The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration expects truck driver medical exam reports from 2017-18 delayed then because of a computer hack to be submitted no later than Sept. 30 of this year.
The 14,000 missing reports cover the results of truck and bus driver physical qualification examinations conducted during a nine-month period between December 2017 and August 2018.
The results were not filed with the National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners website because of a computer outage from Dec. 1, 2017, to Aug. 13, 2018, when upload functionality was fully restored.
The outage took place following an attempted cyberattack on the national registry, which FMCSA said was disruptive but ultimately unsuccessful. It reported that no personal data was exposed or lost.
However, the failure to gather the reports caused the Transportation Department Inspector General to criticize the agency earlier this year.
Under a 2018 revision of federal regulations, MEs are required to report results of all drivers’ exams conducted (including the results of exams where the driver was found not to be qualified) to FMCSA the next calendar day after the exam takes place.
FMCSA says that while many MEs submitted exam results while the registry was offline, others did not do so, estimated to number in total about 14,000.
FMCSA noted that some MEs were uploading exam as of Dec. 1, 2017 — when the registry went offline – who later successfully migrated their registry account and who have been using the interim registry system since that time.
Due to the cyberattack and DOT inspector general’s criticisms, FMCSA said it is engaged in rebuilding the national registry website, and in April announced an extension of the project to 2025.
