LITTLE ROCK — Beginning today, people who have Arkansas commercial driver’s licenses are being notified that they must provide medical-certification information for a database overseen by the Department of Finance and Administration, which maintains the license records.
The licensing database will now include a medical-certification entry for interstate truckers who are required to have U.S. Department of Transportation physical examinations.
The state will begin adding the medical-certificate information to its electronic record system beginning Jan. 30. The database stores information for as many as 145,000 commercial driver’s license holders in the state.
Arkansas is expected to complete the transition by Feb. 1, 2014.
Currently drivers and carriers get copies of the medical-examination certificates, which can also be issued as the more-portable “medical cards.”
Medical examinations can be valid for up to two years, and drivers are expected to carry medical cards to present to law enforcement officers in the event that the information is requested, said Dennis Hilton, vice president of safety at CalArk International Inc. in the Mabelvale area of Pulaski County.
The proposed record-keeping change will keep “a driver from having to carry a [medical-examination] card with him,” Hilton said Tuesday.
At CalArk, a copy of the examination is kept in the driver’s Transportation Department file, said Hilton, adding that physicals can cost about $53.
The Department of Finance and Administration said drivers will be asked to certify the types of driving they perform, and where applicable, present current medical certificates.
“Most [commercially licensed] drivers are expected to submit the federally required information during the usual license renewal process,” the Department of Finance and Administration said in a news release.
A commercial driver’s license can be valid for between three and five years.
Drivers who have licenses issued before Jan. 30, 2012, and that expire after Jan. 29, 2014, will receive notification letters requesting the medical-certificate information by Jan. 30, 2014.
Ross Batson, a lieutenant with the Arkansas Highway Police in Little Rock, said the change requires a driver to provide “upfront proof” that he has a current medical certificate.
So a driver would not have to “worry about getting caught for any [medical card] violation.”
Business, Pages 28 on 11/30/2011