FMCSA Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee meetings on Dec. 1 and 10

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee (MCSAC) announced on November 26th, the day before the Thanksgiving holiday, that it will hold committee meetings on Dec. 1, the day after the holiday weekend, and Dec. 10. The announcement did not include any indication of what will be on the agenda.

The December 1 meeting, from 12 to 1, will be accessible by conference call, though the announcement did not include direct information on how to access it.

I sent an email on Wednesday, shortly after the announcement came out, asking for the agenda, and did not receive any response. I will try again.

I try not to be too cynical, but the closing days of any administration, when the outgoing officials may be tempted to feather their nests for future jobs in the industry they regulate, is a time to be especially watchful. That’s true no matter which party is going out or coming in.

The December 10th meeting is apparently accessible only to those able to attend in person in Washington, DC.

The announcement stated that for more information, one should contact Jeffrey Miller, Chief, Strategic Planning and Program Evaluation Division, Office of Policy Plans and Regulation, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, Department of Transportation, 1200 New Jersey Avenue SE, Washington, D.C., 20590, (202) 366-1258, or via e-mail to mcsac@dot.gov.

A seasoned Georgia trial lawyer focused on interstate motor carrier liability litigation, Ken Shigley is a frequent national seminar speaker on interstate trucking litigation for the Association of Interstate Trucking Lawyers of America and the Interstate Trucking Litigation Group of the American Association for Justice. In 2005, he was chair of the Southeastern Motor Carrier Litigation Institute, co-sponsored by the Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and North Carolina Trial Lawyers Associations. He is a Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy, Master of the Lamar Inn of Court at Emory Law School, a faculty member for ten years at the Emory University Law School Trial Techniques Program, and has been named a “Super Lawyer” by Atlanta Magazine and one of Georgia’s “Legal Elite” by Georgia Trend Magazine. He is Secretary of the 40,000 member State Bar of Georgia.