The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has announced that they have selected the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute to head the administration’s study into the restart provisions of the Hours of Service rules.
Congress stipulated that the FMCSA must conduct a proper study into the impact of the 34-hour restart rule as part of the bill that rolled back the restart provisions in December of last year. The FMCSA announced recently that they were looking for 250 truckers to participate in the study who would then be split into two groups – one that would follow 2013 restart rules, and one that would follow the rules as they are now.
VTTI has been given a budget of $4 million to conduct the study. If the study concludes that the 2013 restart rules are better for drivers – and the DOT’s Office of the Inspector General and Congress agree – then the restart rules will be put back into effect.
Next Story: Truck Fumes Blamed For Driver Coma
Source: truckinginfo, ccj
More of our federal money spent on another university grant to again
Try to figure out a broken hours of service rules. We have spent much much
more trying to figure this out and all they do is screw it up. Acidemics and
bureaucrats the old system was fine, with a tweak or two in extended driving hours,
the old system worked all they had to do was enforce it better.
250 drivers is not very representative of the industry.
4 million dollars?
How does this study get 4 million attached to it and only 250 drivers?
How about 4 million drivers and 250 dollars…
That seems a little better.
A trucking entrepreneur will never be able to prosper again. These rules and regulations are in the name of safety?… How about regulations are being forced because they want to control the industry. (Oh wait…they already do.)
Until they understand that not all people are the same they will still continue to waste hard earned dollars on studies and bureaucracy. They want all drivers as well as shippers and receivers to operate between the “normal business banking hours.”
Does anyone else feel like a sheep? Baaaaaaaa
Ridiculous. Do a study about the turnover. I know I’m fine when elogs are in every truc . I’d prefer to drive when alert & sleep when tire . I dont need some pencil pusher born with a silver spoon in his mouth telling when **I’m** safe to drive RIP american trucke . Hello cross borders!!
That driver in the picture sitting dressed impeccability clean in the cab of a Mercedes Benz Actros is an European driver that is payed salary that covers even the mandatory breaks. He’s HOS are 9 hours of driving within 24 hour day, from which 4.5 driving, 1 break, 4.5 driving, after which he’s allowed one time a week to go another 2 hours after 1 hour break after the 9 hour program if it gets him to the destination within that time.
Monthly salary, plus per diem for every night spent “in the sleeper”, plus some 15-17 euro-cents per kilometer (24-27 euro-cents/mile) as an incentive to run efficiently.
Yes, an on-board recorder (tachograph, either with paper diagram or more recently electronic) it has been required in all trucks over 6.5 metric tons capacity since the early 1950’s. Qualcomm active recording devices with GPS locator are not required as an on-board recorder even though some companies will run those technologies in parallel to the OEM standard recorder for their own purposes. All trucks come pre-equipped by the OEM with the standard passive recorders that are required by law. No aftermarket solution or modification is required nor admitted by the European laws. It has to be OEM mounted standard tamper proof passive recorder.
Running with on-board recorders and getting payed per mile rate can’t and won’t work for the driver. Active Qualcomm GPS recorders that constantly communicate data to the carrier are a nightmare for the driver since the carrier will always abuse the driver’s privacy and will harass the driver by having bureaucrats micromanaging the driver’s time and basically the driver’s life, since the long distance driver is kept in the truck for months at the time with very little home time.
The North American trucking industry is heading towards a catastrophic collapse due to it’s own culture of corruption and also by regulations which favor the powerful special interests groups, big and powerful corporations, at the detriment of the “little guy”=( be it small carrier o/o, leased o/o and company drivers which are being regulated out of existence)
I’ll not be surprised if my comment will get censored as it happened previously when I expressed the truth about the realities of the trucking industry these days, because I know that no one wants to hear the truth anymore.
Those that are in favor of the ELD’s for whatever reason, I urge you to wait and see the final version of the mandatory ELD. I guaranty you that whatever little loopholes you benefit from under the current trial version purposely there to gain favoritism amongst the drivers, they will ensure that the final mandatory version will not have, and it will be tamper proof under the penalty of law.
I would like to see who’s gonna love being micromanaged at a seconds increments and penalized every time the system will report few seconds or minutes out of “compliance” for any reason, be it weather, traffic jams, lack of parking space, etc., or a combinations of all these situations.
All these while you’re trying to earn a living being payed a miserable per mile rate and nothing else.
Good Luck y’all! You’ll need it for sure.
This comment is not meant to be offensive but if the truth be told the industry is hiring people who could not work in a McDonalds and who would not be able to make minimum wage in any other situation. Minimum wage sitting on their butts is a step up for them – no matter they end up in a ditch turned over in a NOAA “minimum” weather episode. 55 to 60 miles an hour they’re living high on the hog. The industry no longer wants nor will it tolerate individuals who can read and write past a sixth grade level let-a-lone think about Constitutional rights or Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Minions that will do as their told, don’t have opinions and will except what is offered.
You comment refers a lot to the Driver’s in Europe. If we here in America did what the European drivers did a few years back we would all go to jail under the Patriot act as enemy Combatants.
They completely shut down the continent when they went on strike a few years ago. At a pre-arranged time every truck in Europe shut down wherever they were Parking lot, city street, Dock,
highway, no matter what they were carrying. They didn’t move for 4 days.
The EU obviously caved to their demands.
But if the drivers here in the US even had the balls to organize a work stoppage (which we don’t)
we would still go to jail. Im glad I got out of trucking it’s a horrible way to make a living. your better off being an illegal alien working in a Mexican Tortilla Factory.
I would like to be part of that study. I’m employed full time that is I was hired full time but the 2013 rules made it so that I could never work a full week so in reality I was drawing part-time pay. I’m a red headed step child – not over the road – not a route, well kind of a route and kind of over the road. I drive to the same town from the same town every trip – 1800 miles round trip. 52-56 hours depending on the trip – 29 hours pure driving – but – most of the trips are not back to back and so there is slack in between. I should be able to make two full trips a week but if the trips are spaced wrong – which they are most of the time in order for me to drive the second I usually have to spend my 34 less than 2 hours from my home. Straight up bull****. With the new rule, if there is 24 hours slack between the time end the first trip of the calendar week and the start of the new trip I now can take that extra 10 which put me in a position to possibly get two trips back to back.