The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration established the Safe Driver Apprenticeship Pilot (SDAP) Program to meet requirements set forth by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL).
This three-year program will help 18-, 19- and 20-year-old individuals explore interstate trucking careers and help trucking companies hire and train new drivers through an apprenticeship.
Nikki McDavid, FMCSA chief, commercial driver’s license division, and Becky Rehberg, FMCSA transportation specialist, sat down with Taking the Hire Road host Jeremy Reymer to share the goal of the SDAP Program and to discuss how carriers and drivers can participate.
“As you know, currently you have to be 21 to operate in interstate commerce,” said McDavid. “Under this pilot program, drivers from 18 to 20 years old can go across state lines.”
“We announced the establishment of this three-year pilot program with a Federal Register notice in January of 2022 and started accepting carrier applications in July of 2022,” said Rehberg. The program is roughly halfway through and is slated to end in November 2025.
Any carrier wishing to take part in the program must apply at fmcsa.dot.gov/sdap. “Carriers will find a toolkit, the application and all kinds of information on the website, but before you go to the website, you have to read your Federal Register notice to make sure you meet the qualifications,” said McDavid.
Those qualifications include proper operating authority, registration and minimum levels of financial responsibility. High- or moderate-risk carriers, carriers with conditional or unsatisfactory safety ratings, and carriers with vehicle and driver crash rates above the national average are excluded from the SDAP Program.
Asked about the length of the application and approval process, McDavid said it typically takes the FMCSA about 30 days for vetting and verifying the information in the application.
Under BIL, the FMCSA cannot have more than 3,000 apprentices at a time. “In order for us to have 3,000 apprentices, we would need about 1,000 carriers,” McDavid said. “But the good news is that the miles that the apprentices are traveling are getting us to a point where we will have a statistically valid sample of miles to be able to use to make future decisions.” Although the SDAP Program does not yet have 3,000 enrolled apprentices, it is nearing its targeted mileage goals.
Even though the program is approximately halfway over, McDavid says, there is still plenty to gain from applying at this point. “For one, a lot of those drivers may turn 21 by November of 2025, and carriers can bring them on permanently,” she said. “And for the apprentices who are still under the age limit, their experience will certainly be useful for intrastate operation after the program ends.”
Rehberg says individual carriers can help recruit eligible apprentices through their own social media and marketing campaigns. Anyone interested in becoming an apprentice can visit the Job Opportunities tab on the FMCSA website to see all of the carriers that have been approved under the pilot program and apply directly with those carriers.
“We are about to implement an interactive map that apprentice applicants can use to find carriers in their state,” said Rehberg. Since they are still looking for more drivers to reach their goal, the FMCSA is working hard to expedite apprentice applications. “If a driver goes through the approval process, it only takes about 14 days to vet the application,” added McDavid.
There have been recent changes to the carrier requirements for the SDAP Program. “Congress actually mandated changes,” McDavid explained. “They mandated that we remove the requirement for inward-facing cameras and the requirement for motor carriers to register with the Department of Labor,” she said.
These changes now make it easier for more carriers to become eligible for the SDAP, as not all carriers have the necessary systems in place. Note that carriers do still have the option to implement inward-facing cameras and to register with the Department of Labor. “We do hear positive feedback from carriers who use the cameras, so we still unofficially encourage carriers to use them and register with the DOL if they choose,” McDavid said.
To promote program participation, the FMCSA is focusing on outreach. “We’ve worked with high schools, technical schools, school counselors, career advisers and industry partners to promote the program,” said Rehberg. “We’ve attended job fairs, industry trade shows, motor carrier-focused events, because we want the public to help us complete this program and gather as much data as we can,” she said.
“Our focus remains on safety,” McDavid said. “It’s our middle name, and we’ll always continue to promote anything that increases safety.”
Click here to learn more about the FMCSA Safe Driver Apprenticeship Pilot Program.
Sponsors: The National Transportation Institute, Career Now Brands, Carrier Intelligence, Infinit-I Workforce Solutions, WorkHound, Asurint, Arya By Leoforce, Transportation Marketing Group, Seiza, Drive My Way, F|Staff, Trucksafe Consulting, Seated Social, Repowr
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