Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration adopts final rule regarding school bus driver knowledge and skills test
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has adopted an interim final rule regarding the knowledge and skills tests school bus drivers must pass to receive Commercial Driver's License school bus endorsements. Background on an earlier proposed rule on testing is available on the COSA Federal regulation pages, below. Under the Motor Carrier Safety Improvement Act of 1999, states were required by September 30, 2005 to give all bus drivers a knowledge and skills test based on federal standards. Previously FMCSA had determined that if bus drivers had taken such a test before September 30, 2002, they would not be in compliance with the law, even if the test were compatible with federal law. In a July 14, 2005 notice, FMCSA proposed giving eleven states that had federally complying tests in place before September 30, 2002 (Alabama, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin), a two-year exemption from the 2005 deadline to retest drivers. Since then, Congress has passed the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, named in the annoying fashion now in vogue in Congress to yield the acronym SAFETEA-LU. In this Act, Congress directed the Secretary of Transportation to recognize any driver who has passed a test approved by FMCSA as meeting the knowledge requirement for a school bus endorsement. In its interim final rule, FMCSA clarifies that it believes Congress also intended to give FMCSA the authority to accept FMCSA-approved knowledge and skills tests administered prior to September 30, 2002. This interpretation renders the proposed two-year exemptions for the 11 states unnecessary. SAFETEA-LU gives all states until September 30, 2006 to administer complying tests to all bus drivers. The rule also extends to this same date the deadline by which states are permitted under certain circumstances to waive the skills tests.
70 Fed. Reg. 56,589 (Sept. 28, 2005)
[Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Interim final rule][COSA Federal Regulations pages on bus driver qualifications]