The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance held its annual Conference & and Exhibition in Buffalo, N.Y., last week. The event was attended by almost 600 people.
 
The fall conference consists of meetings of the executive committee as well as all regulatory, training and vehicle committees. It's important for members of the trucking industry to attend these meetings, so that our voice can be heard.

The committee that may be of most interest to TMHA is the Driver Traffic Committee, which deals with hours-of-service, driver qualification and other driver-related issues.
 
The first topic brought up in the Driver Traffic Committee was a motion by the FMCSA to place a carrier Out-of-Service, on a roadside inspection, for a suspended DOT number. The argument made was that even though the DOT number has been suspended and the carrier is not supposed to be operating trucks, there are numerous reasons why a truck could still be operating and they wanted to establish a policy that the truck should be placed out-of-service. After considerable discussion, the motion passed in the Driver Traffic Committee but failed to be approved by the CVSA Executive Committee, causing it to die.

Another topic of interest that came up was that of a violation being written up on multiple occasions. The example given was a driver written up and placed out-of-service for an 11-hour violation by Indiana enforcement and then three days later getting stopped in Kansas and written up again for the same 11-hour violation. It was determined that this happens too frequently.

A motion was made that if an officer has reasonable reason to know about the previous out-of-service, they should NOT write up the violation on the second inspection (this would include the driver being able to show the officer the first inspection). There was also a motion that if the second inspection DOES write up the same violation, the state MUST remove it from the carrier's and driver's records if the carrier files a DataQ request.

Both of these motions passed out of committee and were approved by the CVSA Executive Committee, which was a huge win for the transportation industry. It basically eliminates the chance for "double jeopardy" to the carrier and driver.

One of the most exciting things that came out of this meeting was the introduction of a new CVSA Driver Excellence Award that will recognize one driver each year for going above and beyond in their duty. This will be more than just a safety award.

Eligibility criteria for the award include 25 cumulative years of accident-free driving, three years without a driving violation (including hours-of-service), and no felonies in their lifetime. 
 
The award will be open to all CMV drivers (nominees do not need to work for a CVSA member company). CVSA is tentatively set to begin taking nominations January 5, 2015, with the deadline for submissions being February 27, 2015.