Time flies, there is no doubt about that. I reference this because my son is rapidly approaching 16 years old at a time when I can still remember him being born. That said, 16 has represented a rite of passage in the timeline of life, the age in which you begin to exercise almost true independence by hoping, praying, practicing, and eventually obtaining your driver’s license. Recently, I took my son driving, traversing an empty parking lot so that he could begin to understand what driving a car was actually like. As he randomly swerved throughout the lot, driving over, around and across every white line that marks an actual parking spot. I write this knowing that the DRIVE-Safe Act was recently reintroduced in Congress to allow 18- to 20-year-old drivers the ability to operate in more than just intrastate commerce. It would permit them to cross that state line, which to this day, limits their ability to operate in interstate commerce.
Regardless of what side you may land on when it comes to this demographic, I think we can all agree that drivers in this age range, limited by a state boundary, require the same amount of training as drivers who have gained the ability to cross those lines. In fact, one could even point out that the entry-level driver training requirements, set to take effect in February 2022, were designed without age in mind. This means that a 40-year-old driver will be trained to the same proficiency standards as that of a 19-year-old driver, a rule that our industry has waited a long time to finally take effect.
That said, proving whether or not this demographic could operate in a manner that has been deemed “as safe or safer” than its more seasoned counterparts remains the obvious question as no public data actually exists to prove or disprove this longstanding theory. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) tried to expand on a current pilot program that focuses on younger drivers who have a military background. The agency had announced a program to study the safety performance of those drivers that have obtained a CDL by traditional means. As luck would have it, FMCSA’s pilot program expansion idea seems to have fallen by the wayside as a result of the administration changeover, leading to the reintroduction of the DRIVE-Safe Act.
The DRIVE-Safe Act, reintroduced in March, has already garnered bipartisan support in the Senate. Make no mistake, this bill is not as simple as handing over the keys to a teenager. Rather, it is the creation of an apprenticeship program that would actually acclimate a driver to the industry who may have just graduated from high school. In many circles, this program would be applauded as an on-boarding curriculum that would be certain to rival many that already exist within the industry today. Two probationary periods have been implemented to make certain that these drivers could demonstrate the skills needed to prove they could operate a vehicle as safely and efficiently as a driver twice their age and who may have gone through a less cumbersome program.
Simply put, saying a younger driver can operate a commercial motor vehicle safely is one thing; as far as this bill goes, however, implementing redundancies to assure these drivers operate in that fashion while crossing state lines is an entirely different story altogether. Incorporating technology such as speed limiters, collision mitigation systems, and forward-facing cameras will assist any driver, even seasoned veterans of the industry, in optimizing safety performance.
It is fair to point out that the DRIVE-Safe Act classifies itself as going that extra mile for a demographic that doesn’t currently exist within the parameters of intrastate commerce. In other words, intrastate drivers may travel farther, in longer time frames in certain states operating in intrastate commerce, than they could if they were allowed to cross a state boundary. Opening these age parameters, incorporating the variety of checks and balances that would aid any driver, opens our industry with an opportunity to create a workforce that may have previously entered another profession altogether. As capacity in our industry continues to be tight and driver availability is at an all-time premium, developing a workforce with a new program is gathering the support it needs to make it more than just a pipe dream but rather a reality.
