Clock is ticking on hours of service decisions

OTTAWA (March 4) — Provincial transport regulators are ready to back a 24-hour rest/work cycle for truck drivers and allow up to 14 hours on duty each day, but still are “a long way from consensus” on weekly work limits, said the chairman of a government committee developing hours of service reforms.

Reflecting on two days of meetings in mid-February, Derek Sweet, chair of the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators compliance and regulatory affairs committee, said provincial transport officials and industry groups were unable to agree on a work/rest cycle over cumulative days.

Committee members were considering variations of two main proposals, Sweet said. One would allow 70 hours of work in seven days, cycling 14 hours on duty and 10 hours off; the second, endorsed chiefly by officials from Manitoba and other Western provinces, would allow 84 hours of work in seven days, also on a 14/10 cycle.

However, current scientific research does not support any increase of current limits of 60 hours in seven days, 70 hours in eight days, and 120 hours in 14 days, Sweet explained. “We reached an impasse,” he said. “The science doesn’t give us much direction, so we’re going to do some more work.”

Sweet said he believed that an agreement in principle on a revised National Safety Code hours of work standard could be reached before the end of April, in time to be formally submitted at CCMTA meetings in Winnipeg in May.

Consensus was reached on allowing 14 hours on duty with no distinction of driving time; allowing a driver to take his 10 hours off duty as eight consecutive hours with at least two 30-minute breaks; and doubling the minimum continuous rest periods for team drivers in sleeper berths from two hours to four.

There was no agreement on whether to allow a rest and recovery provision, however, which would allow drivers to “re-set” their cumulative hours following a 24-hour or 36-hour continuous break. Trucking industry groups have been lobbying hard for such a provision.

“Again, we’re considering the science here,” Sweet said. “Given what we’ve seen about rest-and-recovery periods, the results are not as conclusive as we would have liked. At some point soon, obviously, we’re going to have to make a decision on that and other issues. I think we have a good idea about where various people stand, what their positions are. But quite rightly, it’s time to put words into action and make some decisions. Further delays benefit no one on this.”