American Trucking Association and federal regulators argue over trucker hours but truck driver fatigue found to be a factor in many trucking accidents.
Driver fatigue is a problem that affects a significant number of commercial truck drivers. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has tried to address this problem by requiring medical exams to identify drivers with sleep problems, such as sleep apnea, and by establishing hours-of-service rules to limit the number of consecutive hours a trucker can drive.
Unfortunately, when limits on work hours reduce profit, some drivers are motivated to falsify their logbooks and break the rules.
Last year, the FMCSA had issued a new rule that required repeat violators of the hours-of-service rules to install an electronic onboard recorder. The rule was scheduled to take effect in June 2012 and would have impacted an estimated 4,700 instate trucking companies/drivers.
The Owner-Operators Independent Drivers Association challenged the new rule, saying that it would allow trucking companies to harass drivers. The Association took their complaint to the Seventh Circuit Court, which ruled in their favor. The court vacated the rule and told the FMCSA to go back to the drawing board.
The American Trucking Association (ATA) is questioning why the FMCSA is trying to reduce truck drivers’ hours. The ATA points to data showing that trucking accidents have decreased significantly in recent years, despite the longer truck driver work hours and shorter driver recovery period allowed since the GW Bush Administration.
The ATA president has asked the Office of Management and Budget to review the data and then to investigate whether there is any “legitimate” reason to change the current hours of service rules.
Washington State has evidently had enough falsified logbooks and of hour-of-service violations. In the past year, crash investigators found truck driver fatigue to be a factor in a number of truck crashes and drivers in eight of those accidents were found to have falsified their logbook, claiming to have driven fewer hours than they did.
Washington has installed a system to capture truck data at twelve locations across the state. When a commercial truck passes through the required weigh station, the Commercial Vehicle Division uses an automated license plate reader to see how long the truck driver has been on the road that day. That data can then be checked against the truck driver’s logbook to see if it is accurate. In August, 98 drivers were cited for serious violation of the hours-of-service rules over a four-day period.
In the ongoing push to increase both profits and safety, truck driver hours of service will be one area that continues to receive attention.
