ARLINGTON, Va. – A newly proposed U.S. hours-of-service rule is reportedly in the final stages of White House approval, but American carriers are already anticipating some major changes.

Official details of the proposal are expected to be released any day now, but todaystrucking.com obtained an American Trucking Associations-authored white paper which states that the carrier group is expecting it will include a reduction in driving time, an increase in the number of hours required to restart a driver’s weekly on-duty period, and at least one mandatory rest break during each shift.

The paper, which ATA says will be uploaded later today at a new site, (www.safedriverhours.com) which was created to promote the safety benefits of the current rules and dispel myths peddled by special interest groups that the current rules are unsafe.

The ATA says that the evidence clearly shows that the trucking industry has operated safely and efficiently since the rules took effect in 2004.

"ATA strongly supports retention of the current and safe rules with one exception — more rest options through greater flexibility in the sleeper berth rule," it stated.  

Teamsters and special interest groups have spent the
last seven years trying to turn the clock
on HOS. We’ll find out soon if they got their way.

The paper reiterates ATA’s position that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has no legal or scientific justification to make the anticipated changes and, in fact, would undermine its own conclusions on the matter.

"When viewed against (the) sterling safety record, it seems plain that DOT’s willingness to reconsider the HOS rules has almost everything to do with politics and little or nothing to do with highway safety," the paper states. "By further restricting driving and work time, the Obama Administration will be simply supporting organized labor’s effort to swell its ranks by forcing inefficiencies on the trucking industry which would force motor carriers to hire more drivers to haul the same amount of freight — drivers who the Teamsters would hope some day to organize."

Hard-pressed to argue against the safety benefits, the administration, ATA predicts, is likely to try and justify any HOS changes as needed for driver health. But even this argument would be specious, says ATA.

"Among other things, the agency has noted that drivers are not driving any more hours per week under the new rules than before, and that the enormous improvements in diesel exhaust reduction and other modern truck features drastically limit the health risks associated with driving."

It was the issue of "driver health" that convinced a U.S. Court of Appeals to throw out the rules in 2004 and again in 2007. The court sided with legal challengers, The Teamsters and notorious trucking critic Public Citizen, because the rules supposedly failed "to consider the impact on the health of drivers."

To appease the court, DOT reissued a rule in 2005 that cancelled the popular split sleeper berth provision and also stated that driver health was properly considered in the rulemaking process. The core aspects of the rule — the 11-hour drive time and 34-hour restart provisions – were kept intact, though, much to the chagrin of industry critics.

Legal challenges and appeals were traded back and forth a couple more times over the following four years.

Then in 2009 the Obama FMCSA agreed to go back to the drawing board and revise the rule if Public Citizen agreed not to go through with another court challenge.

Even then, there was speculation that less allowable driving time, at the very least, would be part of the changes in order keep critics from raising their swords again.

Hopefully for the industry, the cuts will be minor and not in line with Public Citizen’s demand of eight maximum hours behind the wheel.

The white paper reminds FMCSA of its own cost benefit analysis, estimating an annual cost of over $2.25 billion to the industry if the daily maximum drive time was reduced by just one hour and the 34 hour restart provision was significantly changed.

"Indeed," states the paper, "in 2008, the agency expressly stated that eliminating the 11th driving hour was ‘unlikely to be cost effective under any reasonable set of circumstances.’

"Finally, by restricting truck driver productivity and forcing the use of more inexperienced drivers, the revised rules are likely to result in more highway crashes — new drivers present more than 3 times the risk of crashes than their more experienced counterparts."