Under the auspices of improving highway safety, the U.S. Department of Transportation recently finalized controversial driving restrictions for the trucking industry.
The new "hours-of-service" (HOS) regulations seek to prevent commercial passenger and freight drivers from driving without adequate rest. According to FMCSA.gov:
- A new "34-hour restart" rule prohibits drivers from driving more than 60 hours in seven consecutive days or 70 hours in eight consecutive days without a 34-hour break.
- New "rest break" rules ban drivers from the road if their last 30-minute break was eight or more hours ago.
- Drivers are required to rest at least eight consecutive hours in their sleeper berths.
- Hour-counts begin when a driver comes on duty and drivers may not be on duty more than 14 consecutive hours or 15 hours for passenger carriers.
- The new rules maintain the 11-hour driving limit after 10 consecutive hours off duty. For passenger vehicles, drivers may drive up to 10 hours after eight hours off.
The goal of these new regulations is to decrease the number of truck accidents caused by driver fatigue which continues to be a serious and ongoing problem on our nation's roadways.
Opposition Forming to Fight New Rules
Industry groups decried the ruling, citing a 36 percent drop in truck-related fatalities since the 2004 rules went into effect. According to Truckline.com, truck-related fatalities have declined twice as much as overall highway deaths during that period, which some argue indicates that the current rules are sufficient.
In a public statement in Logisticsviewpoints.com, American Trucking Associations (ATA) President and CEO Bill Graves accused the FMCSA of yielding to demands by a vocal anti-truck minority. "From the beginning of this process in October 2009, the agency set itself on a course to fix a rule that's not only not broken, but by all objective accounts is working to improve highway safety," he said. "Unfortunately, along the way, FMCSA twisted data and, as part of this final rule, is using unjustified causal estimates to justify unnecessary changes."
The National Retail Federation (NRF) also criticized the new regulations, which are expected to drive up costs for businesses and consumers. "This is a case where something that might sound good on paper doesn't work in the real world," said NRF Senior Vice President for Government Relations David French in a statement on NRF.com.
Although some members of the trucking industry oppose the rules, safety advocates remain convinced that the changes are necessary and will serve to prevent deadly truck accidents.
