Senior Reporter
ATA-led Coalition Accuses Regulators of Skewing Restart Study
The May 12 letter said that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has been working at a fast pace to complete the congressionally-mandated restart study.
“However, we understand that FMCSA is being deliberately selective in choosing which qualified drivers participate in the study, potentially skewing the study’s results,” the letter said. “In addition, FMCSA has, in the past, relied on research showing trivial, inconsequential benefits to justify its rules.”
Congress has suspended the restart provisions in the hours-of-service rule until Sept. 30, pending FMCSA’s study of whether the rule bolsters highway safety. Under the suspended restart rule, drivers were required to take a rest break between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. on two consecutive days.
ATA Spokesman Sean McNally said ATA has a number of documents from FMCSA including presentations, emails and the website they used to recruit drivers that point to issues with the agency’s selection process.
"ATA sent a letter to FMCSA earlier this year expressing concerns about the process, but we have yet to have an answer from them. Further, we have heard from a number of carriers expressing concerns about how FMCSA was choosing which drivers to select.”
In a February letter to FMCSA Richard Hanowski, director of the Center for Truck and Bus Safety at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, the study’s research contractor, ATA challenged the agency’s contention that the restart restricutions only affected drivers who drive at nights and whose average work weeks come close to reaching the maximum allowed 60 hours in 7 days.
“However, real-world experience with the new rules demonstrated that the restrictions impacted drivers who drive during the day and who average far fewer hours each week,” said the letter written by Rob Abbott, ATA’s vice president for safety policy.
McNally said that according to FMCSA’s own data, the average industrywide workweek for truck drivers is 52.1.
“Drivers driving 60+ hours are not a representative sample,” McNally said.
FMCSA spokesman Duane DeBruyne said the agency is reviewing the coalition letter.
The goal of the restart research is to conduct a five-month field study with a sample of drivers selected from small, medium and large carriers, and drivers from shorthaul, regional-haul and longhaul carriers, according to the study design.
In addition, researchers say they need a balanced sample of drivers from flatbed, refrigerated, dry van and tank industry segments.
The letter also cited recent findings by the American Transportation Research Institute showing an increase in not only daytime driving by large trucks after the restart restrictions were imposed, but a statistically significant increase in property damage and injury crashes as a result.
“We have said since day one that FMCSA failed to do even the most cursory investigation of what these restrictions would mean for highway safety in the real world,” ATA President Bill Graves said in a statement. “The American public deserves to have these rules, which studies have shown raise crash risk on our highways, thoroughly and fairly examined. We urge the House Appropriations Committee to hold FMCSA’s feet to the fire until we get a full and fair analysis of the impacts of these restrictions.”
