Editorial: An End for a Rule That Didn’t Work
This Editorial appears in the March 13 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
The great detective knew the game was afoot when he learned of the dog that didn’t bark.
While life would be immeasurably more pleasant if government reports read like Sherlock Holmes stories, most federal studies lack that Holmesian quality. We were delighted to read, however, a report from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that rings the death knell of the hyper-meddlesome federal restart provision that really didn’t accomplish anything useful.
As you can read on p. 1, the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute looked at 235 truck and bus drivers and how they used one of the two restart provisions, both the 2013-2014 version we have long railed against and the other version that we find far more sensible.
After five months of data collection involving brief psychomotor vigilance tests and Karolinska Sleepiness Scale measurements, the university researchers selected by FMCSA concluded that their study “was not able to demonstrate conclusively that the restart rule that went into operational effect on July 1, 2013, provided ‘a greater net benefit for the operational, safety, health and fatigue impacts’ compared to the restart rule in operational effect on June 30, 2013.”
This is a profoundly good finding and something that should not worry safety advocates.
Federal regulation of commercial driver hours of service remains in place, as does a 34-hour restart provision within the rule, instructing drivers how and when to measure timing. There are only two matters of micromanagement that will vanish because of this finding:
Drivers needing to refresh themselves with rest may use any 34-hour period of their choosing. They will not have to incorporate 1-5 a.m. periods on consecutive days, an arbitrary demand that made life difficult without improving safety.
Second, drivers can take a 34-hour rest break whenever it makes sense, without having to worry about a cap of one restart per week, or 168 hours, another arbitrary intrusion.
American Trucking Associations President Chris Spear said the finding “closes what has been a long, and unnecessary, chapter in our industry’s drive to improve highway safety. We knew from the beginning that these Obama administration restrictions provided no benefit to safety, and in light of the DOT’s findings — corroborated by the DOT Inspector General — it is good for our industry and for the motoring public that they will be done away with permanently.”
Motor carriers and their drivers can operate safely and efficiently without obsessive intrusion.
Elementary, Watson, elementary.
