Agency Information Collection Activities; Revision of an Approved Information Collection: Inspection, Repair and Maintenance

Kelly Regal
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
4 April 2018

[Federal Register Volume 83, Number 65 (Wednesday, April 4, 2018)]
[Notices]
[Pages 14542-14543]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2018-06859]


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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

[Docket No. FMCSA-2018-0118]


Agency Information Collection Activities; Revision of an Approved 
Information Collection: Inspection, Repair and Maintenance

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. The information 
collection concerns records of inspection, repair, and maintenance of 
commercial motor vehicles (CMVs). The FMCSA requests approval to revise 
and renew an ICR entitled, ``Inspection, Repair and Maintenance.'' 
FMCSA collects this information to ensure that motor carriers have 
adequate documentation of their inspection, repair, and maintenance 
programs necessary to reduce the likelihood of CMV crashes.

DATES: We must receive your comments on or before June 4, 2018.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments identified by Federal Docket 
Management System (FDMS) Docket Number FMCSA-2018-0118 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, 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 website. 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: Mr. Mike Huntley, Vehicle and Roadside 
Operations Division, Department of Transportation, Federal Motor 
Carrier Safety Administration, West Building 6th Floor, 1200 New Jersey 
Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20590. Telephone: 202-366-9209; email 
michael.huntley@dot.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Background: The Secretary of Transportation 
(Secretary) is authorized under the provisions of 49 U.S.C. 31502 to 
prescribe requirements for, among other things, safety of operations of 
equipment of motor carriers that operate CMVs in interstate commerce. 
Under 49 U.S.C. 31136, the Secretary also has authority to prescribe 
regulations to ensure that CMVs are maintained, equipped, loaded and 
operated safely. And under 49 U.S.C. 31142 the Secretary must establish 
standards for annual or more frequent inspections of CMVs. The 
Secretary's authority to establish improved standards or methods to 
ensure brakes and brake systems of CMVs are inspected by appropriate 
employees and maintained properly is provided under 49 U.S.C. 31137(g).
    Motor carriers must maintain, or require maintenance of, records 
documenting the inspection, repair and maintenance activities performed 
on their owned and leased vehicles. There are no prescribed forms. 
Electronic recordkeeping is allowed (see 49 CFR 390.31(d)). Documents 
requiring a signature must be capable of replication (i.e., photocopy, 
facsimile, etc.) in such form that will provide an opportunity for 
signature verification upon demand. Also, if electronic recordkeeping 
is used, all of the relevant data on the original documents must be 
included in the electronic transmission for the records to be valid.
    The motor carrier industry has never questioned the need to keep 
CMV maintenance records. In fact, most motor carriers would keep some 
records

[[Page 14543]]

without any regulatory requirements to do so. Records of inspection, 
repair, and maintenance; roadside inspection reports; driver vehicle 
inspection reports; the documentation of periodic inspections; the 
evidence of the qualifications of individuals performing periodic 
inspections; and the evidence of brake inspectors' qualifications 
contain the minimum amount of information necessary to document that a 
motor carrier has established a system of inspection, repair, and 
maintenance for its equipment which meets the standards in 49 CFR part 
396.
    FMCSA and its representatives use these records to verify motor 
carriers' compliance with the inspection, repair, and maintenance 
standards in part 396. This ICR supports the Department of 
Transportation's strategic goal of safety. The ICR also ensures that 
motor carriers have adequate records to document the inspection, 
repair, and maintenance of their CMVs, and to ensure that adequate 
measures are taken to keep their CMVs in safe and proper operating 
condition at all times. Compliance with the inspection, repair, and 
maintenance regulations helps to reduce the likelihood of accidents 
attributable, in whole or in part, to the mechanical condition of the 
CMV.
    The Agency does not intend to revise the contents of this 
information collection, the frequency of information collection, or how 
it uses the information. Because the previous four updates to this 
information collection were developed in conjunction with rulemaking 
actions, only those sections of the information collection affected by 
the specific rulemaking changes were amended during the previous four 
updates and a comprehensive update of the information collection has 
not been done since 2006. This renewal includes updated data regarding 
the number of motor carriers subject to the Federal Motor Carrier 
Safety Regulations, vehicle counts, inspections, and other underlying 
data used to estimate the total burden hours. In addition, this 
revision corrects the manner in which: (1) The burden associated with 
routine inspection, repair and maintenance records is calculated, by 
including non-powered CMVs in addition to power units; and (2) the 
burden associated with periodic inspection records is calculated, by 
using only the records associated with the once-per-year inspection 
conducted in accordance with 49 CFR Chapter III, Subchapter B, Appendix 
G. Finally, this revision corrects the calculation of the burden 
associated with Driver-Vehicle Inspection Reports (DVIRs) by including 
the 30 seconds required for motor carrier certification of corrective 
action for defect DVIRs that was inadvertently omitted in the 
calculation of this estimate in the December 2014 No-Defect DVIR rule.
    If the recordkeeping were required to be completed less frequently, 
it would greatly hinder the ability of FMCSA and State officials and 
representatives to ascertain that CMVs are satisfactorily maintained. 
The timely documentation of CMV inspection, repair, and maintenance 
enables FMCSA and State officials to evaluate the present state of a 
motor carrier's CMV maintenance program and to check the current level 
of regulatory compliance at any point in a carrier's maintenance 
schedule or program.
    The FMCSA has identified periodic inspection standards of 22 
States, the District of Columbia, the Alabama Liquefied Petroleum Gas 
Board, 10 Canadian Provinces, and one Canadian Territory that are 
comparable to, or as effective as, the Federal periodic inspection 
requirements. The FMCSA does not require Federal periodic inspections 
and the related recordkeeping for motor carriers that comply with these 
equivalent periodic inspection programs. The FMCSA is not aware of any 
other duplicative standards or recordkeeping requirements that apply to 
motor carriers.
    The FMCSA does not employ this collection of information for 
statistical use.
    Title: Inspection, Repair and Maintenance.
    OMB Control Number: 2126-0003.
    Type of Request: Revision of a currently approved information 
collection.
    Respondents: Motor carriers and commercial motor vehicle drivers.
    Estimated Number of Respondents: 543,061 motor carriers and 
5,739,712 drivers.
    Estimated Time per Response: Varies according to the requirements 
for specific records.
    Expiration Date: July 31, 2018.
    Frequency of Response: Varies according to requirements for 
specific records.
    Estimated Total Annual Burden: 13,791,001 hours [7,558,390 hours 
for inspection, repair, and maintenance + 5,536,622 hours for driver 
vehicle inspection reports + 194,586 hours for disposition of roadside 
inspection reports + 469,414 hours for periodic inspections + 16,904 
hours for records of inspector qualifications + 15,085 hours for 
records of brake inspector qualifications].
    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: March 27, 2018.
Kelly Regal,
Associate Administrator for Office of Research and Information 
Technology.
[FR Doc. 2018-06859 Filed 4-3-18; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 4910-EX-P