WASHINGTON — Adding flexibility to truck driver hours-of-service regulations in 2020 may have reduced road safety, based on data compiled by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
FMCSA compared HOS inspection and large-truck crash data from two years before the revisions went into effect on Sept. 29, 2020, and a year after the effective date.
FMCSA’s analysis, sent to Congress on Friday, concluded that the percentage of driver inspections that found at least one HOS violation or at least one out-of-service HOS violation — which requires the driver be removed from service until the violation is corrected — was significantly higher during the post-change period. (See table.)
Large-truck crash rates pre- and post-revision also increased but not enough to be statistically significant. However, “it is important to note that initial trends may have been confounded by the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on industry operations and FMCSA’s emergency declaration that provided HOS regulatory relief for commercial motor vehicle operations providing direct assistance in support of COVID-19 relief efforts,” FMCSA stated.
In addition, the agency noted that the implementation of the ELD mandate between December 2017 and December 2019 could also have safety implications. (FMCSA sent Congress a separate ELD report in April.) “Finally, there are numerous confounding factors that influence crash rates, so this comparison does not specifically identify the effect of the HOS rule changes,” FMCSA stated.
FMCSA’s 2020 final rule made revisions to four HOS provisions:
- It expanded the short-haul exception from 100 air-miles to 150 air-miles for CDL holders and allows a 14-hour shift for drivers utilizing the exception.
- It expanded the driving window during adverse driving conditions by two hours.
- It requires a break of at least 30 consecutive minutes of nondriving time after eight cumulative hours of driving but allows nondriving, on-duty time to count toward the break.
- It modified the sleeper berth exception to allow a driver to meet the 10-hour minimum off-duty requirement by spending at least seven hours in the berth plus at least two hours inside or outside the berth, provided the two periods total at least 10 hours.
FMCSA stated at the time that the changes “will improve efficiency without compromising safety by providing flexibility for drivers … without changing the maximum allowable driving time.”
Much of the trucking industry, including small-business owner-operators, supported the change and the operational flexibility expected to come with it.
In contrast, trucking safety advocates fought the changes, arguing that loosening the rules would lead to more crashes and diminished safety.
“All this report does is confirm what we already knew: Driver fatigue continues to be a menace that threatens everyone on the roads,” said Zach Cahalan, executive director of the Truck Safety Coalition, when asked to comment on FMCSA’s analysis.
“FMCSA weakened HOS requirements in direct response to industry outcry and safety suffered. Large-truck fatalities have increased by 71% since 2009; the time for half-measures and partial solutions has long passed. FMCSA has an opportunity to meaningfully advance truck safety outcomes with large-truck [Automatic Emergency Braking] and speed-limiter rulemakings and we urge them to meet the moment.”
FMCSA did not address the safety implications that could be deduced from its report, presumably due to the limited and generalized data it had for making the pre- and post-rule revision analysis.
Instead, it suggested that an alternative way to understand the effect of the HOS changes would be to analyze safety outcomes specifically of those who took advantage of the new provisions. The problem, though, is that “there is very limited data to support an in-depth analysis of the safety outcomes of carriers that took advantage of the new HOS provisions in comparison to those that did not,” FMCSA contended.
“The pre- and post-rule change macro trend analysis is limited in its reach given the scale of the HOS rule changes and other confounding factors. Subsequent annual analysis will include more data points and additional data breakouts. FMCSA will work on follow-on analyses drilling down into specific HOS violations or violation groups to attempt to correlate those with crash trends and will present any results in future annual reports.”
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David Hendrickson
The FMCSA needs to concentrate more on driver and carrier vetting. We need to get rid of wheel holder and find real truck drivers that speak English and have a passion for the career they have chosen.
Kasey Clark
My husband is a truck driver. I ride with him year round. I see many drivers speeding to get parked before the clock runs out. There needs to be more education on the clocks and documentation instead of rushing to get things done. This is what is causing distracted and exhausted drivers.
D maclean
It’s really just simple. ELD’s have these poor drivers behind the 8 ball. During my daily trips witch last from approximately 10-10.75ish hours at mostly speeds of oh… 67 68 mph. I’m really average on the whole 58 mph for an 1800 mile run. Driving a pre 2000 model truck I get to be able to slow in construction, city, bad weather ect. Stress free!! = 0 fatigue!! E L D ‘ s are killers. ELD trucks have no choice
Dex Wils9n
Strange that the quote from the Safety Coalition mentions a strong increase in Large Truck accidents since 2009. . . Isn’t that about the same time that all of the mega-fleets adopted speed governors on all of their trucks?
Peter Ely
Railroads as of late, have HOS violations too.
Short employees everywhere.
David A Berkovits
Well, if you did not have motor carriers, shippers, receivers and brokers treating drivers like stupid dumb slaves and allowed the driver to be part of the decision making when the load gets picked up and delivered and paid drivers for all the time they are in the truck you might not have a lot of these issues. Just my opinion!!!!
Maria Bartlett
I’ve had been driving for almost 20 years and I’ve watched this industry. Go through a lot the problem is that you gave the company too much power power to control our logs. Because when you get down to the last couple minutes and your drive.They want you to run those last 2 hours when in reality. You need those 2 hours to get to a safe haven. And believe me I have argued with The dispatcher and love that it is my log and I run it. The way. I feel safe if you have two hours left on or 3 or four hours left of your day And you’re on the East Coast where there is very little parking and you need to park. You need to get there early and shut down. The companies violate you if you do not do what they Or they will play with your logs and make you certified when you do not agree what they did to your logs. I think. That the? Driver. Should be able to decide their of service and not the company dictating how to run your clock. I think the government needs to quit playing with it and leave it to h*** alone because the way it was before the more I say it was fine now I. Was with the company before they mandated
ELDs I was already on the electronic log because the company I was with got in trouble back in 2013 or something I can’t remember but they’re. On electronic logs the same. Yes that’s the company should not be allowed to mess with your logs or force. You to drive with very little hours on your clock. Any companies do not teach these drivers to when you’re on the shoulder broke down or waiting on somebody to come and fix it and they fix it they just. Pull straight out from a dead stop from the shoulder in the 70, 75 ,80 hour traffic and they need to teach these drivers not to do. That they need to stay on the shoulder and ride the whole shoulder. Until they get up to at least the minimum speed of forty or fifty what ever it is To pull back out to the freewand it’s sad that the government has given these companies too much power to control a driver’s logs and not teaching. Them the proper way to get on the freeway when they are broke down on the shoulder. Or whatever they’re doing on this off on the shoulder. I have a freeway blame me me I have a lot more I can say And I think that every truck should have a CB In them and they must be used correctly because I had seen too many. Phillips ever since they started this automatics trucks mandated ELDs That I think they need to go back to manual transmissions and get the company’s to stop forcing drivers when they only have a few hours left at. Their day to be able to get to a safe haven with those hours instead of them trying to push them to go pick up a load or go deliver a. Load that they might not be able to leave or even get there. On Time
L. Mullican
The split sleeper birth has been the best thing to happen for safety. I drive some my self and I’ve never been as rested as I am now. Keeps you out of traffic and let’s you rest. It’s amazing the fools that are against real life solutions. You people just want Drama and be heard. You are a danger to this Industry. Your also foolish to think ELDs help. Your statistics show crash data is higher but you don’t want to deal with reality. If you want to really help crash reduction go after the cars. It is unbelievable at the reckless driving cutting trucks off swerving across three lanes in front of a truck. I’ve had cars run into my trailer and take off. It’s harder to catch those people so instead you just pick on easiest thing to try to regulate till it’s almost impossible to drive. This time somebody works for the truck in the industry and stop trying to showboat and just come up with BS regulations that do nothing but cause more issues and defy the facts.I could go on and on.