HOS Changes to Take Effect Despite Trucking’s Opposition
This story appears in the July 1 print edition of Transport Topics.
The federal government’s changes to the hours-of-service rules are set to begin July 1, despite continued objections from the trucking industry.
As of June 27, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had not ruled on the litigation against the rule, and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration had not decided to delay its implementation, as the trucking industry has requested multiple times.
“We had hoped that we would have some resolution by the circuit court before the July 1 implementation date,” said Sean McNally a spokesman for American Trucking Associations, which is challenging the regulation. “When the calendar changes to July 1, we will comply with the rule as an industry, and we hope that we could see some modifications down the line if and when the data bear out whether the changes are necessary,” he said.
Days earlier, Anne Ferro, FMCSA’s administrator, defended the rule, saying it is intended, in part, to crack down on truck drivers and carriers who used the 34-hour restart to maximize the amount of time they can drive each week beyond the 60 hours usually allowed in a seven-day week.
She also told trucking officials that FMCSA will continue to research driver fatigue and may issue further changes to the hours rule if the agency deems it necessary.
“The underlying principle . . . is to minimize the risk, and remove the risk and opportunity that drivers and companies . . . will use and abuse the opportunity to reset a clock sooner, to actually push a driver to run an 80-hour week,” Ferro said June 21 during a conference organized by transportation data firm SMC3.
Driving 80 hours a week “is a really hard schedule,” she said. “And the cumulative fatigue and chronic fatigue conditions that result from those sorts of schedules put everybody at risk.”
In letting drivers use the restart to reset their weekly clocks only once every seven days, FMCSA has limited weekly driving time to an average of 70 hours, from the previous 82 hours that could be achieved by using multiple restarts, Ferro said.
The rule also requires the restart to include two periods from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m., and for drivers to take a 30-minute break before driving more than eight hours in a shift.
Transport Capital Partners released results of a survey last week saying that three-fourths of carriers expect that the new hours rule will reduce their capacity. Almost 40% of the carriers it surveyed expected more than a 5% capacity reduction.
“This potential reduction in truck capacity is hitting at the same time as spot rates are climbing, reflecting a stronger demand in June,” Richard Mikes, a TCP partner, said in a June 27 statement announcing the research. “Rates will likely increase further in the months ahead.”
At the SMC3 event, Ferro also said FMCSA would soon begin researching driver fatigue again to see whether further restrictions would improve safety. When FMCSA first proposed changing the rules in December 2010, the agency said it would have preferred reducing the driving day to 10 hours from 11.
“In the final analysis, the cost-benefit data did not support the extreme cost of going to 10, as compared against the slight savings we saw . . . between 10 and 11 hours of driving,” Ferro said. “So as we said in our final rule, it’s an area that warrants additional study,” she said, referring to the December 2011 final rule.
Tom Jensen, vice president of UPS Inc., told conference attendees his company opposes the HOS changes. “We were hoping that the agency would hold off until the court decision gets rendered.”
Both ATA and Public Citizen have challenged the rule.
“The confusion and the training costs . . . are an issue,” he said.
Jensen analyzed crash data from UPS and found that the 11th hour of daily driving time is the safest, with the fewest crashes. Drivers are most likely to crash in the first few hours of their shifts, he said.
Jensen told Transport Topics the restart and rest-break changes will hit long-haul routes the hardest. Those routes are only in the less-than-truckload UPS Freight unit and the routes that use large trucks to carry parcels between hub facilities.
“We have to change the network to an extent,” he said. “And that’s going to add costs.”
Transportation attorney John Bagileo predicted that the hours-of-service changes will exacerbate a current shortage of truck drivers, especially among owner-operators.
“You’re going to see a continuing reduction in the wages of those drivers,” he said.
