FMCSA Set to Release Proposals On ELDs, Drug-Test Database

This story appears in the Jan. 20 print edition of Transport Topics

WASHINGTON — The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said it is close to releasing proposals to require electronic logging devices in all trucks and to establish a clearinghouse for employers to check for positive drug and alcohol tests before hiring drivers.

The ELD rule “should be out very soon,” Administrator Anne Ferro said at the Transportation Research Board annual meeting Jan. 14. “Is it in the next 30 days? This is what my fingers are crossed for.”

The clearinghouse rule would establish a national database not only of all positive drug or alcohol tests of truck and bus drivers but also of driver refusals to take tests, Ferro said. Carriers would be required to query the database before hiring drivers.

She also said the agency is in the beginning stages of a field study that will examine the effects of split rest times on truck driver alertness and sleep quality.

The pilot project will allow participating drivers — under certain criteria — flexibility to split their sleep in sleeper berths, Ferro said.

The project was one of the agency’s research and rulemaking priorities for 2014 that Ferro outlined to researchers and industry stakeholders attending the TRB session.

She added, “I think we’re all seeing the light at the end of that tunnel.”

The split rest time pilot study will address some concerns related to the current hours-of-service rule, which requires that drivers take at least eight straight hours in the sleeper, plus a separate two consecutive hours either in the sleeper, off duty or any combination of the two.

American Trucking Associations and other trucking trade groups have been pushing for flexibility in HOS requirements.

But Ferro said any adjustments to the current HOS rule won’t come soon.

“It’s the kind of study that will require Office of Management and Budget approval,” Ferro said in an interview with Transport Topics. “No matter what we do, it always takes a minimum of a year to get that kind of approach approved.”

Among the other 2014 agency priorities are a proposed safety fitness determination rule, a crash causation study, a study on hazardous safety permits, rental truck accident research and a driver detention study, Ferro said.

Ferro said the split-sleep study will be a follow-up to 2012 research that concluded “nighttime sleep is best, daytime sleep is worse, but split sleep between the two is pretty good.”

“It really clarified for us the context of calls for flexibility that I’ve heard over and over again when we were originally developing the hours-of-service rule back in 2010,” Ferro said. “Drivers felt very strongly they know when to rest and when not to rest.”

However, Ferro said that despite the calls for sleeper berth flexibility with corresponding safety oversight, “nobody had an answer.”

“But we think that split-sleep research, combined with the technology that is on display and used today — electronic logs, an in-cabin electronic monitor — that we can test the concept by introducing some degree of flexibility within the context of strong oversight,” Ferro said. “That’s why we called for a split-sleep pilot study.”

Ferro said ATA, the National Association of Small Trucking Companies and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association “all stepped forward and said [they] would like to be a part of that kind of a pilot study.”

Dave Osiecki, ATA’s senior vice president for policy and regulatory affairs, said that, since 2005, ATA has advocated for returning sleeper berth flexibility to professional drivers.

“ATA sponsored two studies, in 2007 and 2008, which highlighted the benefits of additional sleeper berth flexibility,” Osiecki said. “While it took longer than we had hoped or expected, we are pleased that FMCSA is open to evaluating these benefits in the field, consistent with ATA’s sponsored research and our 2013 petition.”

Ferro said the study will take some time to complete but that it “will enrich all of our understanding of what’s a good context going forward as we think way down the road how we can continue to improve the environment in which drivers operate and companies that employ them operate.”

Martin Walker, FMCSA’s chief of research, said the split-sleep study will include an “exemption” from aspects of the hours-of-service rule, which will allow drivers to participate in the study and split their sleep.

“We’ll allow some flexibility in the use of sleeper berth and then collect data to see how it impacts drivers,” Walker told TT. “That would provide data support for potential rulemaking. It could be a big project for us.”

“A lot of times, we’re criticized for not reaching out enough for owner-operators and smaller carriers,” Walker said. “For this particular study, we have time to do that.”