Editorial: Waiting and Hoping

The good news is that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration missed the court-imposed deadline for submitting its latest iteration of the hours-of-service rule to govern commercial drivers.

The better news would be if the delay has been caused by the intervention of White House officials who want to make sure the national freight delivery system isn’t seriously wounded by the new rules.

We’ve all been waiting anxiously for the new rule, which FMCSA and its parent Department of Transportation promised to write in a misguided bid to satisfy the coalition of interest groups that has been working feverishly to undermine the existing rule. DOT is doing this even though the existing rule has had a profoundly positive effect on highway safety.

Since the rule went into effect in 2004, the fatality rate in truck-involved crashes has dropped by 36%, nearly twice as fast as the decline in overall highway deaths over that time.

According to DOT’s own data, in 2009 (the latest year for which the data is available) there were 1.17 deaths in accidents involving trucks for every 100 million miles traveled, the lowest rate ever recorded.

Yet DOT and FMCSA seem determined to further reduce driver working hours, even though there is no proof that doing so will actually improve highway safety.

And recent remarks by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood give us additional reason to be worried. It seems clear that the chatter that DOT will propose a cut in maximum driving hours from the 11 currently allowed to 10 is on target.

But the latest delay in DOT’s compliance with the court-set date for the modified rule may provide a glimmer of hope that cooler heads may yet prevail.

American Trucking Associations officials presented their arguments to officials at the White House Office of Management and Budget last month, and their message was clear: the rule isn’t broken and the cost of the proposed modifications would have a serious negative impact on shipping costs and timeliness.

DOT sent the proposed rule to OMB on Nov. 1, and we’re crossing our fingers that the final proposal will include input from that agency to temper the harm that a misguided HOS rule could cause.

We’re all apparently going to have to wait another few weeks to see what this administration has in mind for the trucking industry. So this is a story that will be with us for some time to come.