FMCSA issues waiver for expiring licenses and medical cards

“While America’s truck drivers are out delivering the essential medical supplies, food and other goods we need to combat this virus, FMCSA has taken an important step to let drivers and carriers know how to address things like expired commercial driver’s licenses or medical cards,” said ATA Vice President of Safety Dan Horvath in reference to the waiver. “With state governments moving to remote work and shuttering offices, drivers will need assistance to continue moving critical goods safely and today’s guidance is a step toward ensuring those trucks keep moving.”

To complement the waiver, FMCSA issued a separate Notice of Enforcement Policy stating that, through June 30, the agency will not take enforcement against drivers or their carriers if the driver held a valid CDL on Feb. 29, 2020. For CLP holders, FMCSA noted that while most states have adopted the full one-year maximum period of validity, it is still including a comparable provision on nonenforcement of recently expired CLPs.

The Scopelitis law firm emphasized in an alert that the FMCSA’s waiver is not a blanket exception to license or medical card requirements, “meaning that commercial drivers must still hold a license of the type appropriate for the vehicles they are operating and must also have been deemed physically qualified to operate a commercial motor vehicle by a certified medical examiner.”