HOS ruling slated to come down in March

By John D. Schulz -- Logistics Management, 1/1/2007

WASHINGTON—It took more than 65 years for the government to write its first comprehensive change in truck driver hours-of-service (HOS) regulations that had gone largely unchanged since the mid-1930s. It’s going to take a few more months to find out whether those changes were made legally.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. is expected to rule by March on a suit filed by advocacy groups Public Citizen and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA). The groups believe that the longer work hours allowed under the HOS rewrite compromise safety, but they are challenging the legality of the rules largely on the technical grounds that the government did not do enough research before issuing them.

The modernized regulations are credited with enabling productivity gains of 5 to 8 percent in the truckload sector, according to carriers. Gains in the LTL sector have been minimal because of the shorter lengths of haul and other operational differences, executives have said.

The rule issued in August 2005 was nearly identical to one issued by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) in April 2003, which the courts struck down in 2004. The rule dramatically increased both the number of hours that truckers may drive without a break and the number of hours they may drive per week.

Prior to 2003, truckers were permitted to drive no more than 10 consecutive hours before taking a break. Now they can drive for 11 hours straight. Before 2003, drivers were barred from driving after they had worked 60 hours in the previous seven days or 70 hours in the previous eight. Under the new rule, they can drive 77 hours in seven days or 88 hours in eight days—an increase of more than 25 percent. Total on-duty hours (including waiting time) have also climbed, so that a driver working 14-hour shifts under the new rules can now work as many as 84 hours in seven days or 98 hours in eight days, a 40 percent increase over the old limits.

Some carriers have had to hire more drivers and not all report productivity gains resulting from the modernization. “We spent a lot of time, effort, and dollars training and ensuring compliance with the current HOS rules when they came out,” said Randy Mullett, vice president, government affairs for Con-way Inc. “However, in our experience as an LTL carrier, we don’t believe they resulted in significant operational gains, considering our particular segment of the trucking industry.”

Trucking executives and logisticians who have tweaked their supply chains to comply with the new rules are waiting to see how the next ruling shakes out, hoping that they won’t have to go back to the drawing board to comply with yet another operational change.

“Any changes to the existing HOS rules would cause us to make another significant investment in training and compliance oversight,” Mullett said. “The uncertainty that comes from outside challenges to any existing regulation is always troublesome from a planning point of view, and this is no different.”

OOIDA and Public Citizen originally filed separate lawsuits that were consolidated by the courts. The Teamsters later joined them and, Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways (CRASH), Parents Against Tired Truckers, and Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, in the case.

“We have said from day one that the rules as they stand need to be changed,” Teamsters union President Jim Hoffa said. “They force drivers to work more hours with less rest over the course of a given week.”