After nearly two years of approving each renewals and new requests of drivers looking for an exemption from federal guidelines on driving regardless of a historical past of epilepsy, the Federal Motor Service Security Administration in current weeks has rejected two tranches of candidates.
A overview of the Federal Register from 2024 via the current reveals that the final time FMCSA rejected both a brand new request or a request for renewal of an exemption was in September 2024.
Since then, the actions taken by FMCSA have been approvals of recent requests or renewals of current exemptions, which is why the current denials stick out in a string of authorizations.
The biggest denial got here June 23, when FMCSA denied the applying of 52 individuals who have been all coated by a December 2025 request for an exemption. That request was printed within the Federal Register, and feedback have been sought.
However within the June 23 Federal Register announcement that each one 52 requests had been denied, FMCSA stated it had obtained no feedback on the request.
All FMCSA actions during the last two years surveyed by BigRig accommodates the identical language which in flip quotes federal legislation: “The bodily qualification commonplace for drivers relating to seizures and lack of consciousness offers that an individual is bodily certified to drive a business motorcar (CMV) if that individual has ‘no established medical historical past or medical prognosis of epilepsy or some other situation which is prone to trigger the lack of consciousness or any lack of means to regulate’ a CMV.”
The 52-person motion stated FMCSA had carried out “individualized assessments of every applicant’s medical data” that included a take a look at their historical past.
After the conclusion of that overview, FMCSA stated in its Federal Register announcement, “FMCSA decided that these candidates don’t fulfill the eligibility standards or meet the phrases and situations of the Federal exemption and granting these exemptions wouldn’t present a stage of security that might be equal to, or larger than, the extent of security” referred to as for in federal legislation.
Though all 52 candidates have been in a single motion within the submission and rejection, the checklist of their names exhibits that they weren’t a geographically-centered group, as their house states are various.
The second denial in current weeks got here on an software from 18 people. They have been denied an exemption by FMCSA on July 17 with wording nearly an identical to the June 23 denial.
That wording can be discovered within the June 2024 denial of 16 functions and a September 2024 denial of 21 candidates.
FMCSA permitted a bunch of 63 people underneath the epilepsy exemption as not too long ago as June 18, 5 days earlier than the denial of the group of 52, suggesting no change in coverage might be learn into the current detrimental actions after nearly two years of approvals.
Within the approvals, a lot of the background language reviewing the idea for exemptions is similar as within the denials.
However within the June 18 approval, FMCSA says of its OK: “FMCSA has evaluated the eligibility of those candidates and decided that granting exemptions to those people would doubtless obtain a stage of security that’s equal to, or larger than, the extent that might be achieved by complying with” federal coverage.
It provides, “the Company believes the drivers granted this exemption have demonstrated that they’re unlikely to have a seizure and their medical situation doesn’t pose a threat to public security within the operation of a business motorcar.”
Emails despatched to the FMCSA press workplace and Larry Minor, listed because the affiliate administrator for coverage at FMCSA, relating to whether or not there was any change in coverage had not been responded to by publication time.
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