Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx: ‘I Hope We’re Able to Meet’ HOS Study Deadline
WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx reassured senators on April 22 that his department’s trucking regulatory agency is aiming to complete a study on a recently suspended hours-of-service rule by its mid-December deadline.
“We’ve hired a consultant to perform the study,” Foxx said, responding to Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) during an appropriations committee hearing. “We’re proceeding on pace with that. I hope we’re able to meet the deadline that Congress has established.”
Foxx added that the process would be transparent, probably responding to concerns several members of Congress have raised this year about the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s handling of the study.
Earlier this month, Rep. Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.), a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, called on Foxx to ensure the study includes comparative data on safety critical events such as crashes, near crashes and crash-relevant conflicts, which occur during the rush hours of 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. Hanna also took issue with the agency’s selection of the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute to perform the study, saying that the school in 2011 had conducted a “highly criticized” HOS study.
This week, FMCSA announced that it still is seeking volunteers industrywide for the study to the HOS rule’s effect on safety and driver alertness.
In December, Congress passed and the president signed into law a fiscal 2015 funding bill that suspended FMCSA’s rule that required truck drivers to take off two consecutive periods of 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. during a 34-hour restart. That law expires Sept. 30, but according to the DOT secretary's office, the statutory timeline establishes a Dec. 11, 2015 deadline for DOT to submit its report to Congress.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this story had an incorrect deadline for the completion of the study.
