transportationreport TRUCKLOAD
over two consecutive days. Drivers are also now mandated
to take a 30-minute break before driving more than eight
hours.
The pros and cons will be debated March 15 before a federal appeals court in Washington that is all too familiar with
the legal squabbles surrounding the case; the FMCSA has
been sued over the rules three times in the past decade, and
the December rules were a product of an out-of-court settlement mandating a rewrite.
The focus of the March oral arguments will undoubtedly
be the controversial 34-hour restart provision. The lan-
guage is also the subject of an FMCSA field study mandat-
ed by last year’s transport reauthorization law to determine
if the costs of the provision outweigh its purported benefits.
The study is to be finished in September, though no one
expects the findings to impact the law unless the study
arrives at conclusions the agency isn’t expecting.
How not to get HOSed
With the clock ticking down to the scheduled July 1
enforcement of the new driver “Hours of Service” rule,
shippers and carriers that are acting—or not acting—on
the assumption the courts will delay the process could
be making a potentially costly wager.
On one hand, there have been delays before, and the
decibel level surrounding the current rules could get so
loud that the court will stay them again. On the other,
courts have been known to stand aside simply because
they are tired of hearing the same case time and again.
The dispute over driver work hours has repeatedly come
before the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington over the
past decade.
The court could take the position that as the government’s truck safety experts, the Federal Motor Carrier
Safety Administration (FMCSA) has done a thorough job
of balancing safety and economic imperatives. The
judges may also reason that the industry has been given
ample time— 16 months since the rule was adopted in
February 2012—to adjust.
Experts said it’s critical for both sides to drop the
hyperbole and hand-wringing about the rules, and start
performing a detailed analysis of what their operations
will look like in a post-July 1 world. “You need to study
the data and simulate where the biggest pain points will
be,” said Derek J. Leathers, president and COO of truckload carrier Werner Enterprises Inc.
For Werner, that pain point will be the new requirement that drivers take a 30-minute break before driving
more than eight hours. The provision will force many
Werner drivers off the road during their trips, potentially causing service delays.
Leathers said the carrier has ramped up its investment
in trailers to ensure an abundance of equipment to
match with rigs and drivers. In addition, Werner has
equipped its fleet with electronic on-board recorders, or
EOBRs, devices that monitor a truck’s location to ensure
a driver’s HOS compliance. “Without EOBRs, it would be
difficult to get an accurate read” on a driver’s status,
Leathers said.
