Trucking news: HOS rewrite good to go—for now

John D. Schulz, Contributing Editor -- Logistics Management, 2/14/2008

WASHINGTON —Those shippers concerned about losing an extra hour of truck driver productivity can cross one item off their things-to-worry-about list. But cross it off in pencil, not ink.

Since 2003, when the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) updated truck driver hours of service regulations for the first time in more than 60 years, there has been one legal challenge after another. For now, at least, it appears the rule that allows freight workers to drive 11 hours a day and to start a new work week after resetting their clock after 34 hours off duty is legal.

In late January, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C circuit denied another legal challenge by Joan Claybrook’s Public Citizen watchdog group. That allowed FMCSA’s latest “interim” rule published late last year to stand.

Shippers and carriers have been vexed by the uncertainty of the current HOS rule. It has affected long-term planning. Truckload carriers in particularly were concerned about the possible loss of that additional hour of driving. In turn, shippers’ tight supply chains would have been affected—and it would have been likely that rates would have had to rise as compensation.

Although the legal challenges are dormant at this time, American Trucking Associations deputy general counsel Bob Digges was quoted by Transport Topics as saying never say never. “I never underestimate the litigious nature of Public Citizen.”

Public Citizen’s Claybrook told a House subcommittee late last year that FMCSA was “asleep at the wheel when it comes to truck safety, particularly in how it ignores tired truckers.” But the group filed no immediate challenge to the appellate court’s latest ruling. Instead, it indicated it would be filing public comments on the interim rule and await FMCSA’s final rulemaking.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t differing opinions on the issue. The Teamsters union calls the rule allowing 11 hours of driving a “dangerous rule” for the general public. But the American Trucking Associations, which has been active in lobbying the agency on this matter, called the court challenge a “procedural” matter and the ruling showed the court does not view the rules as “inherently unsafe.”

The FMCSA announced last week that the public comment period on the HOS interim final rule has been extended until March17 "to provide interested parties an opportunuty to provide further comment and supporting data."