Three safety groups and the Teamsters union have filed their initial petition in federal appeals court challenging the federal truck driver hours-of-service (HOS) final rule that went into effect last year. The groups zeroed in on the new short-haul and 30-minute rest-break provisions.
In a filing late Friday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, Parents Against Tired Truckers, Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways, and the Teamsters claimed that by making the rules more flexible for the industry, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration made truck driving more dangerous.
“Overall, although the final rule pays lip service to safety and driver health, it ignores factors that affect safety and health, and it fails to demonstrate that the changes were the product of reasoned decision making,” the groups assert. “The final rule’s provisions on short-haul operations and the 30-minute break requirement are arbitrary and capricious and should be set aside.”
FMCSA’s final rule, which generated over 8,000 comments, made the following changes to the existing HOS rules:
- Changed the short-haul exception available to certain commercial drivers by lengthening the drivers’ maximum on‑duty period from 12 to 14 hours and extending the distance limit within which the driver 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 break 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 the driver’s 14‑hour driving window.
- Modified the adverse driving conditions exception by extending by two hours the maximum window during which driving is permitted.
Regarding the short-haul exception, however, the groups claim that FMCSA has not explained why — given a presumed increased safety risk of driving later in the workday — extending the hours for short-haul drivers would not adversely affect safety.
“The final rule also does not adequately respond to a study showing a 383% heightened crash risk among drivers using the short-haul exemption, and does not explain why expanding the work hours of short-haul drivers, who typically make many stops throughout the day, would not be expected to increase the incidence of occupational injuries among such drivers,” the petitioners stated.
With respect to the 30-minute break requirement, FMCSA’s discussion of safety effects brought about by the changes focuses on the benefits that breaks have in reducing fatigue caused by prolonged driving. In the rulemaking, FMCSA had reconsidered a study finding that breaks reduced safety risks in the hour following the break, and concluded that the study did not demonstrate a clear difference between on- and off-duty breaks, according to the petitioners.
However, “FMCSA ignored the effect on safety of cumulative fatigue due to increased working hours and the fatigue effects of non-driving work, which can include heavy lifting and other strenuous activities,” the groups stated.
FMCSA also ignored the health benefits that a previous HOS rule attributed to the 30-minute break requirement “and made no efforts to analyze the effects of the changes to the break requirement on those benefits or other health issues.”
In a separate statement included in the petition, Lamont Byrd, director of Teamsters’ safety and health department, contended that any new collective bargaining agreements that keep the original short-haul and rest-break rules in place (to maintain presumed higher safety levels) will put the labor union’s members at a competitive disadvantage compared to independent contractors not covered by those provisions.
“Similarly, employers of [Teamster] drivers who choose to continue to abide by the limitations on the short-haul exemption and the 30-minute break requirement that existed before the final rule will be at a competitive disadvantage compared to motor carriers that do not,” Byrd stated.
Responses from FMCSA and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, which is intervening for FMCSA, are due in January.
Bob the driver
How about you let the truck driver pick what rules he is comfortable with!? If a new driver can’t handle running hard then set yourself some limits and have the company agree. If an experienced O/O driver has no problem running short haul for 16hours then let him.
Donald
The fmscsa and government should stop making dangerous rules that cause more stress on drivers for no reason. They need to get their class a and drive a semi and see how things work and then be qualified in making dum rules!!! The log book is the killer idk when people including truckers will realize. People are like plan ahead. U cant plan this job. It never goes as plan. The weather, the traffic etc it is never the same. If it wasnt for log book trucker could sleep when there tired not according 5o their hours. Even the new 7/ 2 8/2 crap helps but its still control sometimes u cant sleep this isnt an office where u sit n fall asleep n nothing happens. So the government needs to be trained by driving experiencing trucking or stay out of it.
Gabriela Maria
SO RIDICULOUS GET A LIFE AND LET US DO OUR JOBS. Until YOU have your class A and can do the job for us. It’s okay for a doctor/nurse to work on human bodies for 16-18 + hour shifts but yall are mad about our breaks? Mad that we drive for 14 NOT CONSECUTIVE hours. What a joke, maybe instead of complaining and trying to screw us you could just thank a trucker. Little cars texting and swerving into us, cutting us off, slamming their brakes in front of us because they don’t want to miss an exit. Yall are probably in those cars. No respect.
Kevin Coble
These people have no concept of what it’s like to drive. They don’t understand that requiring that thirty minute break off duty just lengthens your driving day by the minutes. It doesn’t give you a real break at all. You don’t have time to nap or eat lunch or much of anything else. Most guys I saw before the relaxed on duty addition were just sitting in the driver’s seat waiting for their clocks to count off thirty minutes. The vast majority now use fueling time to meet that break which means they are getting out of that truck and stretching their legs without being rushed to get fuel and move on. I can fuel all three tanks, go in the store and take a leak and get a cup of coffee and my receipt and go back to the truck and before the guy behind me is done fueling my thirty minutes are met and I can continue on. When it had to be off duty, I had to find someplace to park which if at night is nearly impossible and if you do it’s generally in the middle of the drive and if someone wants out you have to be in the seat so you can move, so no time to go to the store… Etc. This relaxed rule made everything simpler and much safer. These people are idiots.
Adam
It’s amazing that people who have no idea how the Trucking industry works are protesting and wanting the hos regulated. The increase in wrecks are due to the hos regulations. Look at it this way, you have a run to California from Virgina and back. You start at 9 am and run everyday using your 11 hrs of drive with a 30 minute break and by the time you get home your exhausted. But it’s not from driving to much, it’s because your sleep schedule is so messed up that your internal clock is way out of whack. It’s worse than jet lag. I’ll bet none of them have ever worked days like that to even try to grasp what it does.
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