The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is seeking comments on a possible regulatory change that would require commercial motor vehicles to be equipped with the technology to wirelessly transmit a unique identification number to state or federal enforcement personnel.
The agency published a notice of the request for comments late last week. It said it is considering the change to improve roadside inspections and allow enforcement agencies to focus their efforts on high-risk carriers and drivers.
You can see the advanced notice of proposed rulemaking and make comments here. Comments will be accepted until Nov. 22.
In that notice, FMCSA said it is "soliciting further information regarding various aspects of electronic identification including the best possible technical and operational concepts along with associated costs, benefits, security, vulnerability, privacy, and other relevant deployment and operational implications."
FMCSA's notice said it comes in response to a petition originally made by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance in 2010. The agency denied that petition in 2013 stating it lacked the "information necessary to estimate the costs and benefits of an electronic ID mandate." CVSA resubmitted the petition with the requested information in 2015, and FMCSA approved it.
