The new interstate Hours of Service rules for truck drivers—aimed at reducing driver fatigue and improving safety—have met with mixed reviews in the construction industry. Some companies like the new rules, others don’t, and some are indifferent.

By Daniel C. Brown

Last September, Congress passed a one-year extension of the new Hours of Service (HOS) rules, which cut back drivers by one hour to 14 hours of consecutive on-duty time. The old rules allowed drivers 15 hours of non-consecutive duty, followed by eight consecutive hours off-duty. Congress passed the one-year extension as part of an eight-month advancement of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century.

Photo: International

Now, suppose a driver starts at 8:00 a.m., is rained out at 1:00 p.m., and rests until 5:00 p.m. Under the new rules, he has already logged nine hours and cannot work past 10:00 p.m. to make 14 hours of consecutive duty. By contrast, the old rules would have allowed the driver to come back to work at 5:00 p.m., having logged only five hours—and he could have worked another 10 hours.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has put forth the new rules as safety measures to help prevent driver fatigue and the accidents that result. In 1999, there were 5,203 truck-related fatalities. Of those, according to the FMCSA, about 585 were fatigue related. The agency believes the new rules will prevent a substantial number of fatalities every year.

Photo: Mack

Throughout a court battle over the new rules, the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association (NRMCA) had favored the former rules and opposed the new ones. “We lose an hour of service; plus, the 14 hours have to be structured consecutively,” says Kevin Voelte, manager of government relations at the NRMCA. The old rules, maintained the NRMCA, provided more flexibility in meeting concrete customers’ needs around the clock.

Line-haul drivers are more affected than ready-mix drivers by a key change in the new rules. Long-haul drivers now get one more hour of duty, up to 11 hours, before taking a 10-hour break. Under the old rules, a long-haul driver could drive 10 hours and then take eight off. Theoretically, it was possible for a driver to work 16 hours out of a 24-hour day.

So how do line-haul drivers like the new rules? “Most of our drivers seem to like the new regulations,” says Charlene Burd, safety manager for Greentree Transportation Co., a Pittsburgh, PA–based firm that obtains freight for 258 owner-operators who haul across the nation. Construction equipment amounts to a large portion of Greentree’s freight.

“Drivers can now be on duty 14 hours, of which 11 hours can be driving, and then they must take 10 consecutive hours off,” says Burd. “Under the new regulations, drivers can go off duty for 34 consecutive hours, and thereby reset their weekly clock, which allows 70 hours on duty/driving time in eight days.”

Adds a safety director with one long-haul trucking firm, “I think the new rules are safer. We have drivers with fewer violations on their logbooks. We don’t have as many drivers exceeding their 70 hours anymore. I think drivers take the 34 hours and reset their clocks now.”

Photo: Mack

A number of construction-related firms are unaffected by the new rules. “We’re in the local sand and gravel business and the rules don’t really affect us,” says Catherine Sena, operations manager at Tonyan Bros. Inc., a Ringwood, IL, trucking firm that works with some 150 owner-operated trucks. “Our hours are set by the gravel pits, which open at 6:00 a.m. and close around 2:00 or 3:00 p.m. So we can’t get beyond those hours.”

Under the new interstate rules, no driver may drive more than 70 hours in any consecutive eight-day period if the motor carrier operates every day of the week. “We’ve had issues with the 70-hour limit,” says Roy Sander, operations manager of Aggregate Industries in Moorhead, MN. The company operates more than 100 ready-mix trucks in western Minnesota and eastern North Dakota.

“If we get 70 hours in five days, then we’ve had to forego projects on a Saturday,” says Sander. “Drivers already have the 70 hours in by Friday night, so we’ve had to educate our consumers that these new rules are in effect.

“We have a limited driver pool, and they’re all starting to max out at times,” says Sander. “And our driver pool is stretched out over 25,000 square miles. Sometimes we just have to tell the contractor that we can’t work because we’re out of hours. It hasn’t happened very often this summer but it has happened a few times. The older rules were more liberal.”

Adds Voelte, “There’s a well-documented shortage of drivers in our industry. And the lack of flexibility in the rules can mean we have to hire more drivers in some cases. So if experienced drivers aren’t available, we have to tap another pool of less experienced people.”

States’ Rules
Truck drivers in a number of states are regulated by Drivers’ Hours of Service Tolerance Guidelines, which are directed only at intrastate commerce. “Tolerance guidelines are allowable variances from the federal HOS rules that can be adopted by states to regulate drivers operating exclusively in intrastate commerce,” says Voelte.

Under these tolerance guidelines, intrastate drivers generally gain more flexibility than long-haul drivers have. States can adopt variances up to a maximum 12 hours of driving time per day within a 16-hour on-duty period, and increased weekly aggregate on-duty limits of 70 hours in seven days or 80 hours in eight days. And the 100-air-mile logging exemption radius (federal) can also be increased to 150 miles. States that surpass those limits jeopardize part of their funding through the Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program. States that have tolerance guidelines include California, Florida, Iowa, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, North and South Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin.

The new interstate rules resulted from a contentious court battle. On July 16, 2004, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out the new rules, which had taken effect on January 4. The court said the new rules are “arbitrary and capricious because [the FMCSA] failed to consider the impact of the rules on the health of drivers, a factor the agency must consider under its organic statute.” In August, the FMCSA petitioned the court for an indefinite stay of the current rules. But the court was preempted by Congress’s extension of the new rules.

Now, the FMCSA is researching still another rule. The agency plans to address the court’s issues and promulgate a new rule by September 30, 2005.

Daniel C. Brown owns TechniComm, a communications business based in Des Plaines, IL.

GEC - March/April 2005