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Idaho implements the Commercial Skills Test System

As part of its continuing efforts to reduce crashes, injuries, and fatalities involving large trucks and buses, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is working with the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) to reduce fraud. It recently introduced a new Commercial Skills Test Information Management System (CSTIMS) to improve safety.

The Internet-based tool provides a consistent way to track the scheduling and entry of test results for commercial skills tests by jurisdiction and third-party examiners. CSTIMS enforces jurisdiction-defined rules to manage commercial driver's license skills testing and will alert jurisdictions when circumstances are encountered that may require investigation to determine if fraud may have occurred.

CSTIMS also produces reports that can be reviewed for patterns of potential fraud.

Idaho began using CSTIMS in October for day-to-day management of its commercial skills testing. Idaho becomes the 13th jurisdiction using CSTIMS, joining Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

“We are very pleased to have CSTIMS up and running in Idaho," said Ed Pemble, ITD's driver services manager.

"Our state is geographically large, and it has always been a problem conducting 'live' audits outside the Boise area. CSTIMS will allow our auditors to view upcoming tests in the more remote parts of the state, arrange travel and conduct audits with applicants.This will help us comply with FMCSA requirements for third-party examiner auditing and will result in much more effective audits.

"We expect to improve our overall CDL testing program with the implementation of CSTIMS.

I’d like to thank key Driver Services personnel, John Barsness, Debra Hall and Terri VandeVenter for testing, training and administering CSTIMS. Thanks also to Parisa Gropper and Greg Sensiba for coming to Idaho last spring to train our administrative staff and beta examiner group on CSTIMS."

ITD trained its CDL examiners on CSTIMS and began using the system Oct. 4. Parisa and Greg McNally at AAMVA made the transition from the practice environment to the ‘live” environment go smoothly, Pemble said.

"We are already seeing the benefit of CSTIMS; our auditors will be busy doing live audits in areas we have not been able to audit effectively in the past.”