HOS Battle Continues: Union, safety groups file another challenge

WASHINGTON — As predicted by industry watchers, the off-again, on-again hours-of-service rules in the US may yet again be in limbo.

The Teamsters Union has joined with Public Citizen, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, and other highway safety groups in filing another challenge against the new HOS regulations recently unveiled by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).

The new rule — which goes into effect Oct. 1, 2005 — amends the so-called sleeper-birth exception and now requires drivers to take eight consecutive hours off as part of their 10-hour, off-duty time. Previously, under the 2003 rules, solo or team drivers were allowed to obtain the necessary 10 off-duty hours by splitting their sleeper berth in two periods of their own choosing, as long as one was a minimum of two hours long.

special interests sign up for another round in HOS fight

The newest HOS change, announced last month, was in response to the US Court of Appeals’ demand last summer that the new regulation must consider “the physical health of the operators.” The court was ruling on a challenge brought forth by Public Citizen and other groups.

The FMCSA felt that the sleeper-birth change met the court’s criteria, and left other major aspects of the 2003 rule intact, such as: prohibited truckers from driving more than 11 hours in a row, work longer than 14 hours in a shift, and driving more than 60 hours in seven days, or 70 hours in eight days.

In announcing the 2005 rule, FMCSA director Annette Sandberg herself acknowledged that the ongoing HOS debate may be far from over and that the new rule could yet again be challenged in court by advocacy groups — or perhaps even by disgruntled carriers.

And the unions and self-described safety groups wasted little time. “We are extremely disappointed that the agency basically issued the same HOS rule that was thrown out by the federal court because that version didn’t consider the health of the driver,” said Jim Hoffa, Teamsters general president in a press release. “This new rule is almost identical to the current rule and the two additional changes they made — the sleeper berth modification and the new short haul provision put our drivers at greater risk.”

The union is also filing its own separate petition to address the sleeper berth modification because of the affect it has on team drivers using the sleeper cab. The new provision requires an eight-hour rest period, forcing a team driver to “rest” for eight hours in a moving truck, with engine noise, vibration and other distractions around them. The current rules require two rest periods with one being at least two hours long. Most team drivers now split their rest periods into two, five-hour stints.

“The only thing this will do is force team drivers to drive for eight hours straight, causing drivers to be more fatigued,” Hoffa said.

“It’s clear that the corporate trucking interests have gotten from the FMCSA what they’ve been unable to get in Congress,” Hoffa said. “The agency has turned a blind eye to protecting the health of truck drivers and the safety of the traveling public.”

However, as Today’s Trucking and some US publications have reported recently, most large carriers are no happier than owner-operators with the HOS change.

Many argue that by changing the minimum sleeper-berth interval from two hours to eight hours, the practice of driving and sleeping in short intervals to absorb operational inefficiencies is effectively eliminated. Also, many medium-haul carriers warn that unavoidable delays such as traffic, loading, and customs issues will now take a greater toll on productivity.

“I think the US made the wrong decision,” Paul Easson of Berwick, N.S.-based Easson Transport told Today’s Trucking. “There’s a lot of drivers that are safely doing a move that’s greater than one driver cycle by using the split sleeper berth and now they won’t be able to do that anymore.”