60-Day Notice of New Information Collection: Commercial Driver's License (CDL) Skills Testing Delays

Kelly Regal
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
5 October 2016

[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 193 (Wednesday, October 5, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 69184-69185]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2016-24177]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

[Docket No. FMCSA-2016-0275]


60-Day Notice of New Information Collection: Commercial Driver's 
License (CDL) Skills Testing Delays

AGENCY: Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), DOT.

ACTION: Notice and request for comments.

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SUMMARY: In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, FMCSA 
announces its plan to submit the Information Collection Request (ICR) 
described below to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for its 
review and approval and invites public comment. This ICR is to collect 
data on the delays, by State, that applicants face when scheduling a 
CDL skills test. This information collection and subsequent data 
analysis is required by section 5506 of the Fixing America's Surface 
Transportation Act, 2015 (FAST Act).

DATES: We must receive your comments on or before December 5, 2016.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments identified by Federal Docket 
Management System (FDMS) Docket Number FMCSA-2016-0275 using any of the 
following methods:
     Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. 
Follow the online instructions for submitting comments.
     Fax: 1-202-493-2251.
     Mail: Docket Operations; U.S. Department of 
Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE., West Building, Ground 
Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC 20590-0001.
     Hand Delivery or Courier: U.S. Department of 
Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE., West Building, Ground 
Floor, Room W12-140, Washington, DC, 20590-0001 between 9 a.m. and 5 
p.m. e.t., Monday through Friday, except Federal holidays.
    Instructions: All submissions must include the Agency name and 
docket number. For detailed instructions on submitting comments and 
additional information on the exemption process, see the Public 
Participation heading below. Note that all comments received will be 
posted without change to http://www.regulations.gov, including any 
personal information provided. Please see the Privacy Act heading 
below.
    Docket: For access to the docket to read background documents or 
comments received, go to http://www.regulations.gov, and follow the 
online instructions for accessing the dockets, or go to the street 
address listed above.
    Privacy Act: In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(c), DOT solicits 
comments from the public to better inform its rulemaking process. DOT 
posts these comments, without edit, including any personal information 
the commenter provides, to www.regulations.gov, as described in the 
system of records notice (DOT/ALL-14 FDMS), which can be reviewed at 
www.dot.gov/privacy.
    Public Participation: The Federal eRulemaking Portal is available 
24 hours each day, 365 days each year. You can obtain electronic 
submission and retrieval help and guidelines under the ``help'' section 
of the Federal eRulemaking Portal Web site. If you want us to notify 
you that we received your comments, please include a self-addressed, 
stamped envelope or postcard, or print the acknowledgement page that 
appears after submitting comments online. Comments received after the 
comment closing date will be included in the docket and will be 
considered to the extent practicable.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Nicole Michel, Office of Analysis, 
Research, and Technology/Research Division, Department of 
Transportation, FMCSA, West Building 6th Floor, 1200 New Jersey Avenue 
SE., Washington, DC 20590. Telephone: 202-366-4354; email 
nicole.michel@dot.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
    Background: Section 5506 of the FAST Act requires FMCSA to produce 
a study on CDL skills test delays on an annual basis. The requirements 
of the study are to submit a report describing:
    ``(A) the average wait time from the date an applicant requests to 
take a skills test to the date the applicant has the opportunity to 
complete such test;
    (B) the average wait time from the date an applicant, upon failure 
of a skills test, requests a retest to the date the applicant has the 
opportunity to complete such retest;
    (C) the actual number of qualified commercial driver's license 
examiners available to test applicants; and
    (D) the number of testing sites available through the State 
department of motor vehicles and whether this number has increased or 
decreased from the previous year.''
    The report is also required to describe ``specific steps the 
Administrator is taking to address skills testing delays in States that 
have average skills test or retest wait times of more than 7 days.'' If 
this information collection does not occur, FMCSA will not be able to 
conduct a study on CDL skills test delays, as there is currently no 
repository of information on skills tests and the required data is not 
available for all States at this time. If information collection occurs 
on a less-than-annual basis, FMCSA will not be able to make 
observations on yearly trends or analyze differences in each State on a 
year-to-year basis.
    FMCSA has met with several stakeholders, including the American 
Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, the Commercial Vehicle 
Training Association, and State Driver Licensing Agencies to ensure 
that the information being collected in this survey has not already 
been collected, is not currently available to FMCSA, and

[[Page 69185]]

is not in the process of being collected. Extensive background research 
was conducted to ensure the study was not duplicative. A previous 
study, done by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in 2015, 
asked for similar information but did not produce specific enough data 
to be used in this study.
    The survey will be sent out via email, with the option for online 
completion using SurveyMonkey[supreg]. Each State can respond via email 
or the online survey depending on which method is more convenient for 
the respondent. The welcome letter will indicate that FMCSA prefers 
responses via the online survey tool.
    The information collected will be published annually in a report to 
the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the Senate 
and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure of the House of 
Representatives. The first report is due to Congress no later than June 
1, 2017. Subsequent reports will be published on an annual basis 
thereafter.
    Title: Survey on CDL Skills Testing Delays.
    OMB Control Number: To be determined.
    Type of Request: New collection.
    Respondents: State CDL Coordinators (one from each of the 50 
States, and one from Washington, DC).
    Estimated Number of Respondents: 51.
    Estimated Time per Response: 2.2 hours (132 minutes).
    Expiration Date: N/A. This is a new ICR.
    Frequency of Response: Annually.
    Estimated Total Annual Burden: The annual burden is estimated to be 
no more than 2.2 hours (132 minutes) per respondent, which equates to 
112.2 hours over the universe of 51 respondents. This estimate contains 
a maximum of 2 hours to gather information from State information 
systems, and an estimated maximum of 12 minutes to respond to the 
survey. While States that already track and report similar information 
may need much less than 2 hours to gather information, discussions with 
subject matter experts led to an agreement that 2 hours was a 
reasonable maximum time limit to use to estimate the maximum annual 
burden expected.
    The estimate time for survey completion was calculated using Versta 
Research's methodology for calculating an estimate of survey length, 
where each question is given a number of points based on the estimated 
burden required to respond to the question (for example, simple 
multiple choice questions are 1 point, whereas short answer questions 
are 3 points per expected short phrase). The total number of points for 
all questions is then divided by eight (the number of simple questions 
a user can respond to online in 1 minute) to determine the estimate 
required length for finishing the survey.
    Public Comments Invited: You are asked to comment on any aspect of 
this information collection, including: (1) Whether the proposed 
collection is necessary for the performance of FMCSA's functions; (2) 
the accuracy of the estimated burden; (3) ways for FMCSA to enhance the 
quality, usefulness, and clarity of the collected information; and (4) 
ways that the burden could be minimized without reducing the quality of 
the collected information. The Agency will summarize or include your 
comments in the request for OMB's clearance of this information 
collection.
    Issued under the authority of 49 CFR 1.87 on:

    Dated: September 29, 2016.
Kelly Regal,
Associate Administrator for Office of Research and Information 
Technology.
[FR Doc. 2016-24177 Filed 10-4-16; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 4910-EX-P