The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration ("FMCSA") is currently reminding commercial motor carriers that they need to update their Vehicle Miles Travelled ("VMT") and Power Unit (PU) data on their Motor Carrier Registration form, known as the MCS-150.
VMTs are used to calculate Unsafe Driving and Crash Indicator Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Category (BASIC) percentiles. If the VMT data is from 2009 or later, it will not be used in the calculations when the January Safety Measurement System (SMS) snapshot is posted at the beginning of February.
Motor carriers that currently receive a VMT-based adjustment due to high truck utilization (i.e. more VMT per PU than the average) will cease receiving that adjustment if they do not update their MCS-150 form to reflect more recent data (i.e. VMT year of 2010 or 2011).
All participating Unified Carrier Registration (“UCR”) states will be sending 2011 UCR renewals out to interstate motor carriers, brokers, and freight forwarders between October 15th and November 15th. The renewal notices will advise that 2011 UCR renewal applications must be filed by January 1, 2011 to ensure that UCR fee payment confirmation is accessible to enforcement officials by the February 1, 2011 UCR enforcement date. As a reminder, UCR renewals and fee payments may be handled through the national UCR website administered by the Indiana Motor Carrier Services Division at
www.ucr.in.gov or by completing and returning UCR renewals to the designated UCR base state.
On September 11, 2011, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration ("FMCSA") will eliminate the practice of allowing non-motor carrier registrants to obtain registrant-only USDOT numbers. The "registrant-only" USDOT number was developed by the FMCSA as a way to identify registered owners of commercial motor vehicles ("CMVs") that are not motor carriers, but lease their CMVs to entities that are motor carriers.
Ultimately, the FMCSA determined that the registrant-only USDOT numbers were having an adverse affect on its ability to track motor carriers' safety violations. In too many cases, law enforcement personnel were being presented with registrant-only USDOT numbers during inspections and crash investigations. As a result, the data that should have been assigned to the record of the offending motor carrier operating the CMV was being erroneously assigned to the registrant-only USDOT number - a number that should have no safety events assigned to it.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration ("FMCSA") just released new Unified Carrier Registration ("UCR") fees for 2010. The fees apply to interstate private carriers, for-hire carriers, freight forwarders, brokers, and leasing companies. Though the new fees are higher than in past years, they are lower than those proposed by the FMCSA last year. The new fee schedule for motor carriers is as follows:
- Up to two vehicles - the fee is raised from $39 to $76
- Three to five vehicles - from $116 to $227
- Six to 20 vehicles - from $231 to $452
- 21 to 100 vehicles - from $806 to $1,576
- 101 to 1,000 vehicles - from $3,840 to $7,511
- 1,001 to 200,000 vehicles - from $37,500 to $73,346
Brokers, freight forwarders, or leasing companies that are not also motor carriers pay a flat fee of $76. Enforcement on interstate motor carriers not in compliance with 2010 UCR fee payment begins July 15, 2010.
The FMCSA has announced a new interpretation that states may use the existing Unified Carrier Registration fee schedule in assessing and collecting fees for 2010, despite the delay in a final new fee schedule to reflect the removal of towed vehicles from the determination. States will have to base the fees on the number of self-propelled vehicles, not including towed vehicles, owned or operated by the registrant. The FMCSA recognized that not counting towed vehicles means many motor carriers would pay fees based on a smaller number of commercial motor vehicles, thus producing less revenues for the participating States. However, the agency said that once a final fee schedule is effective, participating States that collected Unified Carrier Registration fees under the current fee schedule may then assess and collect the additional balance due under the new schedule.
The announcement appears at 75 Fed. Reg. 9487 (Mar. 2, 2010).
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