Truckers who work for oilfield and natural gas companies have higher rates of accidents and fatalities than the trucking industry, due to longer hours and hours-of-service rule exemptions, the New York Times reported Tuesday.
Many drivers are under pressure to work up to 20-hour shifts, and workers driving even pickup trucks are susceptible to fatigue-induced accidents, the Times said in a front-page story.
The oil and gas industry needs more trucks because hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to find natural gas requires millions of gallons of water, the paper said.
The energy industry has an HOS exemption from Congress, and last year that exemption was strongly opposed by the National Transportation Safety Board because it raised the risk of accidents, the Times reported.
Fatalities among oil and gas industry workers jumped 15% from 2003 to 2004 when energy exploration boomed, the paper said, adding that about a third of the 648 oilfield workers’ deaths from 2003-2008 were in highway crashes.
In the past decade, more than 300 oil and gas workers have been killed in highway crashes, the largest cause of fatalities in the industry, the Times reported.
Oilfield workers are allowed a 24-hour break following 60 hours of work over seven days, while the trucking industry’s HOS rules require a 34-hour break, the paper said.
The Department of Transportation late last year released its final hours-of-service rule for the trucking industry, limiting daily driving to 11 hours while setting restrictions on drivers’ weekly limits.
