FMCSA safety chief promises more hours-of-service flexibility and a comment-first SMS rewrite — and admits Motus is still keeping thousands out of the industry

FMCSA's next moves are more hours-of-service flexibility and an update to the Safety Measurement System that carriers will get to comment on before it lands, the agency's chief safety officer said this week — while conceding that the Motus registration system is still keeping thousands of people out of the industry — according to Transport Topics on Oct. 30, reporting remarks made Oct. 28.

Steve Dowling, FMCSA's chief safety officer, told the 2026 WEX OTR Summit in Ponte Vedra, Florida, that the agency plans to increase its focus on hours-of-service flexibility and on enhancing its safety measurement system in the coming weeks and months. The agency is not starting from zero: it revised four provisions of the hours-of-service regulations in June — the short-haul exception, the adverse driving conditions exception, the 30-minute break requirement and the sleeper berth provision — and it began two hours-of-service pilot programs in the spring of 2026, covering flexible sleeper berths and split duty periods. Earlier in October, FMCSA also expanded a temporary waiver for drivers transporting gasoline and diesel to include ethanol products and heating oil; that waiver expires Dec. 16.

Dowling framed the flexibility push as a safety question, not a concession. “When you look at the rules and what was there, it was all trying to create some type of standard to make sure that we were addressing fatigue because it has a direct correlation to safety. Being in compliance with the rules, you can still be fatigued,” he said. “However, on the flip side, just because that's what the rule is doesn't mean we don't need to look at it and see if there are other ways to accomplish it that work better with the industry and how you run your operations. So, that's one of the things that you're going to see coming out.”

The pilot programs running underneath those remarks are where the flexibility would become real. The split-duty concept would let participating drivers pause their 14-hour driving window for a period each day spent in a non-driving status, and the flexible sleeper-berth concept would let drivers split their required rest into two periods in more combinations than the current rule allows, provided the total and the longer sleeper period meet the pilot's terms. Public comments on the two pilot notices run through Dec. 7, and drivers commenting so far have mostly supported giving the driver — not the carrier — control over the clock, a position OOIDA has also pressed. Dowling's remarks signal the agency is listening to that side of the argument, though he announced no new rule, date or proposal at the summit.

On the Safety Measurement System — the scoring system that turns roadside inspection and crash data into the ratings carriers live and die by — Dowling promised process before change. The agency will present its SMS proposals for industry comment and evaluation, he said. “Our goal is to have better identification of risks that are happening,” said Dowling, a former California Highway Patrol officer. “I've got a team that's working on that. It's never simple when you're applying it to an industry that's dynamic, correct?” No timeline or specific scoring change was announced, so for now SMS remains a watch item: when the proposal appears for comment, that comment window is when carriers and drivers can affect how violations are weighted.

The most candid part of the appearance concerned Motus, the online registration dashboard whose rollout problems suspended carriers earlier this year — including, as this site reported Friday, thousands hit by insurance-record reclassifications. Dowling said some 95% of carrier registration is now in place after the initial mishaps, but the remaining 5% is proving a challenge. “That's not acceptable to us,” he said. “There are thousands of people that we're keeping out of the industry because we've initiated Motus.” His team is working on updates, he said, and he invited any attendee with a Motus issue to approach him after the presentation: “I want you to come up and see me. I've got someone that will walk you through it.”

Dowling closed on two themes that frame everything above. A level playing field is an imperative for FMCSA, he said — a view he carried from his years in law enforcement and then as director of safety at Covenant Logistics, where, he said, a level field is all fleets wanted. And: “safety is not a competition.” His mission statement for the agency was simple: “It's to reduce crashes, injuries, fatalities involving large trucks and buses.”

The practical takeaway for drivers and carriers is a calendar, not a headline. If you want a say in how sleeper-berth and split-duty flexibility gets designed, the pilot comment window closes Dec. 7 — that is a live deadline, not a future one. If your SMS scores concern you, watch for the comment proposal Dowling promised and file during that window. And if your registration is still stuck in the unfinished 5% of Motus, the agency's own safety chief has now said publicly that the backlog is unacceptable and that fixes are coming — document your tickets and filings now, while that admission is fresh, rather than after the next suspension notice arrives.