With the ink barely dry on the proposed changes to the more than 60-year-old hours-of-service rules, the 270-page document is drawing criticism from all corners of the trucking industry. The Department of Transportation announced the proposed rule April 25. Key recommendations include:
- Reverting to a 24-hour daily cycle and a seven-day week
- Adjusting the work-rest requirements for various types of operations
- Emphasizing rest. Drivers in long-haul and regional applications must rest for 10 consecutive hours within each 24-hour cycle with two additional hours off in each 14-hour work period
- Requiring weekends or at least a rest period that includes two consecutive periods from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m.
- Requiring the use of electronic on-board recorders in long-haul and regional applications.
Walter McCormick, president of the American Trucking Associations, criticized the proposed rules. “While the trucking industry is a strong proponent of hours-of-service reform, we favor regulations based on sound science that improve highway safety and meet the growing needs of the U.S. economy,” McCormick said. “Unfortunately, DOT’s proposed rule fails to achieve this vital balance.”
ATA joined driver groups in criticizing the proposal’s on-board recorder provision. McCormick said it “fails to address legitimate privacy concerns.” Citing concerns over the ability of smaller carriers to install the devices quickly, DOT gives carriers with more than 50 power units two years to install them and carriers with between 20 and 50 power units three years. Carriers operating fewer than 20 power units would have four years to comply.
Another major criticism is that the rules don’t address the role shippers and receivers play in HOS compliance. A study conducted for the Truckload Carriers Association by Martin Labbe Associates found that dry van operators spend on average 33.5 hours per week at shipper and receiver locations waiting, loading and unloading. Drivers of refrigerated vans spend on average 43 hours at shipper and receiver locations.
But under the proposed rules, drivers would be limited to 12 hours of work per shift, whether they are driving, loading or waiting — three hours fewer than the current rules, which distinguish between driving and non-driving work. Critics charge that given the industry’s waiting problem, the 12-hour work day, coupled with a mandatory weekend and two-hour daily rest break, will severely impact the industry’s productivity.
“This proposal could mean a fifty percent increase in the number of refrigerated and dry-van trucks on our already-crowded highways,” McCormick said in a release. “That translates into as many as one hundred eighty thousand additional drivers and trucks on the road just to keep the current economy moving. The trucking industry is already struggling to find the nearly eighty thousand drivers needed today; the industry could never make this impossible leap in new driver hires. This all adds up to a threat to the U.S. economy and American jobs.”
The DOT will be taking comments on the proposed rules through early August. As part of the comment process, DOT will hold seven public hearings in Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Denver, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Mo., Los Angeles and Massachusetts or Connecticut. Comments can also be submitted electronically at http://dmses.dot.gov/ submit/BlankDSS.asp or by conventional mail.
Avery Vise is the editor of Trucking Co. magazine, a publication offering business solutions for small fleet owners. Trucking Co. is a Randall Publishing magazine.
