Safety Benefit of Hours Uncertain, GAO Says

The Department of Transportation does not know exactly how many lives could be saved by proposed revisions to the federal hours-of-service regulations, a new federal 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 7-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 is 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 congressional watchdog agency concluded.

For the full story, see the July 24 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.