Life On The Road

FMCSA leaves HOS rules unchanged

If you like the current hours-of-service regulations just fine, you’re in luck. If the HOS rule doesn’t work for you, you better get used to it. Regardless of how you feel about the HOS rule, at least you won’t have to learn a new set of regulations.
     The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has left unchanged the provisions of the Dec. 17, 2007, interim final rule concerning hours of service for commercial motor vehicle drivers, apparently putting to rest an HOS debate that dates back more than five years.
     The nation's 3.5 million truck drivers will continue to be limited to driving for 11 hours within a total workday of no more than 14 hours under the final rule published in the Nov. 19, 2008 Federal Register. According to FMCSA administrator John Hill, the final rule “is based on an exhaustive scientific review and designed to get the necessary rest to perform safety operations and the quality of life they deserve.”
     Hill says the rule was designed to continue the downward trend in trucker fatalities and to maintain motor carrier opera- tional efficiencies. He added, “Our science is meticulous and our analysis exhaustive so that we can deliver definitive results: more alert and efficient drivers, safer roads and even fewer fatalities.”
     The rule requires all truck drivers to spend at least 10 hours resting between shifts before being allowed back on the road. Also, drivers cannot operate a truck if they have worked more than 60 hours in a given week. Hill says the rule will build on safety improvements already under way. He noted, for example, that the number of fatalities involving large trucks declined for the third year in 2007. And he pointed to data showing that between 2004 and 2006 only one fatigue-related fatality occurred during a truck driver’s 11th hour behind the wheel.
     A pending rule proposed in 2006 would require drivers and trucking companies with serious or repeat hours-of-service violations to track their hours using electronic onboard recorders.
     The HOS rules were first redesigned in 2003 to apply the latest scientific research on human fatigue and alertness. The rules increase the minimum number of hours available for driver rest, reduce the number of hours in a driver’s work day, increase the driving time within the reduced work day, and better promote a 24-hour work-rest schedule in harmony with the body’s natural circadian rhythm.
     Over the last five years, the HOS rule has ended up in court on multiple occasions as various government entities, trucking industry officials, driver organizations and safety groups fought over the issue.
     “The substantive provisions of these hours of service have never been overturned by any court,” The American Trucking Associations noted in a press release applauding the FMCSA’s decision. “Dire predictions of fatigue and accidents made by organizations opposing the rule have never come to pass.”