NASHVILLE, Ind. -- Although it’s too early to tell what’s going to happen now that the U.S. Department of Transport (DOT) has agreed to re-open the hours of service (HOS) discussion, one thing’s for sure: the end result is going hobble the so-called recovery.

Noel Perry, an economist with FTR Associates in Nashville, Ind., said the worst-case scenario -- if some of the complainants got their way -- would involve drivers being limited to an eight-hour driving day; and that, he said, would mean a walloping 30-percent reduction in productivity.

However, Perry told a group of analysts at an economic seminar that it’s more likely that the lobby groups that convinced the Democrats to rewrite the HOS rule would settle for a new 10-hour driving limit for truckers -- down an hour from the current 11-hour driving limit.

Other observers insist that Public Citizen and the Teamsters, as part of their agreement to shelve their latest court challenge against the rules, will also demand changes to the 34-hour restart provision.

“Clearly,” Perry said “this is a signal from the administration that it’s becoming more closely allied with the plaintiffs.”

Perry also took exception to press reports that keep insisting that the current hours-of-service rules, finalized by the Bush administration in 2003, are more lenient and relax restrictions for carrier companies.

"They did not," he said. "They were much more restrictive and reduced the industry’s productivity by about five percent."