Agency Information Collection Activities; Renewal of an Approved Information Collection: Medical Qualification Requirements

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FMCSA-2024-0158]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Agency Information Collection Activities; Renewal of an Approved Information Collection: Medical Qualification Requirements</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice and request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, FMCSA announces its plan to submit the Information Collection Request (ICR) described below to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for its review and approval and invites public comment. The FMCSA requests approval to renew an ICR titled, “Medical Qualification Requirements,” due to updated information for several of the Information Collections (ICs) discussed. This ICR is needed to ensure that drivers, motor carriers and the States are complying with the physical qualification requirements of commercial motor vehicle (CMV) drivers. The information collected is used to determine and certify driver medical fitness and must be collected in order for our highways to be safe. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments on this notice must be received on or before November 18, 2024. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments identified by Federal Docket Management System (FDMS) Docket Number FMCSA-2024-0158 using any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the online instructions for submitting comments. • <E T="03">Mail:</E> Dockets Operations; U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building, Ground Floor, Washington, DC 20590-0001. • <E T="03">Hand Delivery or Courier:</E> U.S. Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, West Building, Ground Floor, Washington, DC 20590-0001 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. • <E T="03">Fax:</E> (202) 493-2251. To avoid duplication, please use only one of these four methods. See the “Public Participation and Request for Comments” portion of the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section for instructions on submitting comments. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Ms. Christine A. Hydock, Chief, Medical Programs Division, (202) 366-4001, <E T="03">fmcsamedical@dot.gov,</E> FMCSA, Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Room W64-224, Washington, DC 20590-0001. Office hours are 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., ET, Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. If you have questions regarding viewing or submitting material to the docket, call Dockets Operations at (202) 366-9826. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Instructions</HD> All submissions must include the Agency name and docket number. For detailed instructions on submitting comments, see the Public Participation heading below. Note that all comments received will be posted without change to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> including any personal information provided. Please see the Privacy Act heading below. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Public Participation and Request for Comments</HD> If you submit a comment, please include the docket number for this notice (FMCSA-2024-0158), indicate the specific section of this document to which your comment applies, and provide a reason for each suggestion or recommendation. You may submit your comments and material online or by fax, mail, or hand delivery, but please use only one of these means. FMCSA recommends that you include your name and a mailing address, an email address, or a phone number in the body of your document so FMCSA can contact you if there are questions regarding your submission. To submit your comment online, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov/docket/FMCSA-2024-0158/document,</E> click on this notice, click “Comment,” and type your comment into the text box on the following screen. If you submit your comments by mail or hand delivery, submit them in an unbound format, no larger than 8 <FR>1/2</FR> by 11 inches, suitable for copying and electronic filing. Comments received after the comment closing date will be included in the docket and will be considered to the extent practicable. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Privacy Act</HD> In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(c), DOT solicits comments from the public to better inform its rulemaking process. DOT posts these comments, without edit, including any personal information the commenter provides, to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov,</E> as described in the system of records notice (DOT/ALL-14 FDMS), which can be reviewed at <E T="03">www.dot.gov/privacy.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> CMVs (trucks and buses) are longer, heavier, and more difficult to maneuver than automobiles, making them a threat to highway safety if not operated properly by qualified individuals. The public interest in, and right to have, safe highways requires the assurance that drivers of CMVs can safely perform the increased physical and mental demands of their duties. FMCSA's physical qualification standards provide this assurance by requiring drivers to be examined and medically certified as physically and mentally qualified to drive. Therefore, information used to determine and certify driver medical fitness must be collected. FMCSA is the Federal government agency authorized to require the collection of this information. FMCSA is required by statute to establish standards for the physical qualifications of drivers who operate CMVs in interstate commerce for non-excepted industries (49 U.S.C. 31136(a)(3) and 31502(b)). The regulations discussing this collection are outlined in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSRs) at 49 CFR 390 through 399. Below is a brief description of the included IC activities and how the information is used. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Physical Qualification Standards</HD> The FMCSRs at 49 CFR 391.41 set forth the physical qualification standards that interstate CMV drivers who are subject to part 391 must meet, with the exception of commercial driver's license/commercial learner's permit (CDL/CLP) drivers transporting migrant workers (who must meet the physical qualification standards set forth in 49 CFR 398.3). The FMCSRs covering driver physical qualification records are found at § 391.43, which specify that a medical examination be performed on CMV drivers subject to part 391 who operate in interstate commerce. The results of the examination shall be recorded in accordance with the requirements set forth in that section. The current provisions of §§ 391.51 and 398.3 require that a motor carrier retain the Medical Examiner's Certificate (MEC), Form MCSA-5876, in the driver's qualification (DQ) file for 3 years. The certificate affirms that the driver is physically qualified to drive a CMV in interstate commerce. Due to potential onset of new conditions or changes in existing conditions that may adversely affect a driver's ability to safely operate a CMV and/or cause incapacitation that could be a risk to public safety, periodic evaluation and certification is required to assess driver physical qualification. MECs may be issued for up to 2 years after the date of examination. However, drivers with certain medical conditions must be certified more frequently than every 2 years. Medical examiners (MEs) have discretion to certify for shorter time periods on a case-by-case basis for medical conditions that require closer monitoring or that are more likely to change over time. In addition, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Act: A Legacy for Users (Pub .L. 109-59, 119 Stat. 1144, August 10, 2005) requires MEs to transmit to FMCSA's Chief Medical Officer, electronically and on a monthly basis, driver information and results of any CMV driver medical examinations conducted during the previous month. MEs are required to maintain records of the CMV driver medical examinations they conduct. FMCSA does not require MEs to maintain these records electronically. However, there is nothing to preclude an ME from maintaining electronic records of the medical examinations they conduct. FMCSA is continuously evaluating new information technology in an attempt to decrease the burden on motor carriers and MEs. Less frequent collection of driver data, Medical Examination Report Forms, MCSA-5875, and MECs, Form MCSA-5876, would compromise FMCSA's ability to determine ME compliance with FMCSA's physical qualification standards and guidelines in performing CMV driver physical qualification examinations, which could result in MEs listed on the National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners who should be removed and possibly drivers that don't meet the physical qualification standards possessing an MEC. Less frequent data collection would also result in decreased validity of the data ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> less frequent data submission may increase the error rate due to unintentional omission of examination information). Therefore, less frequent collection of driver examination results is not an option. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Resolution of Medical Conflict</HD> The medical conflict provision provides a mechanism for drivers and motor carriers to request that FMCSA make a final decision to resolve conflicting medical evaluations when either party does not accept the decision of a medical specialist. If two MEs disagree about the medical certification of a driver, the requirements set forth in § 391.47 mandate that the applicant (driver or motor carrier) submit a copy of a report including results of all medical testing and the opinion ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━