Canadians puzzled, cautious about reports of U.S. hours of service proposal

OTTAWA (Aug. 10, 1999) — Reports that the U.S. Federal Highway Administration is considering new hours-of-service rules calling for 14 hours off duty within each 24-hour period surprised Canadian gov ernment and industry officials working on new hours-of-work limits here.

“Given the political climate in the United States — the fact that trucking-related fatality rates have not dropped as dramatically as everyone would have liked — I’m not surprised at all that the FHWA is feeling pressure (to increase off-duty time),” said Canadian Trucking Alliance chief executive officer David Bradley.

“What’s interesting is that they are talking about 14 hours off duty. The government is indicating that it has a scientific basis for that decision. I’m curious to see what that is.”

Brian Orrbine, the Transport Canada policy advisor leading a government-industry task force charged with developing a new hours-of-service regime here, was cautious about the reports.

“It appears that the issue is still under consideration,” said Brian Orrbine. “We would like to wait until an official position is put forth before adding any comment. They have a long way to go.”

Last Thursday, the ATA asked the Dept. of Transportation to make public the scientific research used to draw up the new regulations. Mike Russell, spokesman for ATA, said the petition was in response to “Washington tom-toms” — rumors — and, in fact, ATA publication Transport Topics said the proposal would reportedly reduce the maximum hours of on-duty time from 15 hours to 12.

Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater has asked for new hours-of-service rules by sometime this fall. A first draft of the regulations was finished in late June, but there are many stages the proposal has to go through before it is finally published in the Federal Register for comments.

CTA vice-president Graham Cooper said the U.S. proposal, were it to stand, would be incongruous with hours of service proposals being discussed in Canada, which are based on a 14-hour on-duty cycle followed by 10 hours off.

“That’s disappointing,” Cooper said. “The government and industry in Canada has worked hard to ensure that U.S. officials have been in the loop as we work through our own proposals. There were two or three FHWA people at our last meeting and you’d think that if they had felt strongly about requiring more off-duty time, they would have spoken up about it.”

FHWA spokesperson Gail Shibley said the agency is “literally in the process of finalizing our proposed rule, and it’s inappropriate and illegal for us to make any specific comments or prejudge what that rule will be or will contain.”

The ATA’s petition requests that the proposal “should rely upon the science underlying human fatigue and fatigue management.” Shibley insists that it will.

“Clearly this rule will be based on sound science and our commitment to continuing to increase highway safety,” she said. “We have been very unapologetic about those two points. We ought to make sure that our rules reflect the sound science that has been and is continuing to progress to identify circadian rhythms and other issues the body addresses, and what it means to operators of commercial motor vehicles to assure that everybody on our roads is safe.”