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After passing the Senate Appropriations Committee with a 21-9 bipartisan vote, a legislative amendment to suspend the new 34-hour restart for truck drivers was challenged last week. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) proposed the amendment to a transportation appropriations bill for 2015.
The Hours-of-Service Amendment
would suspend two controversial provisions of the FMCSA’s 2013 rule changes:
- The two-night rest requirement – new rules require that drivers have a 34-hour restart period every 168 hours that includes two 1 am-5 am periods.
- The once-weekly restart limitation – drivers can only take a restart every 168 hours, even if they spend a significant period of time logged off-duty.
Also, the hours-of-service amendment would require a more in-depth study by the FMCSA of the impact the new rules have on the trucking industry versus the prior rules. The counter-amendment, proposed by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), would uphold those two provisions as well as the study requirement.
The American Trucking Associations conducted a careful critique of the research supporting the new FMCSA hours-of-service regulations and presented their findings to a representative from FMCSA last month. Among their criticisms were the drivers used to conduct the original FMCSA study, the questionable quality of the findings, and the impact of the new regulations on truckers’ ability to deliver loads.
Driver pool
The FMCSA study included 106 drivers, far from a representative sample of truck drivers in the United States. ATA Chairman Phil Byrd’s fleet alone has 150 drivers, none of whom were used in the study. Byrd contended that the drivers used worked for “arguably the worst motor carriers in America”.
Results of the study
Two elements of driver safety were considered in the comparison between the prior rules and the new rules: lane deviation and sleep deprivation. The results showed that drivers under the old rules had 5 more minutes of sleep deprivation in a 24-hour period and greater deviation by a millimeter. Neither of those findings falls outside a reasonable margin of error or has any statistical significance, but the FMCSA used those results as the linchpin for the hours-of-service rule change.
Impact on drivers
Most importantly, the new regulations have had a negative impact on drivers and fleets. The stricter restart requirements have caused drivers to run out of hours during peak transportation times, forcing fleet owners to invest in more drivers to close the productivity gap. General Motors reported an additional $15 million in spending during the first quarter of 2014 due to the 34-hour restart.
According to Byrd, Anne Ferro of the FMCSA heard all of the critiques and acknowledged the consequences of the rule change, but stated that the administration has no plans to change the rules back.
Both amendments to the bill are currently on the table and may be considered before the Senate recesses next week for the Independence Day holiday.
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