 applications received. The agency has fully approved only 30%, or 34 of the applications.
The applications that were rejected “have been disapproved due to not meeting FMCSA’s safety performance criteria,” the agency stated. “An additional 36 applications have met FMCSA’s safety qualification criteria (“pre-qualifier”), but do not yet have a registered apprenticeship in place or have not yet provided their registered apprenticeship number to FMCSA.”
In a report covering FY2021 — also submitted to Congress last week — FMCSA provided similarly lackluster results for an under-21 CDL pilot program it launched in 2019 and completed in August 2021 for those that had been in the military.
“Despite significant outreach and recruitment efforts, only a very small number of drivers participated” in the under-21 military program, FMCSA stated. There was not enough interest from the intended participants in operating a CMV in interstate commerce as a profession to justify continuing the program.”
Creating apprenticeships for 18-to-20-year-old drivers – who currently are barred from hauling freight across state lines — has been lauded by the Biden administration as a way to bolster the ranks of truckers across the country.
But the initiatives have been controversial from the start. When FMCSA sought comments for an under-21 driver pilot proposal in 2020, 127 respondents favored it while 50 opposed. Supporters included the American Trucking Associations, the Commercial Vehicle Training Association and the National Retail Federation, which see apprenticeships as a way of addressing what they consider to be a chronic shortage of drivers.
Those opposing it included the National Transportation Safety Board and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association. OOIDA has asserted that carriers’ inability to retain drivers has more to do with pay and working conditions as opposed to a driver shortage.
Opponents also focused on safety, noting that “younger drivers are more distracted and have higher rates of crashes,” FMCSA stated in addressing the comments filed on the 2020 proposal, which was never implemented.
FMCSA’s current pilot project, known as the Safe Driver Apprenticeship Pilot Program (SDAP), was required by Congress as part of the 2021 infrastructure bill and is slated to continue through November 2025.
In an attempt to improve participation in SDAP, an appropriations bill signed by President Joe Biden last month removes two restrictions that had been part of the pilot program and which many saw as barriers to participation: requirements that trucks used in the program be equipped with inward-facing cameras and that motor carriers register their program with the Department of Labor.
ATA was a strong supporter of removing the restrictions, which was proposed by lawmakers in May 2023.
Last week, FMCSA sought emergency approval from the White House to begin collecting data for the program under the revised restrictions.