The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is extending by two years an exemption granted to the National School Transportation Association that allows school bus driver applicants to skip the engine compartment portion of the pre-trip inspection skills testing requirement when obtaining their commercial driver’s license.
The exemption of the so-called “under-the-hood” test was published in the Federal Register on Monday. It covers the period of Nov. 28, 2024, through Nov. 28, 2026. NSTA had requested a five-year extension.
FMCSA originally issued a temporary three-month waiver of the under-the-hood test on Jan. 3, 2022, an attempt to alleviate the school bus driver shortage. States were allowed but not required to waive a requirement that school bus driver applicants identify engine components. The waiver only applied to school buses and no other commercial vehicles.
Additional three-month extensions were issued at the end of March 2022 and again at the end of July that year. FMCSA announced a two-year waiver that November.
The move has not come with out opposition. The Minnesota Department of Public Safety questioned why the engine compartment component of the skills test would be critical for all CDL drivers except school bus drivers, and it wrote that all CDL holders should be held to the same standard.
“The Minnesota DPS also stated that it is burdensome and confusing to program software for a temporary change, as well as to train law enforcement to understand and recognize the restriction,” noted in a comment on the Federal Register.
Meanwhile, the Iowa Department of Transportation stated that it represents one of the few states to adopt the waiver and has found it overly burdensome and confusing to implement, which has caused delays.
Comments can be submitted online.
Related: FMCSA Takes CDL from W.V. School Bus Driver in DUI Crash
Related: FMCSA Proposal Seeks to Quicken CDL Process
Related: FMCSA Makes Permanent Its Regulatory Exemption For Windshield-Mounted Safety System Cameras
