ATA says FMCSA “living in Spin City” in analysis of latest GAO report on drivers’ hours

A new Government Accountability Office report on the effects of changes to truck driver hours of service rules has sparked a war of words between the American Trucking Associations and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the arm of the Transportation Department that is in charge of making those rules.
 
“This GAO report provides further evidence that the changes FMCSA made to the HOS rules improve highway safety by saving lives and lowering the risk of driver fatigue,” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a statement. “This reinforces our belief that these life saving measures are critical to keeping people safe on the roads. We value the GAO’s independent review and will use their recommendations to further strengthen our Department’s research to ensure that we have the best data available to keep our roads safe.”
 
But ATA officials accused Foxx and FMCSA of “cherry-picking” certain data from the GAO report, but omitting other conclusions while accusing the safety administration of “living in Spin City” in its analysis of the GAO report.
  
During the nearly 18 months in which the new restart provisions were in effect, the GAO report found evidence of reduced driver fatigue and enhanced roadway safety.  Specifically, the report found fewer fatal crashes, fewer drivers working the maximum schedules, lower risk of driver fatigue; and no increase in crashes during the 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. morning rush hour, according to the FMCSA interpretation.
  
But ATA says FMCSA ignored most the GAO’s report and instead chose “to cherry pick a handful of points in a desperate effort to influence lawmakers” who are revisiting the HOS issue on their own.
  
“It is unfortunate that rather than present an accurate and balanced characterization of the GAO report, FMCSA is once again living in Spin City,” said ATA Executive Vice President Dave Osiecki.
  
ATA said FMCSA cherry-picked four findings from the GAO study: fewer fatal crashes; fewer drivers working the maximum schedules; lower risk of driver fatigue; and no increase in crashes during the 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. morning rush hour. 

“Fatigue analysis is based on simulated schedules, is not representative of the motor carrier industry, and is not generalizable,” the GAO report concluded.  “While we agree that evidence generally supports that fatigue and crash risk are related, we are uncertain how fatigue differences of the size reported in the field study would be associated with crash risk. Thus, the safety implications and policy importance of the study’s estimated effects on fatigue may be overstated.”
  
In large part, FMCSA justified its July 2013 hours of service rules not with safety benefits, but by claiming hundreds of millions of dollars in assumed health benefits.  But the GAO found there is “no data available to assess the health effects of the rule.”
  
“Motor carriers and drivers reported no noticeable positive health effects from the rule,” the GAO report said.  “These shortcomings leave the agency open to criticism over the integrity of the study and invite skepticism about the results.”
  
ATA said FMCSA’s interpretation of the GAO report is a thinly veiled attempt to justify changes in the HOS that the trucking industry and many drivers believe is unnecessary. The bulk of those changes involve taking two mandatory 15-minute minimum driving breaks between the hours of 1 a.m. and 5 a.m., which drivers say is unnecessary government regulation.
  
“Not only did FMCSA’s field study shortcomings invite criticism,” said Osiecki, “so too does the agency’s attempt to spin the GAO findings. The public must have trust in its government. Unfortunately, FMCSA’s continued spin does not invite that trust.”
  
But because of a lack of comprehensive and reliable data for large numbers of truck drivers, GAO concluded that Congress may wish to consider directing DOT to study and provide a report identifying approaches for extracting, storing, and analyzing electronically collected motor carrier drivers’ schedule data, including the potential benefits, privacy, and cost concerns, and options for how such concerns could be mitigated.
  
GAO’s recommendation to help ensure that FMCSA’s future studies follow generally accepted research standards, the DOT secretary should direct the FMCSA Administrator to adopt guidance outlining research standards for designing, analyzing, and reporting the results of scientific research.
  
GAO found that the January 2014 study issued by the FMCSA to examine the efficacy of its HOS rule—a regulation that governs how many hours truck drivers transporting freight can work—followed most generally accepted research standards.
 
However, FMCSA did not completely meet certain research standards such as reporting limitations and linking the conclusions to the results, the GAO said. For example, by not adhering to these standards, FMCSA’s conclusion in the study about the extent to which crash risk is reduced by the HOS rule may be overstated.
 
GAO also found that FMCSA has not adopted guidance on the most appropriate methods for designing, analyzing, and reporting the results of scientific research. Without such guidance, the GAO concluded, FMCSA may be at risk for “excluding critical elements in research it undertakes to evaluate the safety of its rules, leaving itself open to criticism.”
  
The GAO said FMCSA made several assumptions and anticipated certain effects of the HOS rule in the regulatory impact analysis. Specifically, to estimate the economic costs of the rule, FMCSA assumed that some drivers would lose a certain amount of driving and on-duty time and then estimated the amount and cost of the work time lost.

Furthermore, the GAO said, FMCSA assumed that reduced work time could increase a driver’s opportunity to sleep, leading to safety and health benefits. Assessing the effectiveness of the HOS rule is difficult because of the limited availability of representative driver schedule data (such as records of drivers’ work hours).
 
Nevertheless, GAO’s analysis of a limited sample of available data provides some insight into the rule’s effects and the extent to which they aligned with FMCSA’s assumptions and estimates. For example, according to GAO’s analysis, some drivers at a sample of 16 for-hire carriers who worked the longest hours (over 65 hours per work week) reduced their work hours after the rule went into effect, a finding consistent with FMCSA’s assumptions that drivers working over 65 hours were more likely to be affected. However, GAO’s analysis found that drivers who worked less than 65 hours per work week also changed their schedules after the rule went into effect, a result not anticipated by FMCSA.
  
The GAO concluded FMCSA’s ability to assess the effects of rules, such as the 2011 HOS rule, is hurt by the limited availability of representative driver schedule data. Because the trucking industry was economically deregulated in 1980, no organization collects or maintains a centralized database with such data that can be generalized to the motor carrier industry as a whole.
  
Collecting schedule data has “historically been difficult,” GAO said, but a recent statutory change that requires carriers to electronically record and store these data provides a potential data source for the future. However, before these data can be used for research purposes several challenges would have to be addressed, the GAO said.
  
First, there are statutory limits on the use of these data for purposes other than enforcing motor carrier safety regulations. Additionally, privacy and cost concerns must be resolved before these data could be made available for analysis. According to FMCSA officials, they do not plan to study how to use these data in a way that will address privacy and cost concerns, in part, because of the statutory limits.
  
But GAO said given the potential value of these data to future regulatory analysis, it may be important to provide Congress with information on how these data can be extracted, stored, and analyzed while addressing any privacy and cost concerns.
  
In July 2013, FMCSA began to enforce three new provisions of its HOS rule. GAO was asked to review a 2014 FMCSA study on the rule, as well as the rule’s assumptions and effects.
  
GAO identified research standards that professional associations, academics, and GAO’s prior work have used. GAO evaluated the 2014 FMCSA study against these standards. GAO also compared FMCSA’s assumptions about how drivers would be affected by the HOS rule against actual drivers’ schedule data from 16 for-hire carriers that cover the years 2012 through 2014. These data include information on over 15,000 drivers per year, but are not generalizable to the motor carrier industry as a whole.
GAO recommended that FMCSA adopt guidance outlining agency research standards. FMCSA agreed with GAO’s recommendation. GAO also suggests that Congress consider directing DOT to study and report on how electronically collected driver schedule data can be extracted, stored, and analyzed in a way that addresses cost and privacy concerns.