Qualification of Drivers; Exemption Applications; Epilepsy and Seizure Disorders

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION <SUBAGY>Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. FMCSA-2024-0027]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Qualification of Drivers; Exemption Applications; Epilepsy and Seizure Disorders</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), Department of Transportation (DOT). <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of final disposition. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> FMCSA announces its decision to exempt 11 individuals from the requirement in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSRs) that interstate commercial motor vehicle (CMV) drivers have “no established medical history or clinical diagnosis of epilepsy or any other condition which is likely to cause loss of consciousness or any loss of ability to control a CMV.” The exemptions enable these individuals who have had one or more seizures and are taking anti-seizure medication to operate CMVs in interstate commerce. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> The exemptions were applicable on November 13, 2024. The exemptions expire on November 13, 2024. </DATES> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Ms. Christine A. Hydock, Chief, Medical Programs Division, FMCSA, DOT, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590-0001, (202) 366-4001, <E T="03">fmcsamedical@dot.gov.</E> Office hours are from 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, contact Dockets Operations, (202) 366-9826. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Public Participation</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Viewing Comments</HD> To view comments go to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> Insert the docket number, (FMCSA-2024-0027) in the keyword box and click “Search.” Next, sort the results by “Posted (Older-Newer),” choose the first notice listed, and click “Browse Comments.” If you do not have access to the internet, you may view the docket online by visiting Dockets Operations on the ground floor of the DOT West Building, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590-0001, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays. To be sure someone is there to help you, please call (202) 366-9317 or (202) 366-9826 before visiting Dockets Operations. <HD SOURCE="HD2">B. Privacy Act</HD> In accordance with 49 U.S.C. 31315(b)(6), DOT solicits comments from the public on the exemption requests. 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 (Federal Docket Management System), which can be reviewed at <E T="03">https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/privacy/privacy-act-system-records-notices,</E> the comments are searchable by the name of the submitter. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background</HD> On October 9, 2024, FMCSA published a notice announcing receipt of applications from 11 individuals requesting an exemption from the epilepsy and seizure disorders prohibition in 49 CFR 391.41(b)(8) and requested comments from the public (89 FR 81983). The public comment period ended on November 8, 2024, and no comments were received. FMCSA has evaluated the eligibility of these applicants and determined that granting exemptions to these individuals would likely achieve a level of safety that is equivalent to, or greater than, the level that would be achieved by complying with § 391.41(b)(8). The physical qualification standard for drivers regarding epilepsy found in § 391.41(b)(8) states that a person is physically qualified to drive a CMV if that person has no established medical history or clinical diagnosis of epilepsy or any other condition which is likely to cause the loss of consciousness or any loss of ability to control a CMV. In addition to the regulations, FMCSA has published advisory criteria  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> to assist medical examiners (MEs) in determining whether drivers with certain medical conditions are qualified to operate a CMV in interstate commerce. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  These criteria may be found in Appendix A to Part 391—Medical Advisory Criteria, section H. Epilepsy: § 391.41(b)(8), paragraphs 3, 4, and 5, which is available on the internet at <E T="03">https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2015-title49-vol5/pdf/CFR-2015-title49-vol5-part391-appA.pdf.</E> </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Discussion of Comments</HD> FMCSA received no comments in this proceeding. <HD SOURCE="HD1">IV. Basis for Exemption Determination</HD> Under 49 U.S.C. 31136(e) and 31315(b), FMCSA may grant an exemption from the FMCSRs for no longer than a 5-year period if it finds such exemption would likely achieve a level of safety that is equivalent to, or greater than, the level that would be achieved absent such exemption. The statutes allow the Agency to renew exemptions at the end of the 5-year period. However, FMCSA grants medical exemptions from the FMCSRs for a 2-year period to align with the maximum duration of a driver's medical certification. The Agency's decision regarding these exemption applications is based on the 2007 recommendations of the Agency's Medical Expert Panel. The Agency conducted an individualized assessment of each applicant's medical information, including the root cause of the respective seizure(s) and medical information about the applicant's seizure history, the length of time that has elapsed since the individual's last seizure, the stability of each individual's treatment regimen and the duration of time on or off of anti-seizure medication. In addition, the Agency reviewed the treating clinician's medical opinion related to the ability of the driver to safely operate a CMV with a seizure history and each certified driving record from their State Driver's Licensing Agency (SDLA). The information obtained from each applicant's driving record provides the Agency with details regarding any moving violations or reported crash data, which demonstrates whether the driver has a safe driving history and is an indicator of future driving performance. If the driving record revealed a crash, FMCSA requested and reviewed the related police reports and other relevant documents, such as the citation and conviction information. A summary of each applicant's seizure history was discussed in the October 9, 2024, <E T="04">Federal Register</E> notice (89 FR 81983) and will not be repeated in this notice. These 11 applicants have been seizure-free over a range of 33 years while taking anti-seizure medication and maintained a stable medication treatment regimen for the last 2 years. In each case, the applicant's treating physician verified his or her seizure history and supports the ability to drive commercially. The Agency acknowledges the potential consequences of a driver experiencing a seizure while operating a CMV. However, the Agency believes the drivers granted this exemption have demonstrated that they are unlikely to have a seizure and their medical condition does not pose a risk to public safety. Consequently, FMCSA finds further that in each case exempting these applicants from the epilepsy and seizure disorder prohibition in § 391.41(b)(8) would likely achieve a level of safety equal to that existing without the exemption, consistent with the applicable standard in 49 U.S.C. 31315(b)(1). <HD SOURCE="HD1">V. Terms and Conditions</HD> The terms and conditions of the exemption are provided to the applicants in the exemption document and include the following: each driver must (1) remain seizure-free, maintain a stable treatment, and report to FMCSA within 24 hours if they experience a seizure during the 2-year exemption period; (2) submit to FMCSA annual reports from their treating physicians attesting to the stability of treatment and that the driver has remained seizure-free; (3) undergo an annual medical examination by a certified medical examiner, as defined by § 390.5T; (4) provide a copy of the annual medical certification to the employer for retention in the driver's qualification file, or keep a copy of their driver's qualification file if they are self-employed; (5) report to FMCSA the date, location, and time of any crashes as defined in § 390.5T within 7 days of the crash; (6) report to FMCSA any citations and convictions for disqualifying offenses under 49 CFR parts 383 and 391 within 7 days of the citations and convictions; and (7) submit to FMCSA annual certified driving records from their SDLA. The driver must also have a copy of the exemption when driving, for presentation to a duly authorized Federal, State, or local enforcement official. In addition, the driver must meet all applicable commercial driver's license testing requirements. <HD SOURCE="HD1">VI. Preemption</HD> During the period the exemption is in effect, no State shall enforce any law or regulation that conflicts with this exemption with respect to a person operating under the exemption. <HD SOURCE="HD1">VII. Conclusion</HD> Based upon its evaluation of the 11 exemption applications, FMCSA exempts the following drivers from the epilepsy and seizure disorder prohibition in § 391.41(b)(8), subject to the requirements cited above: <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Ethan Abbott (PA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Blake Bourgeois (LA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Richard Henry (MO)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Justin Knall (AR)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Mark Merhalski (WI)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Andrew Murphy (NY)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Scott Oehlschlaeger (CA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Steven Outing (NC)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Kristopher Parker (MS)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Nathaniel Price (OH)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">Ashley Wagner (WI)</FP> In accordance with 49 U.S.C. 31315(b), each exemp ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 11k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━