OOIDA asks FMCSA to amend HOS regulations

The trucking trade group has petitioned the agency to allow drivers to stop their 14-hour clock to take a rest break for up to three straight hours, and to eliminate the 30-minute break they must take during their first eight hours of duty.    The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), a national trade group representing small-business trucking professionals and professional truck drivers, sent a petition to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), asking the agency to modify the current federal hours-of-service (HOS) regulations.
   OOIDA has called on the FMCSA to allow drivers subject to HOS regulations to pause their 14-hour daily clock and take a rest break for up to three consecutive hours, and to eliminate the mandatory, 30-minute break drivers must take within their first eight hours on duty each day.
   However, drivers would still need to log 10 straight hours off duty before they could begin their next work shift, OOIDA explained.
   “There are many operational situations where the 30-minute rest break requires drivers to stop when they simply do not need to,” OOIDA Acting President and CEO Todd Spencer said. “It’s either impractical or unsafe.
   “We are in a situation where we have never had more regulations and greater enforcement and compliance with those regulations,” he said. “Yet, crash numbers are going in the wrong direction, it’s time for a new approach.”
   HOS, which many truck drivers used to track using pen and paper, are now required to be tracked with electronic logging devices (ELDs), meaning that drivers have no way of falsifying HOS logs and working longer hours than what is allowed. The ELD mandate kicked into gear in December 2017, but carriers not in compliance will not be placed out of service until April 1.
   OOIDA, a strong opponent of the ELD mandate in general, has long argued that ELDs do not actually advance safety, since they are not any more reliable than paper logbooks for recording compliance with HOS regulations.