A Lump of Coal?

The trucking industry these days can be likened to the proverbial watchful child lurking at the top of the staircase, glancing to see if Santa already has deposited the presents under the tree.

But in this case, most truckers aren’t really expecting to get any desirable presents from ol’ St. Nick. Rather, they’re worried that ol’ Uncle Sam will leave a giant lump of something undesirable for the nation’s motor carriers to swallow.

The industry has been waiting, with more than a little dread, for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s latest iteration of the hours-of-service rule that governs the nation’s commercial drivers.

Despite historic safety gains in the years that the current HOS rule has been in effect, critics have managed to overturn it several times in federal courts and, most recently, have succeeded in getting FMCSA to agree to revise it in order to head off yet another court challenge.

Under an agreement with those critics, FMCSA promised to send the revised rule to the federal Office of Management and Budget during July, as part of a plan to publish a new final rule before the end of June 2011.

The proposed rule has been at OMB since July 26 but — despite a number of false alarms — has yet to see the light of day.

FMCSA agreed to make the revisions, even though truck-involved road deaths have fallen to historic lows, including a 20% decline last year.

Word on the street has been that, to placate the critics, FMCSA proposes in its new rule to trim an hour’s driving time from the allowable workday and to make it harder for a driver to restart his workweek by taking some time off.

Trucking officials are hopeful that OMB’s delay in clearing the rule is a sign that the agency has objections to some of the provisions and that it does something about them.

When agencies propose a new rule, part of OMB’s function, according to its website, is to consider “alternatives to the rulemaking” and to analyze “the rule’s effects on society, both its benefits and costs.” In other words, OMB is supposed to make sure any new rule is worth more than it costs.

A lot of people in trucking are on pins and needles waiting to get a look at FMCSA’s new proposal, hoping that it doesn’t turn out to be only a lump of coal.