SDLA Incompetencies: Downgrading of CDL Licenses

State Drivers Licensing Agencies (SDLAs) continue to incorrectly downgrade CDL licenses and place the blame on the medical examiner.

There is a solution!

What is happening?

Even though examiners are completeting exams and submitting them to the National Registry as required, SDLAs are not seeing that the driver has a current medical certificate. Drivers are receiving notifications that their license has been downgraded or will soon be downgraded if they do not obtain a new medical certificate. When contacted by the driver, the SDLA indicates that since they do not see the driver's new certificate, their medical examiner must not have submitted it.

Why is this happening?

The exam reporting process between the National Registry and the states consists of two steps: (1) the push transactions from the National Registry to the SDLAs and (2) the pull transactions that allow the SDLAs to retrieve a driver's medical examiner’s certificate information from FMCSA’s National Registry. After the examiner submits a certification via their National Registry account, the trouble appears to be with step 2, that is, the state does not automatically “pull” the transaction from the FMCSA’s National Registry.

The solution

First, search for the driver in your National Registry account to verify that the exam has in fact been submitted with no errors preventing it from being submitted.

FMCSA has published a document that outlines the steps the SDLA should take to obtain the driver’s record. Click the button below to download the document. Until this process is corrected, we recommened providing this document to every driver upon completion of their exam.

Additional Troubleshooting

There are a couple types of errors that can occur which will prevent an exam from being submitted until they are corrected. 

Key Identifiers

If there is an error of one of the key identifiers such as name, DOB, license#, etc., the error will appear in the task bar to the right of the menu. It must be corrected before the exam can be processed. If you’re not already doing so, we recommend obtaining a copy of the driver's license. 

Sometimes MEs will receive this error message but they find no error. The most common reason for this to occur is when CDL applicants are submitted, because the National Registry does not recognize them. When this is the case, simply acknowledge that everything is correct.  

Medical Certifications Requiring a  Varience

Medical certifications requiring a variance (an exemption, waiver, or skill performance evaluation certificate) from FMCSA will not transmit to the SDLA until FMCSA issues the variance. 

The Medical Examiner’s Certificate (Form MCSA-5876) will indicate “Accompanied by a waiver/exemption” or “Accompanied by a Skill Performance Evaluation (SPE) Certificate” if the driver requires a variance from FMCSA. 

NOTE: If the Form MCSA-5876 indicates that the driver requires a vision or diabetes exemption, the ME will need to correct the error. FMCSA no longer issues vision and diabetes exemptions because FMCSA published revisions to the vision and diabetes standards under which the ME evaluates the driver. 

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