Congress May Have Little Involvement in Hours Reform

Hours-of-service reform is so highly politicized that even Washington insiders don’t know what the final rule will look like once all the dust clears. And as for across-the-board increases in size and weight limits for commercial trucks this year, trucking companies should not hold their breath.

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So said Roger Nober, general counsel for the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, in his remarks during the Jan. 7 transport topics Management Outlook Forum.

The Department of Transportation “has come up with a proposal, but [the committee hasn’t] seen what it is, and we don’t know what it is,” Nober said.

“I wouldn’t expect that it is one that will improve productivity, given the views that are out there of the people writing it,” he continued. Hours of service “is one [issue] where you will see the intersection of science, of medicine, of politics, of emotions. It is a very, very difficult issue to deal with in a comprehensive and sensible manner. So I don’t know what will happen.”

The proposed rule, according to industry sources, would mandate a 14-10 schedule — 14 hours on-duty (with no distinction between driving and other work, such as loading and unloading) and 10 hours off, based on a 24-hour clock, with two hours of break time per on-duty shift.

	Michael James - Transport Topics
	House Transportation Committee General Counsel Roger Nober

Trucking has voiced concern over the rule’s potential impact on productivity. A 14-10 rule would decrease by one hour the number of hours a truck driver can drive per cycle.

Describing the difficulty of getting a “science-based” rule put in place, Nober referred several times to the “emotionalism” that some parties bring to legislative and regulatory issues related to trucking. He was referring primarily to safety advocacy groups such as Public Citizen, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, and Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways, whose clout on Capitol Hill is considerable and who have fought hard to keep driver hours from increasing.

American Trucking Associations President Walter B. McCormick Jr. told forum participants that “there is no more important thing that the government can do for safety than to have fundamental science-based reform of hours of service.”

Ultimately, however, Nober hinted that there are real limits to how Congress will be able to alter the hours of service.

“It is very difficult for a political body to make a judgment on an amorphous, fact-based, science-based, medical, sort of quasi-emotional issue,” he said. “Anyone who is counting on the Congress to make matters better is probably really barking up the wrong tree.”

For the full story, see the Jan. 17 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.