Report: DOT Uncertain of Hours Proposal's Life-Saving Effects

The Department of Transportation does not know exactly how many lives will be saved by proposed revisions to the federal hours of service regulations, a new report says.

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“The department estimates that 115 fatigue-related fatalities would be avoided annually. DOT acknowledged that there was uncertainty surrounding this estimate,” the General Accounting Office wrote in a report evaluating the six-month-old Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

The July 17 report, titled “Commercial Motor Vehicles: Effectiveness of Actions Being Taken to Improve Motor Carrier Safety is Unknown” was requested by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), chairman of the House Transportation Appropriations Subcommittee.

“The reasonableness of the department’s assumptions and the resulting estimate of the number of lives that could be saved if the proposed rule are adopted, however, are unknown. If DOT’s assumptions are unreasonable, then its estimate of the number of lives that could be saved as a result of adopting the proposed rule could change markedly,” the independent watchdog agency concluded.

Unveiling the proposal in April, Transportation Secretary Rodney E. Slater said the overhaul of the 61-year-old regulation would improve highway safety by “helping reduce the 755 fatalities and more than 19,000 injuries that occur each year on our nation’s roadways and highways because of drowsy, tired or fatigued commercial truck and bus drivers.”

Those figures were based on two assumptions: that fatigue is a factor in 15% of truck-related fatalities and that the use of electronic on-board recorders by long-haul and regional drivers would reduce fatigue-related crashes by 20%.

“DOT officials told us that they did not have a firm analytic basis for either assumption because of the lack of well-defined data on crash causation,” GAO wrote. The officials told GAO they supplemented their review of fatigue research with their professional judgment to arrive at the assumptions. “DOT recognizes the uncertainty of its estimates but emphasized that providing drivers with more time for sleep will less fatigue and thereby reduce the number of fatigue-related crashes.”

For the full story, see the July 17 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.