Life on the Road – Trucking News Blog

Looks like we’re stuck with the HOS rules as they are right now. 11 on 10 off with a 34 hour restart. If I’m out here working, I want to be working instead of waiting for hours in a truck stop!

DOT maintains 11-hour driving limit for truckers
WASHINGTON (AP) – Big trucking companies got their wish on Tuesday when federal regulators maintained existing limits on drivers’ hours, rather than endorsing a court order sought by consumer advocates that would have required one less hour behind the wheel each day.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration issued an interim final rule that maintains the current 11-hour driving limit, under which truckers are required to rest for 10 hours.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in September delayed until Dec. 27 a requirement that would reduce the continuous driving limit to 10 hours with eight hours of rest.

I’m a little confused. If the Court decision isn’t until the 27th, what’s the FMCSA coming out with their “interim final rule” now for?

Consumer advocates sued to reduce the amount of time truckers can stay behind the wheel continuously because they say the industry is putting the public at risk.
“FMCSA is continuing the sweatshop conditions for truck drivers rolling down our highways, which endangers Americans all over the country,” Joan Claybrook, president of Washington-based consumer watchdog Public Citizen, said Tuesday.

The sweatshop conditions until recently had nothing to do with driving. What’s wrong with the driving rule now is that I have to finish my 11 hours of driving within 14 hours. If you stop it has to be under three hours or over 8 hours or not at all. That’s the problem with the newer rules. When my wife was driving with me, the driver had to drive their 11 hours straight even though there was a rested driver sitting right behind them. That was nuts! And a lot of team loads don’t have time for a long break because one driver is tired.

Another problem has been the number of hours worked, had nothing to do with the number of hours driving. Drivers that had to load or count their freight would log the time standing on the dock as if they were in the sleeper so it wouldn’t count against their driving time. Household drivers came under suspicion when they took 15 minutes to load a house full of furniture.

Drivers need to be able to rest when they’re tired and not be forced to by the government to drive because of some study they did to satisfy the anti-trucking groups like Public Citizen. I don’t think anyone, even the ATA is real happy with the rules the way they are now, but it’s the best we’re going to get right now.