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February 23, 2000 10:22 AM, EST

The Single State Registration System was supposed to be a rest stop on the road to elimination of state registration requirements.

The program was created by Congress as part of the 1991 highway bill to replace the bingo stamp issued by 37 states as proof of operating authority. Trucking’s goal in backing SSRS was to reduce the number of states requiring interstate motor carriers to register with them (7-27-92, p. 1).

“The criticism of SSRS today notwithstanding, we weren’t criticizing it when it came in, because it was replacing the horrible bingo stamp system,” said Timothy P. Lynch, who headed American Trucking Associations’ Capitol Hill office from 1993 to 1997 and now is president of the Motor Freight Carriers Association. “It was a necessary interim step to get us what we ultimately wanted, which was the elimination of state registration.”

ATA persuade the Interstate Commerce Commission to eliminate bingo stamps a year before SSRS was to be in place, on Jan. 1, 1994. The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissions fought the issue all the way to the Supreme Court, where Chief Justice William Rehnquist refused to lift a lower court decision prohibiting the early elimination of bingo stamps.

For the full story, see the Feb. 21 print edition of Transport Topics. .