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HOS changes are rescinded, transportation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. |