WASHINGTON With the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee busy drafting the massive federal highway and public transportation reauthorization bill, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance has weighed in on a couple of policy and regulatory issues that could impact the motorcoach industry.

The CVSA is the not-for-profit organization comprised of local, state and federal motor carrier safety officials and industry representatives from the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

One of its key missions is to promote commercial motor vehicle safety by pushing policies and regulations in Congress and at federal agencies.

The CVSA has issued a laundry list of recommendations for the nascent highway and public transportation bill, including these:

The federal prohibition of roadside safety inspections for buses and motorcoaches should be eliminated.

The CVSA contends that where bus safety inspections are performed should not be decided by federal law "which limits the needed flexibility of the states." Instead, the CVSA recommends that guidelines for roadside bus inspections be included in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations.

The CVSA supports the existing limited exemption from federal axle-weight limits for over-the-road and transit buses.

The exemption, which was included in the 2006 USDOT appropriations bill and will expire Sept. 30, should be extended in the next highway bill, says the CVSA.

The alliance also recommended that the hours-of-service exemption for some agricultural carriers and utility services be repealed.

CVSA said that an analysis by the USDOTs Volpe National Transportation Systems Center on the safety effects of these exemptions -- granted in last federal highway bill -- found that:

Agricultural carriers operating exclusively within a 100-mile radius had a 19 percent higher crash rate than agricultural carriers operating outside a 100-mile radius between 2005-2007.

Utility service crash rates jumped by 40 percent during the same period.

The House version of the highway and public transportation bill is expected to be reported out of the transportation committee by late this month or early June.