U.S. groups want requirement for behind-the-wheel training

U.S. groups want more behind-the-wheel training

Celadon, Element finalize joint venture

Daseke moves for NASDAQ ticker

PMTC unveils conference agenda, opens registration

A Look Back at 2016

Now that 2016 is behind us, we wanted to reflect on the year that just ended by compiling lists and stories to encapsulate 2016 from the trucking industry's perspective.

Using our readers as a metric, we put together five top 10 lists covering our feature articles, daily news, blog posts, videos, and photo galleries. Taken together, these collections provide a brief overview of all of the most interesting or important happenings from the year gone by.

A few of our editors have also written up articles to sum up the year in each of their fields of expertise, looking back at 2016 and ahead to the future.

Heavy Duty Trucking magazine's staff will be back on Jan. 3 to bring you the regular daily news and analysis that you expect from us, but for our readers who came into the office today we sincerely want to wish you a Happy New Year as we move ahead into 2017.

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Industry Associations Balk at Entry-Level Driver Final Rule

Photo: Jim Park

Four prominent industry associations have petitioned the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to reconsider provisions of its Final Rule for Entry-Level Driver requirements, which the agency issued on Dec. 7th. The final rule does not include a requirement for 30 hours of behind-the-wheel training for new drivers. In March of this year, FCMSA had included in the notice a minimum of 10 hours of training on a “driving range” as well as an unspecified amount of time driving on a public road. The final rule requires no BTW standard for student drivers, instead deferring to skills tests administered by state licensing agencies. The petition notes that under the new rule, the determination of whether a student driver has the skill set required to operate safely on public roadways is based “entirely in the hands of the instructor.”

The petition to reconsider was filed by Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, the Truck Safety Coalition and Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways on Dec. 21st. In it, the petitioners noted that;

“The performance standard in the Final Rule does not ensure that CDL applicants who can pass the state CDL skills test will spend any time actually operating a CMV on public roads with an experienced instructor encountering safety critical situations. This type of real-world training and experience that CDL candidates need, and that several bodies of experts have determined should be required, in order to enhance the ability of CDL applicants to operate a truck-trailer combination vehicle safely and to avoid crashes. Instead, the Final Rule does nothing more than ensure that future CDL candidates will acquire only the most rudimentary skill set needed to pass the most basic of maneuvering tests, as has always been the case, while depriving both future CDL applicants, ...Read the rest of this story