Inside This Issue...

The Motorcoach Enhanced Safety Act of 2008 (HR 6747) was introduced in House on July 31, 2008. The bill is intended to improve the safety of motorcoaches and to allow a credit against income tax for the cost of motorcoaches complying with Federal safety requirements, for other purposes. Among other things, the bill establishes a training curriculum for motorcoach drivers (sec. 105), improved commercial driver's license testing (sec. 106), and improved physical fitness oversight and commercial driver medical certificates (sec. 107). For more details, view the text of the legislation.

On Aug. 15, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) announced its plan to submit an Information Collection Request (ICR) to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval. FMCSA requests approval to revise an existing information collection (IC) entitled, "Application for Certificate of Registration for Foreign Motor Carriers and Foreign Motor Private Carriers," that requires Mexico-domiciled for-hire and private motor carriers to file an application Form OP-2 if they wish to register to transport property only within municipalities in the United States on the U.S.-Mexico international borders or within the commercial zones of such municipalities. On June 9, 2008, FMCSA published a Federal Register notice announcing for a 60-day comment period on the ICR. No comments
were received on the ICR. Send your comments to FMCSA by Sept. 15, 2008. OMB must receive all comments by this date in order to act quickly on the ICR. For more details, visit http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/pdf/E8-18902.pdf

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced on Aug. 15, 2008, its determination that there are no new model year 2009 light duty truck lines subject to the parts-marking requirements of the federal motor vehicle theft prevention standard because they have been determined by the agency to be high-theft or because they have a majority of interchangeable parts with those of a passenger motor vehicle line. This final rule also identifies those vehicle lines that have been granted an exemption from the parts-marking requirements because the vehicles are equipped with anti-theft devices determined to meet certain statutory criteria. The amendment made by this final rule is effective Aug. 15, 2008. View the Aug. 15 Federal Register notice for more details.

On Aug. 1, 2008, the Commercial Motor Vehicle Advanced Safety Technology Tax Act of 2008 (S 3428) was introduced in the Senate to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide a credit against income tax to facilitate the accelerated development and deployment of advanced safety systems for commercial motor vehicles. View the text of the legislation for more details.

A resolution expressing support for the designation of Jan. 28, 2009, as "National Data Privacy Day" was submitted to the House of Representatives on Aug. 1, 2008. The resolution (H.Res. 1411) was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Motor coach vehicles and drivers used by Liberty Charter & Tours that are, or were, recently affiliated with Angel Tours Inc., Iguala Busmex Inc. and Angel De La Torre have been declared an "imminent hazard" by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). This declaration requires Liberty’s interstate and intrastate operations involved with Angel Tours Inc., Iguala Busmex Inc. and Mr. Angel De La Torre to cease immediately. An “Imminent Hazard Operations Out-of-Service Order” was issued to Liberty Charter & Tours on August 12, 2008, by FMCSA officials and applies to each of its officers and directors. The FMCSA has requested law enforcement agencies to be alert for any buses being operated by Angel Tours Inc. and Iguala Busmex Inc., since they are not authorized to operate legally. If any of these buses are found operating, FMCSA wants law enforcement to immediately stop and place the vehicles out-of-service. FMCSA is continuing to work with the proper authorities, including the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General’s office, to vigilantly pursue civil and/or criminal violations relating to this incident. On Aug. 8, 2008, a bus operated by Angel Tours and/or Iguala Busmex, transporting passengers from Houston, Texas to Carthage, Mo., crashed on Highway 75 traveling northbound near Sherman, Texas. As previously stated, neither of these domestic entities was authorized to operate as a U.S. passenger carrier in interstate commerce at the time of the Sherman, Texas crash.  The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the incident.

An error on some VINs for the 2009 Kia Borrego involves approximately 1,264 vehicles. These vehicles have an "8" in the 10th (year model) digit instead of a "9," but are, according to Kia, all 2009 year model vehicles and are being marketed as such. The manufacturer certificate of origins (MCOs) for these vehicles will show the year model as 2009. AAMVA has been in contact with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), who said they are aware of this problem, but have no regulations or rules in place to deal with this type of error.  They do not have a problem with states considering these to be 2009 year model vehicles, even though there is an "8" in the 10th digit of the VIN. Many jurisdictions use the Polk Company's VIN decoder software to decode VINs.  And AAMVA's Keith Kiser has been working with the Polk Company who has informed us that the VIN decoder software will decode these vehicles as year model 2009 regardless of whether the 10th digit of the VIN contains an "8" or a "9." (View the letter from Polk Company for more information.) If you have further questions about this, you may contact Dennis Haake at Dennis_Haake@polk.com. A letter, and list of affected VINs that Kia previously provided to NHTSA, is available for download.  Please contact AAMVA's Keith Kiser if you have questions or need further assistance.

The LEAVE Act of 2008 (HR 6789) was introduced on Aug. 1 to remove the incentives and loopholes that encourage illegal aliens to come to the United States to live and work, provide additional resources to local law enforcement and Federal border and immigration officers, and for other purposes. View the text of the legislation for more details.

During the Sunday afternoon, Aug. 24, REAL ID session at the AAMVA Annual Conference (AIC) in Orlando, Fla., the AAMVA Verification Systems Working Group, in a presentation, will deliver information not publicly shared.  Through a grant from Kentucky, AAMVA has been working with its Verification Systems Working Group to develop an evaluation framework for assessing architectures for the State-to-State verification requirement of REAL ID. The working group is providing guidance in two areas, including; the design alternatives that should be considered, and the evaluation methodology that should be applied to the design alternatives.  We are soliciting industry input to this process.  The Working Group needs to receive your comments by Sept. 12, 2008. Please send written comments to State2stateREALIDStudy@aamva.org.

AAMVA University has posted its training schedule for the rest of 2008 on the training portal at http://aamva.webroom.com. Starting on Sept. 9, all course offerings will be available before the end of the year including basic/advanced Commercial Driver's License Information System (CDLIS) courses, Problem Driver Pointer System (PDPS), Fraudulent Early Warning System (FEWS), Unified Network Interface (UNI), and National Motor Vehicle Titling Information System (NMVTIS). Here is your chance to get new staff up to speed on all these applications with our basic courses, and, for those who need advanced training, we have number of new courses such as "Error Detection and Resolution" and "3 Year Calculations of Serious Violations." All of our courses are presented via the Web with live instructors and subject matter experts on Tuesdays/Thursdays, 2-4pm EST. They are free for all jurisdiction members (including DMV, law enforcement, helpdesk and IT, and court personnel). Please visit our training portal, register on the site, and self-enroll into any course. If you have questions or need assistance please contact trainer@aamva.org.