BY MARK B. SOLOMON, SENIOR EDITOR
TRUCKLOAD
transportationreport
With four months to go until DOT
enforces the “Hours of Service” rule,
the experts’ advice to the supply
chain is prepare to comply, or
prepare to park it.
BEARING
IF THE VALUE OF A GOVERNment regulation is measured by
how much its stakeholders hate it,
the Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration’s (FMCSA) rule governing a truck driver’s hours of service—
Carriers loathe the regulations because they cut
into their productivity and require more resources to
move the same amount of freight they handle now.
Shippers fear them because they could be forced to reconfigure their manufacturing and distribution networks if they want
to get their goods to market in a timely fashion. Drivers claim the
rules curtail their ability to earn a living and force rest upon them
when they don’t need it. State regulators worry that carriers will put
more trucks on the road to offset the productivity losses, straining their
enforcement capabilities. Some in Congress argue the rule creates a safety hazard by forcing commercial drivers onto the highways at the same
time as millions of morning rush-hour commuters.
Even those who pushed for changes in the nine-year-old statute aren’t
happy with the revised product. Safety advocacy groups think the new
regulations fall short by not reducing the number of hours a driver
spends behind the wheel. The Teamsters union, which in theory should
favor the rules because they could foster more driver hiring, is unhappy
about the various class exemptions—such as those for grape haulers—
which it says will put fatigued drivers on the road when they should be
resting.
The rules are set, however, and barring court action to block or delay
their progress, enforcement begins July 1, 18 months after the rules were
crafted and 16 months after they took effect.
The FMCSA, a subagency of the Department of Transportation (DOT),
left unchanged a key provision allowing 11 hours of continuous drive
time after a driver has spent 10 consecutive hours off duty. But it reduced
a driver’s seven-day workweek to 70 hours from 82, a 15-percent cut.
For the first time ever, drivers will have limits placed on their traditional 34-hour minimum restart period, requiring it to occur once every
seven days and to include two rest periods between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m.
DOWN
