Groups Argue Merits of Revised HOS Rule Before House Panel
WASHINGTON — A proposed hours-of-service rule that would cut truck drivers’ hours would be very costly and exacerbate a shortage of truck drivers, while putting more trucks on the road, a panel of trucking and logistics executives told a House panel Wednesday.
Several lawmakers questioned the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s plans for a revised rule, while safety advocates said one was needed. FMCSA said this week it plans to issue a final revised rule by the end of the year.
Ed Nagle, CEO of Nagle Companies, a Toledo, Ohio-based refrigerated carrier, said two provisions of the proposed rule would cut his company’s ability to generate revenues by 17%.
“For every truck, we need to generate $4,500 per week plus fuel to meet fixed overhead,” Nagle told the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee’s regulatory subcommittee.
“The cost per truck is $75 per hour currently,” he said. “With the proposed change to 50 hours a week, our fixed cost becomes $90 per hour with nothing more than the stroke of a pen.”
The provisions he referred to would cut driver hours to 10 from 11, and modify the 34-hour reset provision by requiring that the HOS rule include two rest periods of at least six hours and mandating that they fall between midnight and 6 a.m.
Several Republican members of the committee questioned the validity of a new rule, when truck-related fatalities were at a historic low and the economy was still in a fragile state.
“It’s a solution in search of a problem,” said subcommittee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).
Jordan accused federal regulators of “playing games with numbers” and using “fuzzy math” to bolster its case for toughening the hours rule.
But a safety advocate on the panel told subcommittee members that while cost is a consideration, fatigue is a major factor in truck crashes and that the proposed hours rule would save lives.
“Despite the decline in recent years, large truck fatalities still took a toll of 3,380 lives and caused 73,000 injuries in 2009,” said Henry Jasny, vice president and general counsel of the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.
FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro said a revised rule would save lives, adding that a preliminary truck-related fatality numbers are showing a slick uptick in 2010, approaching 4,000.
“The initial 2010 data on fatal truck crashes indicate that the downward trend reversed in the second half of the year as the economy improved,” Ferro told the subcommittee.
“Recent crash reports provide a painful reminder of the need to continue doing everything we can to improve truck safety,” she said.
In advance of the hearing, American Trucking Associations President Bill Graves questioned the aims of groups pressing the government to revise the rule, saying the revisions would put more, not less trucks, on the road, and make roads less, not more safe.
“Since [FMCSA] first revised the hours-of-service rules in 2004, a coalition of advocacy groups and organized labor, abetted by their political allies have tried through lobbying and litigation to undo what has proven to be a successful regulation,” Graves said.
ATA estimated that if enacted, new rules “will reduce productivity by a minimum of 5%, which artificially creates a need for at least 115,000 additional trucks to haul the nation’s freight. These trucks will need to travel an estimated five billion miles to deliver their goods and, given the most recent crash rates, could lead to an additional 52 fatal crashes, and nearly 900 injury crashes.”
