{"id":2143,"date":"2012-05-01T18:26:55","date_gmt":"2012-05-01T22:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/?p=2143"},"modified":"2012-05-01T18:26:55","modified_gmt":"2012-05-01T22:26:55","slug":"automated-license-plate-readers-arrive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/2012\/05\/waynes-world\/automated-license-plate-readers-arrive\/","title":{"rendered":"Automated License Plate Readers Arrive"},"content":{"rendered":"

TODAY\u2019S HIGH-TECH WORLD OF TRUCKING.<\/strong>\u00a0 Through a recent partnership with the FMCSA and Virginia State Police, the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) recently installed new technology at three of its motor carrier weigh stations that help keep compliant trucks moving and help stop non-compliant vehicles.\u00a0 The new technology is called the Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR), and it checks trucks that cross the scales at weigh stations in Carson, Stephens City and Dumfries for compliance with federal and state rules.\u00a0 The new technology will also be installed at weigh stations in Alberta and Troutville later this year.\u00a0 As a truck drives crosses the weigh station scales, the ALPR reads the truck\u2019s plate and queries DMV\u2019s system to locate any companies that have suspended credentials or owe Virginia any outstanding taxes, fees or penalties.\u00a0 If a truck is flagged by the system, the driver is asked to pull into the weigh station where the driver has the opportunity to correct any issues.\u00a0 In the future, this ALPR system will also have the capability of interfacing with the Commercial Vehicle Information Exchange Window (CVIEW) for roadside screenings.\u00a0 This other interface will extend screening to include compliance issues with other states.\u00a0 The ALPR system is the latest piece of DMV\u2019s new smart roadside technology program.\u00a0 As part of this program, existing weigh-in-motion technology has already been implemented at most of Virginia\u2019s weigh stations (high-speed weigh-in-motion scales are set into the road just before the weigh stations).\u00a0 Think you can still hide?\u00a0 Get your affairs in order and start running legally or they will get you!<\/p>\n

ATA BACKS FMCSA.<\/strong>\u00a0 If you haven\u2019t heard, the American Trucking Association (ATA) has filed an amicus brief (friend of the court) with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in support of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration\u2019s (FMCSA) defense of electronic logging devices.\u00a0 ATA supports the use of electronic logging devices, which have demonstrated the ability to improve carriers\u2019 compliance with FMCSA\u2019s hours-of-service (HOS) regulations.\u00a0 In the brief, ATA urges the court to reject the calls to prevent fleets from using these powerful compliance tools.\u00a0 FMCSA\u2019s rules governing the voluntary use of electronic logging devices to records HOS data are being challenged by a group that has successfully overturned the agency\u2019s proposal to mandate electronic logging for the carriers with egregious HOS violations.\u00a0 Thousands of responsible, safety-minded fleets throughout this country voluntarily already use this technology to ensure their drivers are complying with the federal HOS requirements.\u00a0 The ATA went on to say that the court should dismiss this challenge and reaffirm the long-standing authorization to voluntarily use electronic logging devices while FMCSA works toward addressing questions about a future, wider mandate for their use.<\/p>\n

HAZMAT SCORES & CSA.<\/strong>\u00a0 Changes to the FMCSA\u2019s CSA program that place additional emphasis on hazardous materials handling are apparently causing a steep spike in scores of some carriers with otherwise \u201cSatisfactory\u201d safety records.\u00a0 Apparently, new methodology is causing some carriers with low crash rates and a reputation for safe performance to be assigned high scores in that category, which is inconsistent with their overall performance in other categories, and causing their CSA score to unfairly spike.<\/p>\n

CHAMELEON CARRIERS MUST GO.<\/strong>\u00a0 The Government Accountability Office (GSA) says that the FMCSA could better reduce the number of fleets that evade enforcement penalties by gaining new operating authority if they would more closely compare new motor carriers\u2019 information to old carriers that had legal issues.\u00a0 The surface transportation reauthorization bill the Senate passed last month would give FMCSA power to set its own federal standard for carrier succession and only that standard would have to be proved in court. \u00a0The government is hoping to crack down on carriers who \u201cclose shop\u201d and then re-open under another name to avoid penalties, bad safety ratings and debts.<\/p>\n

PORT HAULERS NOW LIABLE.<\/strong>\u00a0 The FMCSA said the agency will soon begin (July 2012) to count some container chassis safety violations against truckers, which is the next step toward full implementation of federal chassis safety rules.\u00a0 Carriers will be held responsible for violations that they should have seen on pre-trip inspections.\u00a0 FMCSA said they still have a few things to work out about defects that are found during roadside inspections \u2013 such as a taillight that burns out on the road or other violations that result from faulty maintenance or road vibration \u2013 but if the violation should have been found on the pre-trip inspection, it will now go against the driver.\u00a0 The law was passed back in 2005, but it is still a long way from completion.<\/p>\n

HOS BACK IN THE COURTS \u2013 AGAIN.<\/strong>\u00a0 The Public Citizen, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, and the Truck Safety Coalition have all challenged the federal government\u2019s revised hours-of-service (HOS) rules again!\u00a0 The groups said they will ask an appeals court to reduce the maximum daily driving limit to less than 11 hours, reject the rule\u2019s definition of driver off-duty time and eliminate the 34-hour restart provision.\u00a0 In a related development, the shipper group NASSTRAC (National Shipper\u2019s Strategic Transportation Council) filed a motion on March 23 seeking to intervene in the HOS lawsuit in support of FMCSA\u2019s decision to retain the 11-hour driving limit and to \u201cdefend\u201d other aspects of the lawsuit in opposition to these challenges made by the public interest groups.\u00a0 Why are all these \u201cnon-trucking\u201d groups even getting involved?\u00a0 I am so tired of all this arguing over the HOS rules.\u00a0 Why can’t we just let the trucking industry solve its own problems and allow drivers to do their jobs<\/p>\n

BEWARE OF PHONY DOT LETTERS.<\/strong> Carriers have been receiving fraudulent letters that appear to be from the DOT seeking banking information.\u00a0 The latest batch of letters state they are from the \u201cU.S. Department of Transportation Procurement Office\u201d and they are signed by \u201cJulie Weynel, Senior Procurement Office.\u201d\u00a0 FMCSA advises carriers not to respond to these letters, as the agency would never ask carriers for their banking information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TODAY\u2019S HIGH-TECH WORLD OF TRUCKING.\u00a0 Through a recent partnership with the FMCSA and Virginia State Police, the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) recently installed new technology at three of its motor carrier weigh stations that help keep compliant trucks moving and help stop non-compliant vehicles.\u00a0 The new technology is called the Automated License Plate Reader<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":459,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2143","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-waynes-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2143"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2198,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2143\/revisions\/2198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}