December 24: FMCSA cuts random truckers’ testing rate for substance abuse to 25%. Good news for truck drivers and carriers—the United States Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has cut the random testing rate for substance abuse in half, from 50% to 25%. This should produce a nice savings for carriers,…
USDOT/FMCSA announces delay to new Medical Exam Report and Certificate compliance date
Today the United States Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) formally made the anticipated announcement of which rumor had circulated in the regulatory community for the last several days. FMCSA offered a “grace period” of 120 days regarding mandatory use of the new Medical Examination Report (MER) (Federal Form MCSA-5875) and…
New FMCSA Medical Examination Forms Released
On Monday December 7th, 2015, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) posted example copies of the revised Medical Examination Report Form (MCSA-5875) and Medical Examiner’s Certificate (MCSA-5876) on the FMCSA website. See below: https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/medical/driver-medical-requirements/medical-applications-and-forms The FMCSA mandated use of the new forms in a Final Rule amending the FMCSR published in the Federal Register…
2018 Rail PTC Extension rolls through Congress
Congress acted to avert confusion and delay on the nation’s rail infrastructure on Wednesday October 28th, 2015 by passing an extension to what had been a looming December 31st, 2015 deadline for railroads to fully implement Positive Train Control, or PTC, control systems on their networks. PTC is a control system that uses Global Positioning…
Congressional politics threaten PTC extension bill
Just when American railroads were perhaps starting to breathe a bit easier about the December 31st, 2015 Positive Train Control (PTC) deadline account the seeming agreement in the House of Representatives about extending the deadline to 2018 under a pending bill HR 3651, new political roadblocks to passage appear to be arising. On Wednesday October…
Congress advances bill to delay Railroad PTC Mandate
The US House of Representatives has introduced legislation to delay until 2018 the current deadline for US railroads to implement Positive Train Control (PTC) systems on their tracks. As discussed in a previous blog on the subject, the nation’s railroads have jointly stated the physical impossibility of completing such an inter-operative system by the end…
ICAO to launch new aircraft tracking website
On September 22, 2015, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) announced the addition of a new portion of their website devoted to a centralized collection of aircraft tracking information. The new information section of ICAO’s public website was created in response to recommendations from ICAO Member States in February of this year at the High…
August Survey Results — DG Heroes
Thank you to those who participated in our August Survey on Dangerous Goods. Some of the questions were meant to spark a chuckle, some were more serious. You delivered way beyond our expectations! With that, we would like to share a few of the best and all the rest full results at bottom of…
PTC Alert! The Positive Train Control Deadline Creates a Potential Transportation Crisis
UPDATE: Congress advances bill to delay Railroad PTC Mandate Will January 1, 2016 be the day the trains stop? As America’s railroads and Congress fail to agree on extending the December 31 deadline for implementing Positive Train Control systems, that threat inches closer to reality. The railroads have threatened to essentially shut down all service…
Guiding Principles behind UN Model Regulations — Free Download
At the Labelmaster Dangerous Goods Symposium last week, Jeff Hart, former Chair of the United Nations Sub-committee of Experts asked delegates whether anyone had read the “Guiding Principles” document which illustrates some of the concepts and detail behind to UN Model Regulations. Only a few delegates knew of the document. For those interested in getting acquainted with…