Lay off of HOS: Canadian truckers to FMCSA

OTTAWA — The Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) filed a petition urging the US Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to retain two key provisions of the U.S. federal hours of service rules which were vacated in July 2007 by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

CTA brief asking to have the 11-hour daily driving limit and the 34-hour restart provisions retained as they are, was submitted in support of an earlier petition by the American Trucking Associations (ATA).

In response to motions late this past summer by ATA, FMCSA and others including CTA, the court delayed the effective date of its order to December 27, leaving FMCSA less than two months either to issue an interim final rule to retain the two provisions pending a public comment period, or to publish a proposed rule to change them in some way.

CTA pointed out that revoking the 11-hour driving limit and the 34-hour restart, or keeping them in place only temporarily, would create severe difficulties for the thousands of Canadian cross-border trucking companies and drivers who must comply with the U.S. rules. Systems would need to be overhauled, more drivers would have to be hired, staff would need to be retrained, and freight contracts renegotiated to cover new delivery schedules and increased costs.

There is no evidence that the current American HOS rules
are a threat to public safety, Canada’s truckers say.

The Canadian truck group reminded FMCSA that Canada has had a 13-hour driving limit in place for many decades, and there is no evidence to suggest that this has posed a safety concern. In addition, the new HOS regulations in both Canada (2007) and the U.S. (2004) increased the minimum daily off-duty time by 25 per cent to 10 hours, allowing drivers the opportunity to obtain the amount of sleep acknowledged by scientific experts to be necessary for recovery from fatigue.

The concept of a restart provision was initially proposed in Canada, by CTA. In its petition, CTA argues that Canadian drivers operating on either side of the border are now accustomed to a restart (or reset) period of 36 hours in Canada and 34 hours in the U.S.

The ability to reset the driver’s duty cycle reduces the need to spend an undue amount of off-duty time at the end of a cycle away from home, and most importantly, allows sufficient time for the driver to obtain two principal sleep periods of at least eight hours — generally considered by scientific experts to be the amount needed to recover from cumulative fatigue, notes CTA.

For now, the Canadian and US trucking industries await FMCSA’s decision, which Transport Topics magazine reported could come by the end of this month.

“It’s a legal and operational twilight zone,” says CTA CEO David Bradley. “While FMCSA ponders its next move, carriers and drivers will carry on as if the U.S. hours of service rules have not changed and hope things stay that way; however carriers should be warning their customers of the potential loss of productivity and increased costs that would occur if these two key provisions of the rules are not retained.”