Development of New Licensing Standards for Commercial Vehicle Drivers

Abstract

The extensive involvement of heavy truck and bus drivers in highway accidents each year has prompted a call by Congress for the states to adopt new standards for commercial driver licensure. The project described here was aimed at defining those standards and developing a testing program that will ensure the standards are met. The testing program includes seven knowledge and three skills tests which are administered in various combinations depending on the type of vehicle the operator proposes to drive and, in some cases, on the type of cargo to be hauled.

The new testing program recently underwent a successful operational evaluation involving 942 heavy vehicle drivers in eight locations across the U.S. The results showed that the development tests meet all of the necessary criteria for test validity and reliability. The drivers showed large individual differences in essential knowledge and skills, as measured by the several tests. It is expected that the newly developed program will be adopted by a majority of states as a means of meeting the more stringent Federal requirements for licensure that are soon to be implemented.