Time, money savings associated with DVIR proposal questioned

A proposed elimination of the required driver vehicle inspection report (DVIR) when no defect in the commercial vehicle is found that day won’t save the industry as much money as the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration thinks, according to the American Trucking Assns. And if a motor carrier is operating in Canada, the relief might not exist at all.

In August, FMCSA proposed to eliminate the required no-defect DVIR - a move the agency said would save the trucking industry $1.7 billion a year without affecting safety.

The Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators told FMCSA Nov. 1 that under the Canada-U.S. Trip Inspection Reciprocity Agreement, CCMTA jurisdictions accept FMCSA-required pre- and post-trip inspection reports, but drivers must produce post-trip inspection reports that are no more than 24 hours old. If a driver doesn’t have a report he must prepare one on demand, noted Darren Christle, chairman of CCMTA’s compliance and regulatory affairs committee.

Because the reciprocity agreement refers to the FMCSA regulation, however, the agreement will need to be modified so that U.S. domiciled drivers will continue to be required to produce a DVIR at roadside when operating in Canada even when no defect has been detected, Christle told FMCSA.

The American Trucking Assns. welcomed FMCSA’s announcement in August mostly as a signal that FMCSA was open to more substantial regulatory relief. In its formal comments last month on the DVIR proposal, ATA said that while it supports the relief it believes FMCSA has overestimated the savings to the trucking industry because it failed to account for the large number of drivers who submit electronic reports rather than paper DVIRs and because fleets have other reasons for maintaining no-defect DVIRs.

Between 600,000 and 800,000 electronic onboard recorders are used for fleet communications and electronic logs, noted Ted Scott, ATA’s director of engineering in comments to FMCSA. Based on information from suppliers, ATA estimates that about 40% of EOBRs are equipped with electronic DVIRs. FMCSA’s estimates apparently don’t include realistic estimates of the number of fleets that prepare and file DVIRs electronically, which is more efficient than paper preparation and filing, Scott said.

Scott noted that drivers still must complete the pre- and post-trip inspections and that the relief is just the preparation of a no-defects inspection report. ATA doubts that it takes 47.2 million hours industry-wide to complete such reports. “With approximately 500,000 fleets in the industry, this is approximately 95 hours per fleet per year, which appears to be very high, based on the number of small and very small fleets in the industry.”

Also, regulatory compliance isn’t the only reason for completing DVIRs, Scott said. Many carriers will still require drivers to file no-defect DVIRs as part of an effective maintenance program or concerns over tort litigation. “In other words, they will maintain a clean DVIR to demonstrate that the vehicle was defect free before a crash.”

An ATA survey of Technology & Maintenance Council motor carrier members found that 70% supported FMCSA’s proposed relief, but only 35% said they definitely would not continue to retain no-defect DVIRs. The same proportion said they would still retain those DVIRs and 30% were uncertain.

The DVIR proposal hardly makes FMCSA a champion of reducing regulatory burdens, ATA suggested. In recent years FMCSA has added to the burden and reduced productivity by imposing unnecessary hours-of-service restrictions and medical certificate filing requirements and by adopting “an inappropriate and ill-conceived” tank vehicle definition, Scott said.

“If FMCSA were sincerely interested in easing the regulatory burden in ways that would not harm safety, the agency would take swift action on ATA recommendations from the past, such as requiring medical examiners to transmit driver medical certification information to the state licensing agencies and providing more flexibility in sleeper berth rules to allow drivers more reasonable rest opportunities.”