As the trucking industry awaits a final decision on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's proposed amendments to the current Hours of Service rules, the American Trucking Association has published a white paper and accompanying website illustrating the efficacy of the current HOS rules. In the white paper, the ATA notes that during the seven years the trucking industry has operated under the current HOS rules, the rate of truck-involved highway crash fatalities is down 33% and is at the lowest level since records began being kept in 1975. Further, fatality, injury and property-damage only crash rates for large trucks per 100 million miles driven are at their lowest in over 30 years.
As the ATA points out, the battle is driven more by politics than empirical data. The Obama Administration is bowing to the public interest groups and the teamsters, who insist that further restrictions on drivers are necessary. Although not yet published, the new HOS Rules are expected to include a reduction in the maximum driving time in each shift, a reduction in the maximum work time in each shift, and an increase in the number of consecutive hours of off-duty time required to restart the weekly work time. All of these changes will be made under the guise of increasing driver health, but really just serve to saddle the struggling trucking industry with more regulations designed to increase the number of drivers - many of whom are potential Teamster members.
