ATA allowed intervention in latest HOS challenge

WASHINGTON — The American Trucking Associations has won the right to intervene in Public Citizen’s latest challenge to the FMCSA newest hours-of-service rules.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has granted the ATA status in the case, which is not expected to be heard until the spring of 2007.

ATA attempts to block Public Citizen’s demand
for a new HOS rule and mandatory EOBRs

Public Citizen — which, along with a coalition of other special interest groups, got the Jan. ’04 HOS rule thrown six months after it took affect — is once challenging the new rules on the basis of the 11-hour daily driving time limit; the 34-hour restart; and the FMCSA’s decision not to include mandatory implementation of electronic on-board recorders (EOBRs) on the HOS docket.

Also granted intervention in support of FMCSA was NASSTRAC Inc.; The Health and Personal Care Logistics Conference Inc.; and United Parcel Service.

The interveners will file a joint brief in support of the challenged aspects of the HOS rules, focusing on how they advance public safety while meeting the operational needs of the trucking industry.

The Owner-Operator and Independent Drivers Association, along with the Brotherhood of Teamsters, is also challenging the newest rules — albeit for different reasons than Public Citizen.

The group wants the court to review specifically, the 14-hour on-duty clock and the controversial split sleeper-berth provisions in the newest rule, which — under the direction of the Appeals court in 2004 — was revised by FMCSA last summer.

Under the new regulations, truckers choose to split up the required 10 hours of off-duty time, as long as one of the two periods is at least eight hours. That eight-hour rest period stops the 14-hour maximum on-duty clock. Previously, drivers could split the off-duty time however they wanted as long as each rest was at least two hours.