DC Velocity - May 2020

In the midst of the Covid- 19 crisis, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration (FMCSA) has suspended hours-of-service (HOS) regulations
for delivery of emergency supplies. Now might be the time to rethink the HOS
rule.

It seemed like such a good idea at the time. I mean, who wouldn’t want
to keep tired truck drivers off the nation’s roads? That was the basic idea
behind the hours-of-service regulations, which limit how much time driv-
ers can spend behind the wheel each day.

Then along came ELDs—the electronic logging devices that recordwhen a truck is in motion. They were mandated by Congress in 2012 butwere not required until December 2017. ELDs were supposed to keepeveryone honest. It was assumed that a large number ofdrivers were cheating on paper logs and driving morehours than they reported.

Have these two initiatives—both designed to promote
safety—actually resulted in safer roads? Sadly, the oppo-
site is true.

In 2018, the first full year that ELDs were required,the number of truckers who died in accidents rose to885—the highest reported number of deaths since 1988.In 2017, the year that most trucking firms began using thetechnology, fatalities were also up 4.9% from the previousyear. (The FMCSA has not yet released the 2019 data.)

Why has something designed to boost safety had theexact opposite effect? It’s simple, according to LewiePugh, executive vice president of the Owner-OperatorIndependent Drivers Association (OOIDA). “Drivers feel they have toplay ‘beat the clock.’ Now guys feel they have to go faster and run harder.When they are tired, they feel they do not even have time to stop to get acup of coffee,” he says.

This analysis makes a lot of sense. HOS regulations and ELDs wouldwork if drivers were paid to just drive for a set number of hours each day.But that’s not how trucking works. They must make it to a destinationwithin that limited time window, even if traffic, weather, or accidents delaytheir progress. Finding a safe place to park overnight when the ELD tellsthem it’s time to stop is also a problem. As a result, drivers go faster thanthey should in order to reach the destination before the clock runs out.

Another statistic supports this analysis: The number of speeding violations issued to U.S. truck drivers increased 7.8% in 2018. Of those 146,945violations, 10.3% were issued for driving 15 mph or more above the speedlimit. Clearly, speeding to make it to their destination before they run outof hours is a prime reason for the violations as well as the accidents.

It’s time to rethink the HOS rule and ELDs. There are better ways to
promote safety, which I’ll explore in a future column.

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