Safety groups caution president on HOS rollback

The head of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and representatives from safety groups called for the president to veto any legislation that eases HOS regulations.    The head of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and 18 representatives from highway and trucking safety groups are calling for President Obama to veto any legislation that eases the current hours of service regulations.
   The parties anticipate that such legislation might be tacked on to an omnibus spending bill.
   “The omnibus should not be a testing ground for policies that denigrate highway safety and further deteriorate our crumbling infrastructure,” James P. Hoffa, Teamsters general president, stated.
   In a letter to Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, they wrote that “trucking and shipping interests are relentlessly pushing an anti-safety agenda that is dangerous, deadly and unprecedented in its assault on public health and safety.”
   In the letter, they wrote that the trucking industry is trying to get truck weight exemptions passed, want to enact state legislation that would allow longer trucks on the road, and do away with the HOS rule “by eliminating the two-day weekend off-duty for truck drivers to rest, thereby dramatically increasing the working and driving hours of truck drivers.”
   The groups also sent a letter to leaders of the appropriations committees in the Senate and House.
   In a press release, John Claybrook, the head of Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways, equated the industry’s quest to roll-back safety measures to the fight for more corporate tax breaks.
   “President Obama took a bold stance objecting to legislation being negotiated to extend expiring tax breaks for well-connected corporations while neglecting working families,” he stated. “Similarly, we urge the White House to reject any funding bill that puts greedy special interest exemptions for well-connected corporate trucking and shipping interests before the safety of millions of innocent American families and truck drivers on our streets and highways every day.”