GENCO Canada
Truck drivers’ daily/weekly driving time, known as Hours of Service (HOS), is undergoing more scrutiny. In August 2007, a new ruling was approved unanimously by a three judge panel in the U.S. Court of Appeals and was scheduled to go into effect on September 14th, 2007. The new ruling would shorten drivers’ daily driving time from 11 to 10 hours and eliminate the 34-hour restart period, thereby allowing drivers only 70 hours of work in an eight-day period.
The current HOS rules have been in question since 2002 because of a study done by The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) showing that the extra hours of service created a significantly higher risk of fatigue-related accidents. The last ruling put into place in 2005 kept the daily driving time at 11 hours and the kept the 34 hour restart period.
With a September 14, 2007 deadline looming, the American Trucking Association (ATA) issued a motion for an eight-month stay pending consideration by the FMCSA. The FMCSA supported the ATA’s request in a memorandum issued on September 21st, asking for a 12-month stay instead of the original 8 months. The issuance of a stay would allow the FMCSA time to review their data, allow other parties to make suggestions and come up with a recommendation for a new rulemaking. According to the ATA’s petition, it is necessary to maintain the 2005 ruling on HOS, as it would significantly disrupt many facets of the transportation industry.
Maintaining the 2005 ruling puts into question whether the public is at risk while we wait 12 months for a recommendation. The ATA and the FMCSA agree “that maintaining the status quo will not diminish safety.”1 Thomas Keane, chief of the Analysis Division in the FMCSA’s Office of Research and Analysis, stated in his declaration that “while there is no unequivocal evidence in the data of a downward trend in fatiguerelated fatal crashes since 2004…there is also no evidence of an upward trend.”
On September 28th, a three-month stay was issued by the court. This is a far shorter period of time than was requested by the ATA and FMCSA, but it will allow the FMCSA until December 27th to come up with new recommendations.
| 2003 RULE Property-Carrying CMV Drivers Compliance Through 09/30/05 |
2005 RULE Property-Carrying CMV Drivers Compliance On and after 10/01/05 |
| May drive a maximum of 11 hours after 10 consecutive hours off duty. | NO CHANGE |
| May not drive beyond the 14th hour after coming on duty, following 10 consecutive hours off duty. | NO CHANGE |
| May not drive after 60/70 hours on duty in 7/8 consecutive days. A driver may restart a 7/8 consecutive day period after taking 34 or more consecutive hours off duty. | NO CHANGE |
| Commercial Motor Vehicle (CMV) drivers using a sleeper berth must take 10 hours off duty, but may split sleeper-berth time into two periods provided neither is less than two hours. | CMV drivers using the sleeper berth provision must take at least eight consecutive hours in the sleeper berth, plus two consecutive hours either in the sleeper berth, off duty or any combination of the two. |
| Passenger-carrying carriers/drivers are not subject to the new hours-of-service rules. These operations must continue to comply with the hours-of-service limitations specified in 49 CFR 395.5. | |
Drivers of property-carrying CMVs which do not require a Commercial Driver’s License for operation and who operate within a 150 air-mile radius of their normal work reporting location:
1. Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, Et Al./Public Citizen, Et Al., v Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (U.S. App. D.C. 06-1035 and 06-1078, filed 9/21/2007, judgement pending).
