Regular Route School Bus Drivers
Immune from Proposed Regulations
WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 30, 2008) — Ahead of a final rule expected next month, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issued a notice for public comment on a state cost survey for incorporating a driver’s medical records into the commercial driver’s license database.
It is a development that could affect school bus drivers engaged in interstate activity trips but not in regular home-to-school service.
Placing this document in the docket (FMCSA-1997-2210) is now necessary, wrote the FMCSA in the Federal Register on June 27, because it became available after the NPRM was published in November of 2006 and after the conclusion of the initial public comment period. New comments are due by July 28, 2008. The survey had yet to be posted in the online docket as of this writing.
The state cost analysis document was prepared for the U.S. Department of Transportation by the North American Driver Safety Foundation last October after several states commented on the original NPRM that FMCSA underestimated the costs to states for complying with the proposed rule. The survey sampled nine states to evaluate whether the costs to implement a final rule would differ from those cited in the NPRM. The report will describe what cost information was collected and how that additional cost information was analyzed to better estimate the national implications of implementing the requirements outlined in the NPRM.
In unrelated news, FMCSA also announced it published on the docket four new studies from third-party researchers pertaining to proposed hours of service regulations for interstate commercial drivers. Regular school bus drivers are also not affected.
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