Self Reporting - CSA/Regulatory Amendment

Motor Carriers, such as HVH, has found the need from time to time, to contact law enforcement to intercede on our behalf, a driver who we reasonably have belief that a driver may be under the influence and posing a hazard to all highway users. Under current FMCSA guidelines, a motor carrier, may only take action if a driver operating under their US DOT authority, of being under the influence, is directly observed in our presence. Law enforcement who respond, complete the necessary paperwork, and the motor carrier is often penalized (assigned points) for essentially doing the right thing and is acting in the best interest of public policy. My belief is the true intent is to keep impaired drivers off the roads, a motor carrier should not be penalized or have to decide the weight of risk against a management strategy of managing its safety profile & score under the CSA program.

This should be assigned a medium - high priority level. While it is an important issue which could have a high overall impact of highway safety, considering all the recent elections in which states have legalized marijuana. In my position, I oversee a staff of auditors who crawl through driver qualification applications and see first hand, that their is a large misconception among drivers and federal regulations. The major misconception is \"if the state legalized it ... it aint illegal anymore\". Over the previous years, I have spent roughly $16,000 on educational and awareness campaigns to fight these misconceptions. While, I do publicize we will contact law enforcement if we suspect a driver is under the influence and that will deter some activity. My staff, like I suspect many others are the same, is very cognizant of our CSA safety profile and it scores it be be reassuring to know that our proactive stance and approach is recognized and the motor carrier is not going to be penalized for doing the right thing and acting in the best interest of public policy.

I request that if a motor carrier self-reports this type of issue to law enforcement that no points be assigned and/or the event is not counted against the motor carrier as an occurrence under the CSA program. Even if that requires one of the numerous \"reserved\" section number found throughout the FMCSA Regulations is reassigned as \"self-reporting\" and all of these violations are bucketed under that category.