SCDigest Editorial Staff

The News: The American Trucking Association (ATA) filed a motion with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit requesting an 8-month stay of its mandate to eliminate the 11-hour daily driving limit and 34-hour restart provisions of the 2005 Hours-of-Service (HOS) regulations. The ATA cited the nearly impossible burden it would place on carriers to comply that quickly, and disputed the logic of the court’s ruling on July 24 overturning those provisions.

SC Digest Says:

The ATA filing has merit in virtually every area of its argument, . . shippers should support the ATA’s motion. What do you say? Send us your comments here

The Impact: While the great uproar over the impact of the HOS rule changes in 2005 proved to be exaggerated, that was the result, in part, from the fact that the new rules gave a few productivity improvements to carriers while also placing greater limits on driver hours in the name of improved highway safety. If the ATA’s request for stay is denied and the favorable HOS changes are rescinded, transportation cost for carriers and shippers likely will increase. SCDigest agrees that regardless of the merits, the court ruling does not give carriers adequate time to make the process and system changes needed for compliance with the decision.

The Story: On July 24, the Washington DC appeals courts, generally considered the most powerful and influential in the U.S., struck down two of the favorable changes enacted in the HOS regulations revisions of 2005.

Those new HOS rules, which were enacted largely under pressure from a number of public interest groups and legislators looking to improve highway safety, increased the mandatory off-duty period for drivers from 8 hours to 10 hours, decreased maximum on-duty hours from 15 to 14, and mandated changes to sleeper berth requirements, which would add to the cost of equipment for carriers.

At the same time, the new rules offered some corresponding changes that would offset the negative impact on driver productivity, including increasing the daily driving limit from 10 to 11 hours, and in effect increasing the number of hours a driver can potentially drive in a week by allowing a “restart” of the weekly driving hour totals after a 34-hour off duty period.

However, consumer group Public Citizen challenged those carrier-friendly aspects of the HOS changes, arguing that the process and reasoning of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) in making the changes was lacking. On July 24, the DC Appeal Court agreed, saying that the FMSCA “failed to provide an opportunity for comment on the methodology of its operator-fatigue model,” and also “failed to provide an explanation for the elements of that methodology that Public Citizen disputes.”

The Court overturned those provisions, and set a date of Sept. 14 for an industry-wide rollback.

While acknowledging some deficiencies in the FMSCA process, the ATA petition last week argues that the agency will ultimately adequately demonstrate its thinking in making these rule changes.  The ATA also states that the data shows strong improvement in highway safety under the current rules, and that carriers cannot comply with the mandated changes by Sept 14 without major disruptions and increased costs for both carriers and shippers.

The ATA filing further argues that “Changes to the daily driving limit and the elimination of the 34-hour restart provision would require retraining drivers and operating personnel, reprinting logs and other forms, and the preprogramming of dispatching and Electronic Onboard Recording software in order to assure compliance with the new regulations. In addition, trucking companies would need to adjust operational and dispatching practices, reengineer routes, and address issues with customers, as well as to retain new drivers and purchase new equipment to compensate for the productivity losses” resulting from the changes.

The ATA also notes that there is no evidence to show there has been any increase in accidents during that 11th hour of driving, and that 2006 saw a 4.7% drop in fatalities in truck-involved crashes, the largest such decrease in 14 years.

However, the Truck Safety Coalition claims on its web site that “After 8 hours of consecutive driving, crashes increase dramatically, and even more steeply in the 10th and 11th hours of consecutive driving.”

While industry groups by nature will overstate the potential negative effects of proposed regulations, SCDigest believes the ATA filing has merit in virtually every area of its argument, and that shippers should support the ATA’s motion. The negative impact on carrier and shipper costs predicted by many in 2005 was muted by the balancing changes favoring carriers; eliminating those changes as well will almost certainly result in some higher costs to the industry.

The Public Citizen suit challenges the process and methodology of the changes, and does not cite any actual negative impact since the changes were made. As the ATA claims, safety significantly improved in 2006.

Finally, the court’s Sept 14 deadline is simply unreasonable for implementing such significant operational changes.

Whatever the ultimate outcome, a stay of the HOS rule changes for now makes sense for everyone.