It seems that unsafe drivers can still drive. A new study has found that disqualified drivers are evading safeguards that are supposed to get them off the road. In some cases, as many as three out of four disqualified drivers pass roadside inspections without being caught.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) study examined how effective states and the judicial system are in:
Remove driving privileges from commercial driver's license (CDL) holders who have committed disqualifying violations, and then
Catch them on the road if they continue to drive.
Among the findings:
The capture rate of disqualified drivers during roadside inspections ranged from 24 to 66 percent.
In other words, between one in three and three out of four drivers were allowed to continue driving even though they had lost
their driving privileges.
Court data showed possible "masking" in between 0.5 and 18 percent of cases, usually due to a conviction on reduced charges. Courts may mask disqualifying citations by reducing the charge or convicting for non-disqualifying offenses.
Officers have discretion when issuing roadside citations, which presents an opportunity for drivers to avoid potentially disqualifying violations depending on how the officer chooses to write them.
Disqualification records can be lost or compromised as they pass through multiple federal, state, and sometimes local recordkeeping systems. In the end, they may not be recorded in the master license database.
Some state licensing agencies do not enforce the mandatory CDL disqualification periods listed in 49 CFR 383.51.
Read more: Cracks in the system: Disqualified drivers still on the road | J. J. Keller® Compliance Network (jjkellercompliancenetwork.com)
