TWIC - Enrollment Lagging, Truckers Reluctant To Sign Up

[Bullwinkle]

Only 20 percent of port employees who will required by next year to have a Transportation Worker Identification Credential have enrolled in the biometric card program, and recent federal data on the program shows truck drivers are part of that lag.

As of June 6, the Transportation Security Administration showed 331,042 workers had enrolled out of the agency’s estimated 1.5 million who will be required to have a TWIC card by April 2009.

Among those workers enrolled were 33,264 truck drivers and 3,942 workers classified as “drayage truckers.”

TWIC enrollment is down, particularly among truck drivers, said Joe Rajkovacz, OOIDA’s regulatory affairs specialist. Many drivers may be procrastinating because of TSA’s multiple deadline announcements and corrections, but drivers who go ahead and get their TWIC cards will have an advantage, he said.

“Drivers should not ignore this absolutely looming reality,” Rajkovacz told Land Line. “For those who take it seriously, there is likely to be more economic opportunity for them in the marketplace. As an industry, the vast majority of drivers have ignored that this is the coming reality in the nation’s ports.”

[2xR]

Nevermind that they won't answer the phone if you call them, and, it seems their hardware is breaking down rather quickly, as well.

A Tranport Topics Article on The Subject

Quote:

Updated: TWIC Machines Faulty, Lawmaker Says Most of the machines that process the Transportation Worker Identification Credential cards are broken, according to a House lawmaker, the Associated Press reported. Of the 12 machines that make the cards, only four work, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said in a letter dated Tuesday to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, AP said. It typically takes only a day to produce one of these cards, but it now takes up to 10 days because of the malfunctioning machines, Thompson wrote. By next April, 1.2 million workers are expected to be enrolled in the TWIC program which is supposed to produce a tamperproof ID card intended to help ensure that potential terrorists do not have access U.S. seaports, AP reported. As of June 6, 249,652 cards have been printed — leaving nearly 1 million to be produced by April, AP said. By Transport Topics

[Bullwinkle]

Nice addition to this thread, hadn't seen that article yet.