The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration successfully defended changes to the trucking hours-of-service (HOS) regulations enacted two years ago against a challenge from safety groups and the Teamsters union alleging the changes increase crash risks and make the roads less safe.
In a petition filed in December last year, the union and the three safety groups — Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety (Advocates), Parents Against Tired Truckers, and Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways — argued that FMCSA’s final rule issued in May 2020 that incorporated four HOS changes was “arbitrary and capricious” because it failed to address safety and driver-health effects. The groups had focused specifically on two of the four changes: the short-haul exemption and the 30-minute rest break rule.
But in a decision issued Tuesday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, a three-judge panel ruled that while aspects of the FMCSA’s reasoning in defending the HOS provisions “leave much to be desired,” the agency “sufficiently explained and factually justified its conclusions that the new short-haul exemption and the 30-minute break requirement would not adversely affect safety, driver health or regulatory compliance.”
In siding with FMCSA’s defense of the short-haul exemption specifically, the court ruled that “while the administration’s reasoning was underwhelming in certain respects, it gets across the arbitrary and capricious line.”
Despite the safety groups’ unsuccessful challenge, Peter Kurdock, general counsel for Advocates, zeroed in on the wording of the decision.
“Three judges sitting on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit found the reasoning adopted by the [FMCSA] to eviscerate several critical provisions of the [HOS] rules for commercial motor vehicle drivers ‘leave much to be desired’ and is ‘underwhelming in certain respects’,” Kurdock said in a statement. “With thousands of lives lost and serious injuries suffered each year to truck crashes, this criticism should serve as yet another wake-up call to FMCSA to advance known solutions that will reduce the outrageous death and injury toll instead of reckless rules that will only make our roads more dangerous.”
Kurdock told FreightWaves that the group is “contemplating next steps,” which could include filing a petition for rehearing or petition for rehearing en banc, both of which would vacate the previous judgement. A Teamsters representative said the union had no additional comment.
In its 43-page decision, the appeals court addressed each of the petitioners’ arguments for vacating the changes made by the FMCSA — which the agency asserted provided increased flexibility for drivers and trucking companies — and how the agency was able to defend them.
The court noted, for example, that in the view of the petitioners regarding the 30-minute rest break change, the FMCSA “failed to address the cumulative fatigue that arises when drivers work a 14-hour day with only working breaks from driving and no off-duty time to rest. The new rule, they explain, effectively increases the long-haul driver’s already long work-duty day by an additional 30 minutes.”
In response, the FMCSA argued that before the rule change, drivers could have worked a maximum of 13.5 hours in a shift — with the 30-minute break rounding out the rest of the 14 hours — and yet few were doing so.
“That suggested to the [FMCSA] that drivers are not being pushed to work every available minute, and the same would be true under the new system,” the court stated. “In short, the administration reasonably explained why the new rule was safety neutral by considering both the safety benefit of decreased pressure to drive aggressively and the prospect of maintaining a roughly equivalent number of breaks as before the rule change.”
With regard to the short-haul exemption, FMCSA “reasonably weighed competing studies on collision risk to conclude that the final rule was safety neutral, addressed driver-health impacts and appropriately relied on the self-limiting nature of short-haul operations in concluding that the new rules would not foster noncompliance.”
During oral arguments in May, Paul Cullen, representing the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, which intervened in the lawsuit in support of FMCSA, spoke primarily about parking issues and noted that a 30-minute mandated rest stop — one in which the driver needed to be off the road — could result in a 60- or 90-minute hunt for parking. The new rule reduces that need, Cullen contended.
FMCSA’s final rule, which generated over 8,000 comments, made the following revisions to the existing HOS rules:
- Changed the short-haul exception available to certain commercial drivers by lengthening their maximum on‑duty period from 12 to 14 hours and extending the distance limit within which they may operate from 100 air miles to 150 air miles.
- Increased flexibility for the 30-minute break rule by requiring a break after eight hours of consecutive driving and allowing the recess to be satisfied by a driver using on-duty not-driving status, rather than off-duty status.
- Modified the sleeper-berth exception to allow drivers to split their required 10 hours off duty into two periods: an 8-2 split or a 7-3 split. Neither period counts against their 14‑hour driving window.
- Modified the adverse driving conditions exception by extending by two hours the maximum window during which driving is permitted.
Brian
This is just simply more tax dollars being wasted in a court. I’m questioning where the statically number of “millions of lives lost yearly” comes from? I’m almost willing to bet personal vehicle accidents wouldn’t amount to 1 million deaths per year in the US. If that’s the case our tax dollars should focus on saving lives due to everyday motorists and not being spent on climate change,irs agents,courts for the lgb2+÷=2#3 groups. This government is only using its powers to extort money from the people. Leave the trucking industry alone! It’s hard to follow rules if they are forever changing. I’ll do my best for now.
Angel
it’s simple let’s be reasonable each and every driver is different and I’m for one I’m a driver that can do even 12 13 14 hours of driving time and then I decide I’m tired I sleep and that’s because I pull over can I pull over I’m tired I sleep that’s it I shouldn’t be told by anyone what my limitations are I know what my limitations are I can drive 10 hours 11 hours straight so I should be allowed to do that I am not a child I’m a full grown man no one not the government not anybody should be telling me my limitations how much I can do because at the end of the day no matter what I do I am responsible for my safety and unfortunately I’m also responsible for everybody else’s safety around me because if somebody hits me or runs into me I get charged because the cops default the charging the commercial driver and their excuses you have the professional license you needed to anticipate the other drivers around you and what they will do and somehow be psychic so no there is no need for any more government intervention this field is the most regulated field of work and right now very extremely poorly paid. sorry there are no periods or commas in my rent.
Peter Sisco
As a OTR driver I feel the HOS should be simplified to simplified to a straight 14/10 rule . Even keep the 30 minute break in there . The 70 hour rule has nothing to do with safety but to instead force drivers for mega carriers to babysit the truck for free . It’s simple math and planning to run a drivers hours out Monday through Friday and then make them babysit the truck for free , which is not restful despite the lie spun by ” THE EXPERTS ” , so that the truck is in lane the carrier wants Monday morning. Most drivers would rather drive for 2, 3 or as in my case I prefer 4 weeks then take all 6 days off at home and actually RELAX and not stress about sitting on side of the road taking off time away from home .
Furthermore this story quoted someone about the THOUSANDS OF DEATHS AND INJURIES involving trucks . INVOLVING is the key word because now that most companies and owner operators use a front facing dash cam to show what CARS and other passenger vehicles are doing it is now A PROVEN FACT THAT ALMOST EVERY ACCIDENT ( OVER 80 PERCENT ) ARE THE ABSOLUTE FAULT OF THE PASSENGER VEHICLE.
Dash Cameras are causing lawsuit lawyers so many issues that groups are now trying to get video devices out of CMVs calling them a distraction ( which admittedly driver facing cameras are because you’re always worried what you look like on the camera to a court being spun by a smooth tongued ambulance chaser ) .
Jim Harris
These “safety groups” are not interested in safety. They receive funding from climate change and green energy groups. If what they want were enacted by the DOT, all trucks would only drive in daylight hours from 9 am to 3 pm, could only travel at 45 mph, could only use the right lane and be forbidden from passing, oversized loades would require a police escort and could only travel 2 hrs per day and would be required a full inspection by the escort police (I’m not making this up – look at their mission statement and proposed legislation minutes they are jaw dropping)
Richard M. Rehmer
The FMCSA is made up of political appointees and college people who only understand what the books and professors say. If they would actually come out on the road for an extended period of time and see what their regulation equate to in real-time, they might just review the rules and change them so drivers can make it work without pushing the limits to do it. I am old back in the 70, trucking companies tried wiz wheels in the trucks to keep the paper logs honest; it fell flat on its face; we also had governors in the trucks to slow them down; all that happened was freight was always late for its delivery. The EDL system makes drivers push the limits to do the jobs they are hired to do. The FMCSA is supposed to be about safety, yet things are not safe out there because of the HOS rules
Carlos_P
👹 What’s the massive problem with letting us choose our sleep and not being penalized for not being their “Structure” of 7/3 or 8/2 whatever. It’s Total BS that we can’t pause our books to get a needed nap !! The statistics PROVE these ridiculous rules have INCREASED DEATHS ON OUR ROADWAYS AS A RESULT !! LET US SLEEP HOW WE WANT SO WE’RE NOT ALWAYS TIRED FIGHTING THIS STUPID AZZ E.L.D. CLOCK !! 🤬☠️🤬☠️🤬☠️👹👹👹
Billie Bob
Hi, when I drove, I read the rules and filled out my log to be legal. The silliest thing is believing an electronic log and the lack of flexibility create safety. If we put lawyers or politicians or Emerg Room Doctors on the same king of rules….. this debate would not exist.