Truckers want court stay on work hours issue

Truckers want court stay on work hours issue The American Trucking Associations has asked U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters Wednesday to push for a stay of the Court of Appeals' ruling on so-called “hours of service” regulations.
   There is “no compelling safety reason” for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decision to vacate the 11-hour driving time provision and the 34-hour restart provision of the regulations, said Bill Graves, president and chief executive officer of the ATA, in a letter to Graves. ATA released the letter Wednesday at a press conference in Washington.
   ATA said that while the court identified procedural flaws in how the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration created the rules, those flaws can be readily addressed by the agency. “We believe that’s what they should do,” Graves said. ATA contends research, recent data and drivers’ accounts have shown that the hours of service rules enacted in 2005 are safe.
   ATA points to figures from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, that it says show the number of deaths from large truck-involved crashes declined 4.7 percent in 2006,
   “That year was the first full year for which the 2005 Hours of Service regulations were in effect, and the decrease is the largest drop in 14 years,” the ATA said.