Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
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JOURNAL FMCSA distorted data to I n a brief filed July 24 with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the American Trucking Associations argued that the latest changes to the hours-of-service rules add tremen- dous cost to the economy and undue bur- den onto drivers while providing minimal possible safety benefits. "From the outset of FMCSA's review of the hours-of-service rule, ATA has contended that the rules that have been in place since 2004 have been working and have been a major contributing factor in the reduction justify hours rule, ATA argues Court brief calls HOS changes 'arbitrary,' 'unwarranted' Administration previously was in favor of reducing it to 10 hours – it reduces by 12 hours the maximum number of hours a truck driver can work within a week. Under the old rule, truck drivers could work on average up to 82 hours within a seven-day period; the new HOS final rule limits a driv- er's workweek to 70 hours. In addition, truck drivers cannot drive after working eight hours without first taking a break of at least 30 minutes. Drivers can take the 30-minute break whenever they need rest during the eight-hour window. The rule also requires truck drivers who maximize their weekly work hours to take at least two nights' rest when their 24-hour body clock demands sleep the most – from 1 to 5 a.m. This rest requirement is part of the rule's 34-hour restart provision that allows drivers to restart the clock on their workweek by taking at least 34 consecutive hours off- duty. The final rule allows in truck-involved crashes and fatalities," said Bill Graves, ATA president and chief executive officer. "FMCSA systematically, and without regard for science or logic, dis- torted the available data in order to fit it to a predetermined and arbitrary outcome. The brief lays out this case convincingly, and we believe the court will come to see the merits of our case and vacate these potentially ruin- ous changes." While the final rule adopted last December retains the current 11-hour daily driving limit – the Federal Motor Carrier Safety drivers to use the restart provision only once during a seven-day period. In its brief, ATA calls FMCSA's changes "arbitrary and capricious as well as unwar- ranted." "The agency claims that restart restrictions and the off-duty break requirement are justified by the cost-benefit analysis in FMCSA's Regulatory Impact Analysis," the brief said. "That 'analysis,' however, is a sham. FMCSA stacked the deck in favor of its preferred outcome by basing its cost- benefit calculations on a host of transparently Continued on page 16 LEADING NEWS, TRUCKING MARKET CONDITIONS AND INDUSTRY ANALYSIS T ROADCHECK OOS RATES NEAR HISTORIC LOWS: CVSA he Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance announced that its member jurisdictions conducted a record 74,072 truck and bus inspec- tions during its 25th annual Roadcheck commercial vehicle safety enforcement and outreach event. Of those inspections, 48,815 were North American Standard Level 1 inspections – the most comprehensive roadside inspection, of which 22.4 percent of vehicles and 3.9 percent of drivers were placed out of service, both the second-lowest achieved in 25 years and continuing a downward trend. For comparison, in 1991 – the first year compre- hensive data were available – the Level 1 OOS rates were 34.8 per- cent for vehicles and 5.6 percent for drivers. The overall OOS rates for the entire event in 2012, including all inspection levels, were 20.9 percent for vehicles and 4.6 percent for drivers, both of which were higher than last year's num- bers. CVSA said that despite the upward trend on the Level 1's, this highlights that one in five vehicles selected for inspection was found with a violation serious enough to be considered an imminent safety hazard. According to the alliance, these mixed results indicate that, while the attention paid by industry to maintenance and regulatory compliance gener- Continued on page 12 COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER 2012 11