In a press release issued by American Trucking Associations, ATA president Bill Graves said the U.S. Senate’s $109 billion transportation package “takes a number of important steps toward reforming our transportation system” and represents “a step forward for highway safety.”
Among the positive aspects of the bill, according to the ATA statement:
• Creation of a federal freight program
• Central clearinghouse for drug and alcohol test results
• Notification system for employers of drivers with traffic violations
• Establishing crash test standards for large trucks
• Requiring electronic logs for all commercial drivers
Two days after the bill passed the Senate, ATA filed a challenge to provisions of the new Hours of Service rules established by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA.) ATA filed the challenge in the U.S. Court of Appeals, saying that aspects of the 35-hour restart provision were “arbitrary and capricious.”
