US Appeals court hears anti-HOS cases

WASHINGTON — Preliminary arguments against the latest version of the U.S. hours-of-service regime will be heard today in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

The court will hear oral arguments on Dec. 4 by the Owner-Operator and Independent Drivers Association and special interest group Public Citizen. Both groups are challenging different aspects of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s revamped HOS rules announced in 2005.

Each of the plaintiffs will get 10 minutes to present their oral arguments to a three-judge panel. The FMCSA, which has been granted intervener status in the case, will receive an equal 20 minutes to defend the rule.

OOIDA is challenging the split-sleeper berth provision, while Public Citizen is fighting the 11-hour daily drive time limit and 34-hour restart in the formal regulation.

In the summer of 2004, just six months after the first version of the new HOS rules took effect, a federal court demanded the FCMSA rewrite the regulation. Even though the court took issue with several aspects of the rule — including increasing the maximum driving time from 10 to 11 hours; the 34-hour “restart” provision; and the lack of EOBRs — the FMCSA only made changes to the sleeper-birth exception last year and left other major aspects of the original rule more or less intact.

OOIDA argues that because team drivers have to take a minimum of eight consecutive hours off in the sleeper berth, one driver, argues the owner-op group “is virtually imprisoned in the sleeper berth, and the other driver is pressured to drive at least eight hours in one stretch while the other driver is off duty.”

Meanwhile, Public Citizen says FMCSA ignored most the recommendations made in the first court ruling.

According to the American Trucking Associations, two of the panel’s three judges previously sided with the FMCSA in an HOS supporting-document case.

The panel will likely take about six months to comment on the oral arguments.