Dive Brief:
- The American Trucking Associations want to continue a program that overrides a 21-year-old age requirement for interstate commercial motor vehicle drivers. A petition posted to regulations.gov on Dec. 8 calls for a five-year extension.
- The regulation involves the Safe Driver Apprenticeship Pilot Program, which began in 2022 for a three-year period, allowing certain 18-to-20-year-olds to begin interstate driving of commercial vehicles with an experienced driver during probationary periods and then gain the ability to operate on their own within the program.
- “SDAP demonstrates how smart, evidence-based reforms can expand the industry’s workforce, streamline compliance, and support economic growth while keeping safety at the core of federal policy,” ATA’s Nathan Mehrens, now SVP of regulatory affairs and workforce policy, said in the petition.
Dive Insight:
Current federal law restricts interstate CDL activity to those age 21 and over, but all 48 contiguous states, D.C. and Alaska allow drivers age 18 to 20 to get a CDL for intrastate activity.
But another leading trucking group, Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, is calling for more oversight in interstate relief.
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which pushed forward the Safe Driver Apprenticeship Pilot Program, requires a congressional report detailing the findings of SDAP, an analysis of apprentice driver safety records and other data, OOIDA said in a letter to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
ATA said in its petition it was unaware of any truck crashes involving apprentice drivers.
“By maintaining a structured pathway for younger, well-trained drivers to enter interstate commerce under rigorous oversight and technology-driven safeguards, the program reduces unnecessary barriers to entry while maintaining high safety standards,” Mehrens also said in the petition.
The program generated limited interest, drawing 80 apprentice driver applications as of June 30, according to FMCSA.
OOIDA says that instead of the SDAP extension, a proposal in Congress from Rep. Harriet Hageman of Wyoming is the better and safer approach.
The congresswoman announced Dec. 11 a bill to allow interstate CDL driving for 18-to-20-year-olds — provided the activity is within a 150 air-mile radius of their normal work reporting location. It’s called the Responsible Opportunity for Under-21 Trucking Engagement Act, also known as the ROUTE Act.
“The current system creates situations that simply do not make sense, like allowing a driver in Kansas City, KS to haul clear across the state to its border with Colorado, but not deliver a few miles away in Kansas City, MO,” OOIDA President Todd Spencer said in a press release. “The ROUTE Act fixes this problem in a safe and practical way.”
