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4 days ago | 
gomotive.com | Rob Carpenter
After nearly a decade of delays and development, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is finally ready to roll out a long-anticipated change to reshape how commercial driver medical qualifications are managed. Effective June 23, 2025, the Medical Examiner’s Certification Integration Rule replaced outdated, paper-based processes with a secure, fully digital system that links medical certification records directly to commercial driver licenses (CDLs).
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4 days ago | 
freightwaves.com | Rob Carpenter
For nearly a decade, FMCSA’s rules on English proficiency and medical certification have existed in regulatory limbo, passed but rarely enforced. The delays are over. Today, June 23, followed by June 25, 2025, two rule rollouts will go live and change the compliance landscape for fleets and drivers across America. This shift is both administrative and operational.
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4 days ago | 
freightwaves.com | Rob Carpenter
Every industry has its big game, and for trucking, the Mid-America Trucking Show might be the Super Bowl, but the 2025 Texas Trucking Show in Houston felt like one of the championships and a backyard BBQ rolled into one. I say one of the championships because in 16 days, the Walcott Truckers Jamboree at Iowa 81 will kick off.
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5 days ago | 
yahoo.com | Rob Carpenter
Every industry has its big game, and for trucking, the Mid-America Trucking Show might be the Super Bowl, but the 2025 Texas Trucking Show in Houston felt like one of the championships and a backyard BBQ rolled into one. I say one of the championships because in 16 days, the Walcott Truckers Jamboree at Iowa 81 will kick off.
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2 weeks ago | 
gomotive.com | Rob Carpenter
Freight fraud casts a long shadow over the trucking industry. Fraudulent activity costs carriers, brokers, and shippers hundreds of millions annually. In response to this growing threat, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is rolling out a new identity verification initiative to stop fraud at the source. This new approach is part of FMCSA’s broader effort to modernize and secure freight operations by verifying who’s actually behind a carrier’s registration.
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2 weeks ago | 
freightwaves.com | Rob Carpenter
In Texas, drivers who cannot read or speak English may still be issued commercial driver’s licenses if they operate solely within the state’s borders. This policy is not new. Per Texas Transportation Code § 522.043(b), the state prohibits requiring English language proficiency for intrastate-only CDL holders. The Texas Administrative Code and the official Texas Commercial Motor Vehicle Driver Handbook support this stance, noting that ELP only applies to interstate drivers.
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2 weeks ago | 
yahoo.com | Rob Carpenter
In Texas, drivers who cannot read or speak English may still be issued commercial driver’s licenses if they operate solely within the state’s borders. This policy is not new. Per Texas Transportation Code § 522.043(b), the state prohibits requiring English language proficiency for intrastate-only CDL holders. The Texas Administrative Code and the official Texas Commercial Motor Vehicle Driver Handbook support this stance, noting that ELP only applies to interstate drivers.
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3 weeks ago | 
freightwaves.com | Rob Carpenter
For years, drivers, brokers and carriers have voiced the same complaint: Filing reports with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration often feels like yelling into the void. The National Consumer Complaint Database (NCCDB), designed initially to collect reports on bad actors in the supply chain, has been criticized for being clunky, outdated and ineffective. Now, in a low-profile move buried in the Federal Register, the FMCSA is proposing a sweeping overhaul of the NCCDB. The goal?
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3 weeks ago | 
freightwaves.com | Rob Carpenter
Back in January 2024, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) calling for a Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) that would mandate impaired-driving detection systems in every new passenger vehicle sold in the United States.
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3 weeks ago | 
freightwaves.com | Rob Carpenter
Every year thousands of trucks are pulled off the road during the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance’s Brake Safety Week by inspectors across the U.S., Canada and Mexico, who in 2023 conducted 18,875 inspections. Of those, 2,375 trucks or 12.6%, were placed out of service for brake-related violations. This year’s spotlight is sharper than ever, especially if you have rotors cracking under heat stress, pigtails dragging across your catwalk or drums coated in grime.
