Better UCR guidance, enforcement

By Bob Pitcher, State Laws Newsletter

The State Laws Newsletter noted earlier that the Unified Carrier Registration (UCR) Board has approved the UCR Handbook as official guidance for states and industry on many aspects of the program. The handbook is available at the UCR website noted above, and will be updated to reflect new Board interpretations and other UCR developments. Other information pertinent to UCR is also available at the website.

Finally, we can report that state enforcement of UCR has improved markedly over the past year, with the establishment of a new program that matches the number of vehicles a carrier registered with UCR and under the International Registration Plan, and analyzes discrepancies.

About $1 million in additional collections has resulted from this process in a little over a year, making the program fairer for everybody. State UCR audit procedures also continue to improve, the Board has adopted a process for resolving disputes that arise under the program, and is working on a framework for conducting peer reviews to assess state UCR programs, as is done under IRP. We’ll keep you posted on all these UCR developments.