BREAKING NEWS: Proposed HOS rule leaves open for comment 10- or 11-hour driving time,

It would be nice if you could just adopt our rules but that would never happen.

The only thing that concerns at first glance is the changes to the 34 hour reset.
1. The midnight to six thing could end up requiring a period of close to 54 hours for a reset.
2. The once a week part, if I'm reading it correctly, would mean that every single week my reset must end at either the exact same time on the same day of the week or later. Sometimes my week ends friday and starts monday. Sometimes it ends saturday and starts tuesday. The only way I would ever get back to starting monday would be to keep starting later and later in the week until it worked it's way around again. That's if I am interpreting it right.

 

The Trucker News Services

12/23/2010


ARLINGTON, Va. — The American Trucking Associations said that in a self-described effort to get the Hours of Service “right” for professional truck drivers, the Obama administration missed the mark with its proposed HOS rule and that the Department of Transportation had in essence “dropped three big chunks of coal under trucking’s Christmas tree.”


“The Obama Administration’s proposal is overly complex, chock full of unnecessary restrictions on professional truck drivers and, at its core, would substantially reduce trucking’s productivity,” ATA President and CEO Bill Graves said.


Graves noted the proposal had three main elements. He said it would: (1) likely reduce the maximum daily driving time to 10 hours; (2) reduce the maximum daily working time window by an additional hour; and, (3) counter to the government’s news release, abolish the 34-hour restart as it exists today.


The trucking industry’s safety performance while operating under the HOS rules in place since 2004 “has been remarkable” said Graves. Crash-related fatalities are down 33 percent from the 2003 level; both fatality and injury crash rates are at their lowest level since the U.S. DOT began keeping records.


Trucking has never been safer, he said.


“When viewed against trucking’s sterling safety record,” Graves said, “it’s plain that the Obama Administration’s willingness to break something that’s not broken likely has everything to do with politics and little or nothing to do with highway safety or driver health.”


The ATA, in a news release, said that hard-pressed to argue safety benefits of further restricting truck driver productivity, the Obama Administration was trying to justify its proposed changes as needed to improve driver health.


A big problem for the Obama Administration, however, is that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration “has consistently gone on record over the last five years with supporting information and data, stating the current rules are having no negative effect on driver health.


“Especially troubling is this administration’s disregard for the negative safety impacts the proposed changes would have – impacts expressly recognized by FMCSA in the past,” Graves said.


As an example, ATA said the FMCSA previously found that the 11th hour of driving time does not increase driver weekly hours; is used for flexibility purposes; does not increase driver-fatigue risks; and that eliminating it would promote more aggressive driving (to meet time constraints) and lead to placing tens of thousands of less experienced drivers on the road who would pose greater crash risks. With respect to the 34 hour restart, FMCSA has correctly found in the past that requiring two nights of sleep would disrupt drivers’ circadian cycle and add to more daytime driving in congested periods, again increasing crashes.


“FMCSA’s reversal on these crucial matters is hard to explain in other than political terms,” Graves said.


The changes proposed Thursday “will be enormously expensive for trucking and the economy” he added.


The ATA release noted that FMCSA estimated, just two years ago, costs of over $2.2 billion if the daily drive time was reduced by one hour and the restart provision was significantly changed.


“This proposal includes even more restrictions than what FMCSA previously considered,” said Graves, and “as a result, we will be evaluating FMCSA’s proposed costs and benefits very carefully.”

For more information on the HOS rules for professional truck drivers, visit www.SafeDriverHours.com

 

The 14 hour rule is the most dangerous law passed in the history of trucking. Many people have been Killed or Maimed because of it. When you can't stop the clock to take a break people are going to be killed!

 

I must not be working with the same rules as you. I can and do stop the clock with a break. You can't stop the 14 but you can stop and take a break.

 

Depending on customer scheduling, that 14 forces drivers off their natural clocks. On a tight load, you end up having to drive 11, off 10, PTI and drive 11 regardless of what your natural clock is.

Example: a normally daytime person is assigned a load that goes 1,000 miles, picks up at 9 pm and has to be at the destination by 8 am 35 hours later. This daytime driver is forced by scheduling to pick up, drive all night during hours he is normally comatose, try to sleep during hours he is normally wide awake and then drive all night again with even less rest than that first night. With more flexibility on the sleeper/work hours, it wouldn't take much to stay somewhere in the neighborhood of his natural clock...which is far safer than forcing him to move 80K down the road while his body is screaming for sleep. He might be able to take a couple of catnaps, but nothing like the restorative sleep he needs. His body is set to the opposite schedule he is currently running.

Go ahead and tell him he can refuse the load or simply sleep when he's tired...and pull a log violation or service failure. People get fired for that stuff. It shows up on the DAC and he has a heck of a time finding another job.

For heavy haulers, it's not normally an issue. Most heavy hauling is restricted to daylight hours only. So they will by law remain on a set schedule. It doesn't work that way for the rest of the industry.

 

I barely understand this new HOS. Could someone please explain it in laymans terms???? I understand the two 16hr work days where you can drive 14 if thats correct.

KH

 

Well, after some thinking, I get the 13 hour thing. You can't be on duty and driving combined for more than 13 hours within the 14 hour window. In other words, if you are on a dock or otherwise "on duty" for 4 hours, you subtract it from 13 and that's the number of hours you have available to drive. All work and drive time must be completed within that 14 hour window.

 

It is because they stuck a hour break requirement in the 14 hour window.

Then they stuck the 7 hour limit on driving in there.

They are making it very hard for a driver to actually keep tabs on the book and not get a log violation.

Then they placed a 2750.00 fine on these for revenue.

 

http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/rules-regulations/topics/hos-proposed/hos-proposed.aspx

 

How many active threads are we going to have on this?