FMCSA Awards More That $70 Million in Grants
At the end of last month, the FMCSA announced that it has awarded over $70 million in grants for both states and 
educational institutions. These grants are another attempt to increase highway and motor vehicle safety. Of the funds $41.5 million is reserved for High Priority grants meant to enhance commercial motor vehicle safety efforts and advance technological capabilities at the state level.
The other significant portion of the grants is going toward Commercial Driver’s License Program Implementation. The FMCSA has awarded $30.7 million to the states to achieve compliance with regulations and license standards and programs. The CDLPI grant program also provides financial 
assistance to entities capable of executing national projects that aid states in compliance programs. The goal of these programs is to reduce the number of severity of commercial vehicle crashes by requiring states to conduct knowledge and skill testing before issuing a CDL. It will also require states to maintain an accurate and complete history record for each driver that obtains a CDL and impose disqualifications against any driver that violates certain offenses. This is directly linked to the Crash Preventability Demonstration Program that the FMCSA announced earlier this year.
The final allocation is set to be given to nine educational institutions that provide commercial and bus driving training. These institutions include public and private colleges, vocational schools, truck driver training schools, state and local governments, and recognized Native American tribal governments. Also included in the nine grants for educational institutions are provisions for training U.S. Veterans:
Primary funding priority is given to regional or multi-State educational or not-for-profit associations that recruit and train current and former members of the United States Armed Forces (including National Guard members and Reservists) and their spouses to receive training to transition to the CMV operation industry.
This grant program was established in 2005 as a safety-improvement measure and was amended in 2015 to included the provisions of the FAST act.
For more information on the details of the grants and their recipients, visit:
https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/mission/grants
Written by: Shayla Powers