Feb 012012

Ferro plans to keep fighting for a reduction in driving hours

Posted By: Tom Sanderson
Date Posted:  Wednesday, February 01, 2012  8:52 AM

Anne Ferro, head of the FMCSA, is defending the new 34-hour restart provisions of the hours-of-service rules and plans to continue conducting studies in an attempt to find scientific data to support her desire to reduce driving hours from 11 to 10. The restart provisions, requiring two consecutive days of rest between 1 AM and 5 AM, will not impact some fleets at all while some highly-engineered dedicated fleets expect a 10-12% loss of productivity. A number of industry experts are predicting about a 3% overall decline in driver productivity. While that may seem small, with over 3 million truck drivers in the industry it means that the industry will need to come up with an extra 100,000 drivers on top of the additional drivers required as the economy recovers and the need to replace retiring drivers. Does anyone think that convincing an extra 100,000 people to become truck drivers will improve safety on our highways?

Even more troubling is Ms. Ferro’s statement regarding driving hours. “We stated a clear preference for 10 hours, based on analysis and research we had in our hands at the time. Working through the process and reaching the final product of a final rule, we again derived a rule — that based on available science, on available data and on available research — with that driving purpose of advancing safety outcomes.” Ms. Ferro is not giving up the fight for fewer driving hours. The agency plans to collect and examine driver log data in an attempt to prove that the 11th driving hour is more highly associated with accidents.

The ATA has not decided whether it will take the FMCSA to court over the revised rules. Since it is clear the FMCSA intends to keep pushing for more restrictive hours-of-service rules beyond what have just been released, I urge the ATA to not sit back and play prevent defense, but to take a stand and fight the restart provision. There is no science to indicate that the restart provision will improve safety, and common sense indicates that an extra 100,000 new drivers and a lot more trucks hitting the road at 5 AM are not in the best interests of highway safety.


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Categories: Hours of Service
Jan 112012

Rep. Mica remains vocal on opposition to new HOS regulations

Posted By: Tom Sanderson
Date Posted:  Wednesday, January 11, 2012  4:37 PM

Representative John Mica (R-FL) expressed his concern regarding the FMCSA lacking adequate data to support the new 34-hour restart rule in the revised hours of service regulations. For a write-up on his comments and a reference to his comments in  September regarding his intention to “aggressively oversee any attempt by the U.S. DOT to impose new regulatory burdens on the trucking industry by making changes to the current hours-of-service rules.” see Transport Topics.

While it is a relief that the Agency did not reduce the number of driving hours from 11 to 10, that does not mean the industry should accept a degradation in productivity that does nothing to improve safety without putting up a fight.  The ATA remains undecided as to its course of action.


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Categories: Hours of Service
Dec 272011

Final Hours-of-Service rules flawed but will not impact 2012

Posted By: Tom Sanderson
Date Posted:  Tuesday, December 27, 2011  10:52 AM

There are two good pieces of news in the final hours-of-service rules. First, daily driving hours were not reduced from 11 to 10. That would have meant a significant hit to productivity for no improvement in safety. Second, the compliance date for the new rules is July 2013, or about 18 months. So there is no impact for 2012, and there is plenty of time to challenge the new rules which I expect the ATA will do. The ATA and the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) both oppose the final rules.

The 34-hour restart provision was changed requiring two consecutive rest periods between 1 AM and 5 AM for the restart. This makes no sense and has no scientific backing. If not overturned estimates of lost productivity range from 1 to 3 percent. That means more trucks and more drivers and more dollars to move the same amount of freight and almost certainly results in less highway safety, not more. It also means more drivers on the road after 5 AM during peak highway congestions periods, which is less safe and increases highway congestions, thus increasing emissions. For example, if a driver logs off at 2 AM on Saturday, under the old rules the 34 hours would be up at noon on Sunday and the driver could get under way any time that evening or night to meet a delivery appointment without concern about the morning rush hour. Under the new rules, the driver could not begin driving until 5 AM Monday (a 51 hour break) and would only have a short time to drive before hitting heavy traffic. It makes a Monday AM delivery more challenging so harms service in addition to increasing costs and doing nothing for safety. The original proposal had been midnight to 6 AM so the final rule was at least a little more lenient.

The overall workweek is reduced from 82 hours to 70 hours in a 7-day period, but most industry experts do not believe this will have a significant impact on productivity because most drivers are not working over 70 hours anyway.

If you want to read the whole 212 page “final rule” here is the link. Here is a brief summary from FMCSA.

 

Final HOS rules


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Categories: Hours of Service
Oct 062011

Terrific momentum is building to derail hours-of-service (HOS) changes

Posted By: Tom Sanderson
Date Posted:  Thursday, October 06, 2011  5:29 PM

It is great to see our industry benefitting from the general backlash against over-burdensome regulation. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) wrote a letter to president Obama stating that the new HOS proposal would raise costs and hurt the U.S. economy and cited the tremendous record the trucking industry has already achieved in reducing accidents. This follows a September 23 warning by Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee that his committee “will aggressively oversee any attempt by the [Department of Transportation] to impose new regulatory burdens on the trucking industry by making changes to the current [HOS] rules.”

We can’t rest easy though as FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro stated at the recent CSCMP annual conference in a session that I attended that she is not satisfied that the trucking industry is doing enough to reduce accidents, that driver fatigue is a major factor, and that widely accepted studies showing passenger vehicles at fault in most trucking accidents are not reliable. She stated that she was restricted from commenting on the proposed rule changes in the period immediately before the changes are announced, but seemed unconcerned about the economic costs of the increased regulation if there was some chance of saving lives. When asked by an audience member whether the safest course was to outlaw trucks in favor of bicycles pulling carts, she lashed out at 3PLs as being unwilling to participate in improving highway safety. Not her finest moment.


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Categories: Hours of Service
Jul 272011

Hours of Service (HOS) rules changes expected by October 28 despite flawed new studies

Posted By: Tom Sanderson
Date Posted:  Wednesday, July 27, 2011  12:02 PM

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) in in the process of reviewing comments and reiterated that it is on track to issue final HOS rules by October 28. While there is no indication from FMCSA regarding its current view of the proposed changes, most observers believe that the final rules will eliminate one hour of daily driving time. The original deadline was July 26, but the agency realized it could not meet that date primarily due to four late and controversial studies on driver fatigue that the FMCSA hoped would bolster its case. The agency was obligated to re-open the comment period after the release of those studies. The push to reduce driving hours is led primarily by the Teamsters and the Public Citizen advocacy group that sued to overturn the 2003 HOS rules.

Regarding the four studies, Ronald R. Knipling, former head of FMCSA's research division and the first American to receive the Order of Merit from the International Road Transport Union for his work on truck safety, questioned the validity of the studies. Knipling criticized the sample of drivers, trucks, and crashes in the Penn State study and concluded "It would be erroneous and unwarranted to accept Penn State's principal findings and conclusions without extensive reanalysis, internal validation and external replication." Knipling' s conclusion on the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute study was that "more probing and self-challenging analyses must be performed before [the] study['s] findings can be accepted as sound science." Regarding the study of Florida transit bus drivers Knipling pointed out that obviously the nature of work is far different for a transit driver and an over-the-road truck driver rendering any comparisons meaningless. For an excellent summary of the ATA and NIT League position on the flaws of the four added studies I refer you to Truckinginfo, the web site of Heavy Duty Trucking magazine.

The NIT League is right on the mark with their comment that "The study shows no appreciable increase in crash risk between the 10th and 11th driving hours, which would support a change to the current rule."

We don't need costly regulations that do little or nothing to improve highway safety.


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Categories: Hours of Service
May 092011

FMCSA reopens comment period on hours-of-service proposed rule change

Posted By: Tom Sanderson
Date Posted:  Monday, May 09, 2011  5:31 PM

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMSCA) has reopened its hours-of-service proposed rule to public comments in order to allow review of four new studies. The four studies are related to driver fatigue, and can be accessed at the FMSCA web site. The titles are "The Impact of Driving, Non-Driving Work, and Rest Breaks on Driving Performance in Commercial Motor Vehicle Operations"; "Hours of Service and Driver Fatigue: Drive Characteristics Research"; "Analysis of the Relationship between Operator Cumulative Driving Hours and Involvement in Preventable Collisions" ; and "Potential Causes of Driver Fatigue: A Study on Transit Bus Operations in Florida".

I share the ATA's skepticism regarding the new research. "ATA believes decisions about the future of this important regulation should be made based on sound science and research and not political pressure, but we're clearly skeptical of new research that has been discovered or generated by DOT at the '11th hour,'" ATA's president, Bill Graves, said in a statement.

FMCSA is under a court-ordered deadline to post a final rule by July 26 and appears to be extending the comment period to June 8.

The fastest and easiest way to make your voice heard is via the web. Go to the government's regulatory web site, and click on "Submit a comment". In the dialogue box for "Enter Keyword or ID" enter: FMCSA-2004-19608 and click on "search". In the far right hand column of the search results click "submit a comment". I suggest you draft your comment in advance as the site allows only 20 minutes to type in your comment, which can be no more than 2000 words. You can cut and paste your drafted comment into the web site.


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Categories: Hours of Service
Mar 162011

National Retail Federation blasts hours of service proposal

Posted By: Tom Sanderson
Date Posted:  Wednesday, March 16, 2011  2:11 PM

I have excerpted some of the key paragraphs from an excellent document submitted to FMCSA and published by the NRF opposing the proposed hours of service changes. The entire document is available on the NRF Web site.

NRF strongly supports the current HOS regulations and questions the need to make changes. Any changes to the current HOS regulations should be based on sound science and studies of safety and driver health. In addition, the FMCSA must consider the significant economic impact that changes to the current HOS will have across the industry, including the impact to retail operations at both the store and distribution center level. NRF appreciates the opportunity to submit comments in support of the current HOS regulations.

While many in industry were concerned about the impact of the HOS regulations when they first went into effect in January 2004, U.S. industry, including retailers, have adapted their operations to comply with these requirements. However, removing the current rules and reverting back to the old rules or some variation thereof, would result in significant cost increases for the industry as a whole and would adversely impact the U.S. economy. Our members estimate that the impact of the proposed change in hours of service rules could increase transportation costs by 3% to 20% depending on the specific retailer's network and operation. Many of our members also have concerns over the possibility for adverse unintended consequences as a result of the proposed changes that could lead to further cost increases. The reduction in transportation productivity and driver capacity owing to the rule change could substantially undermine supply chain performance in the retail sector.

If the 11-hour drive time limit were to be reduced to the previous 10-hour limit, we anticipate there will be a need for significantly more trucks and drivers on the road to fulfill the demands of what is currently being accomplished under the 11-hour on-duty time. We have similar concerns over the proposed change to the 34 hour restart rule that would include two consecutive nights (midnight – 6:00 am) of rest. These changes could reduce road safety resulting from the need for additional trucks on the road during peak commuter hours. Other impacts could include increased diesel emissions, additional congestion and more wear and tear on infrastructure.

In addition to the change to the maximum allowable drive time, other retailers are concerned about proposed changes to the 34 hour restart provision that includes two consecutive nights (midnight to 6 am) of rest. Many retailers with stores located in urban areas use nighttime hours to efficiently reach stores and restock shelves during less congested hours. The use of nighttime hours provides many retailers greater reliability over their supply chain by reducing congestion related delays. The deployment of more trucks during the night also separates truck and automobile interactions contributing to increased safety. The proposed change to the 34 hour restart provision to include two consecutive nights of rest reduces the ability to schedule deliveries at night placing more trucks on the road during normal commuting hours. This adversely impacts a retailer's supply chain performance, potentially increasing congestion related delays and increasing the likelihood of accidents as a result of greater truck and automobile interactions.

As the world's largest retail trade association, the National Retail Federation's global membership includes retailers of all sizes, formats and channels of distribution as well as chain restaurants and industry partners from the U.S. and more than 45 countries abroad. In the U.S., NRF represents the breadth and diversity of an industry with more than 1.6 million American companies that employ nearly 25 million workers and generated 2010 sales of $2.4 trillion.


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Categories: Hours of Service
Feb 112011

Hours of Service proposal is poster child for regulatory nonsense

Posted By: Tom Sanderson
Date Posted:  Friday, February 11, 2011  9:32 AM

Introduction

 

Hours of service (HOS) regulations are issued by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to govern the working hours of commercial motor vehicle (CMV) drivers. HOS rules limit when and for how long CMV drivers operate. These limits and regulations are based on exhaustive but highly debated scientific reviews designed to ensure that truck drivers get adequate rest to operate safely. HOS rules take into account existing fatigue research and the FMCSA has worked closely with organizations like the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies and the National Institute for Occupational Safety.

 

The FMCSA is proposing changes to HOS rules and is encouraging all interested parties to comment on the proposed rule changes.

 

History

 

The first HOS rules were enacted in December 1937 by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). There were some revisions in the early years but then the rules remained unchanged until 1962. Early HOS rules included limiting drivers to 10 hours of driving in a 24 hour period with at least 8 hours off duty. Drivers could be on duty 60 hours in 7 days or 70 hours in 8 days. The 1962 revision dropped the 24 hour requirement and allowed drivers to operate 10 hours, take 8 hours off and then drive again. Those changes lasted for over 40 years.

 

The next notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) came in 2000 requiring that HOS rules be science based. It is hard to argue against that. The agency collected relevant studies and completed its comprehensive Commercial Motor Vehicle Driver Fatigue and Alertness Study (a joint effort with Canada and the trucking industry). FMCSA conducted nationwide public hearings on the NPRM and three two-day public roundtable discussions with expert panels on issues like traffic safety, human factors, and fatigue to evaluate the science and take regulatory actions. Finally on April 28, 2003, the agency announced the revised HOS rules. Driving time was extended from 10 to 11 hours but total on-duty hours were limited to 14 consecutive hours after coming on duty (as opposed to 15 cumulative on-duty hours). The rest period was increased from 8 to 10 hours. Drivers were given discretion to restart the calculation of weekly hours anytime they took an off duty break of at least 34 consecutive hours. A petition was filed against these rules in June 2003 by Public Citizens, Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways (CRASH) and Parents Against Tired Truckers (PATT). FMCSA published final amended rules in August 2005. The amended final rules addressed driver health issues and retained the 11 hours of driving, 14 hours on-duty window, 10 hours off duty and 34 hours restart period. These rules were also challenged by Public Citizen and Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association. On December 2007, to prevent disruption in enforcement and compliance, the interim final rule confirmed both the 11 hours of driving time and the 34 hours restart rule.

 

The industry adapted quite well to the new rules. Shippers and carriers recognized that with 1 less on-duty hour it was imperative to not tie up drivers at the dock loading and unloading trailers or just waiting for space. Carriers increased stop-off charges to discourage low utilization multi-stop loads and shippers responded by reducing multi-stop loads. The fear that tuck utilization would decline under the new rules was mitigated by improvements in logistics practices. Highway safety continued its steady and dramatic improvement in the post-deregulation (1980) era.

 

Proposed Rules

 

Agitation against the rules continued unabated on two fronts. Well-meaning but ill-informed self-proclaimed safety groups (CRASH, PATT) argued that the fewer hours a driver works and drives the safer he is. This ignores the obvious impact that the fewer hours drivers can work, the more drivers are required and that pressing the industry to hire more drivers means more inexperienced drivers and thus less safe drivers. Less productivity also means more trucks on the road for the same amount of freight which is also a safety hazard. The second group is the Teamsters who want to harm the productivity and increase the cost of non-union trucking for obvious reasons.

 

On December 23rd 2010, the FMCSA proposed new HOS rules. The key proposed changes from the current requirement include:

  • Driving time would be limited to either 10 or 11 hours followed by 10 consecutive hours of off-duty time. The FMCSA is not willing to commit on the most vital element of the new rules, kicking the can down the road until after the comment period but does favor a reduction to 10 hours.
  • The 34 hours restart is retained but subject to limits. A restart must include two periods between midnight and 6 a.m. and could be started no sooner than 7 days (168 hours) after the beginning of previous designated restart. The 7-day requirement creates a mandatory "weekend."
  • Decreasing daily "on-duty" time from 14 to 13 hours. Drivers could still drive the 10 or 11 hours within the 14 hour "window".
  • The on-duty window would be made more flexible allowing it to extend to 16 hours twice a week. The extra time cannot be driving or on-duty though, only administrative.
  • Drivers are required to take a minimum 30 minute break after driving or working 7 hours coming off their last off-duty period.

 

Quite simply, this is nuts.

 

The industry has shown dramatically better safety results under the 2003 rules so there is no reason and no scientific evidence to justify reducing driving hours from 11 to 10. The industry hoped for simplification but got a hodgepodge of exceptions and loopholes that are going to be very difficult for drivers to follow. As if driver logs are not complicated enough already, how can the agency expect drivers to now make sure that it is OK twice a week to work 16 hours but not 3 times. Restricting the 34 hour restart to include two (2) midnight to 6 AM windows is not only complicated but easily turns 34 hours into 40 to 48 hours depending on when the 34 hours starts.

 

There is no doubt, that the proposed rules will harm productivity in the trucking industry and drive up the cost of putting products on retail shelves. There is no evidence that the increase in costs will result in safer highways or be offset by a decrease in costs associated with accidents. The FMCSA created a new driver health impact factor to justify the increased costs of its regulatory actions by claiming that better driver health and longevity would offset the loss of productivity. This is how the agency describes the benefits of the rule in its Regulatory Impact Analysis: "The benefits consist of safety benefits from the reduction in fatigue-related crashes and health benefits from drivers working long hours potentially getting more sleep and reducing their mortality risk." Rob Abbott, Vice President of Safety Policy at the ATA is a good interpreter: "In plain English, what they're saying is that while we won't necessarily see enough reduced crashes to justify the tremendous economic impact, drivers who get more rest, work shorter shifts and have longer breaks will get more sleep and over their lifetimes that means they'll be healthier and live longer lives." The agency calculates this health-related benefit to be worth $690 million.

 

 

What should you do?

 

The comment period is open until February 28, 2011. It is imperative that you comment online, through mail or by fax and express your dissatisfaction with the proposed changes. The fastest and easiest way to make your voice heard is via the web. Go to the government's regulatory web site, and click on "Submit a comment". In the dialogue box for "Enter Keyword or ID" enter: FMCSA-2004-19608 and click on "search". In the far right hand column of the search results click "submit a comment". I suggest you draft your comment in advance as the site allows only 20 minutes to type in your comment, which can be no more than 2000 words. You can cut and paste your drafted comment into the web site.

 

If President Obama is serious about reforming the regulatory process and eliminating regulations that place an undue burden on business (The Wall Street Journal), this is a good place to start. Scrap the revised rules and stick with what we have. It passes the best test of all – it works and safety is improving every year.


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Categories: Hours of Service
Aug 092010

Fleets Say Drive-Time Cut Would Boost Freight Costs

Posted By: Tom Sanderson
Date Posted:  Monday, August 09, 2010  9:06 AM

By Sean McNally, Senior Reporter

This story appears in the Aug. 9 print edition of Transport Topics.

While the trucking industry waits for the Obama administration to complete its review of a new hours-of-service proposal, executives with some of the nation's largest fleets warned that a cut in driving time would result in higher consumer costs, reduced efficiency and increased pollution.

If DOT or Congress "reduces the hours of service from 11 hours a day of driving, to say, nine . . . they are actually reducing capacity by the equivalent of 250,000 trucks," said Stephen Russell, chairman and chief executive officer of truckload carrier Celadon Group Inc. "That's going to cause pricing to go through the roof."

Late last month, in compliance with a federal court settlement with Public Citizen and the Teamsters union, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration sent its new HOS proposal to the White House for review. The rule is expected to be made public later this year.

The current rule allows for 11 hours of driving within a 14-hour period, followed by a 10-hour rest period. In June, Public Citizen put forth a suggestion that driving time be cut back to eight hours within a 12-hour period.

Jack Holmes, president of UPS Freight, the less-than-truckload division of UPS Inc., said he is concerned fleets would have to hire more drivers, and put more trucks on the road, if driving time is reduced

"If you have a proposal that results in more trucks on the road, it would certainly seem to be flawed," Holmes said.

Randy Mullett, director of government relations for Con-way Inc., said "the less hours when people are out on the road equals less productivity and less use of your assets."

A reduction in hours will be costly for trucking, he said, but it was not yet entirely clear how costly.

"What is difficult to figure is how much extra capacity does it require for additional equipment," Mullett said. "Does it change the ratio of tractors to trailers? I don't think we have a good handle on that yet."

Celadon's Russell said higher costs ultimately would get passed through to the consumer because "nobody's going to eat it."

"It is going to drive pricing through the roof, and whatever every Tom, Dick and Harry buys, whether they're buying American cheese or buying products from anywhere . . . it's going to cost more," he said.

Holmes said when a new rule is published, fleets will have to review not only routes but entire transportation networks to see if changes need to be made to minimize the effects on customers.

Mullett agreed, saying that it is possible that "some things that are next-day [delivery] now may become two-day."

However, he was able to find a small upside for Con-way if there is a change.

"From the Menlo point of view . . . it might be a whole bunch of work for us, so every cloud might have a silver lining," Mullett said referring to Menlo Logistics Worldwide, the company's logistics division.

David Abney, UPS' chief operating officer, said the company believes no change in the rule is needed.

"The safety numbers since the change was made in '04 back that up," Abney said. "If we felt that was an issue, it wouldn't take the government saying that they needed to reduce the hours; we would the appropriate steps ourselves."

Despite the uncertainty, Mullett said it was too early for Con-way to spend time worrying too much about what might happen.

"We feel like that we've got the right people and systems that we can respond to a change," he said. "We're hoping that it is not one that's really costly or disruptive to the industry."


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Categories: Hours of Service