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Oct 5, 2016

TRUCKERS´HOS * South Korea - 30´ rest every 4 hours driving

* Seoul - Cargo truck drivers required to rest after four hours on road

--- Freight truck drivers will have to take a minimum 30-minute break for each four hours on the road under law revisions the government issued in a pre-enactment notice on Tuesday, except at times of natural disasters, accidents and other extraneous circumstances... Trucking companies that do not obey the rule will be penalized with business suspensions of between 30 to 90 days, depending on the frequency of the violations, or 600,000 won (US$540) to 1.8 million won in fines... The government measures follow repeated accidents involving freight trucks, often caused by drivers exhausted from long hours of driving to meet deadlines and harsh working conditions... The revisions allow for the punishment of companies that operate trucks for more than the permitted hours, with business license revocation being the maximum punishment... 
Seoul, South Korea - Yonhap - 13 Sept 2016

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Jun 1, 2015

TRUCKERS OFTEN PRESSURED * USA: Into exceeding driving limits

* Wiscosin - Companies using illegal tactics to circumvent Federal Laws
-- A Wisconsin television station investigating the trucking industry recently reported that many trucking companies are forcing their drivers to circumvent federal laws limiting the number of hours drivers work per week, the national law firm of Baron & Budd reports. The station, WLUK-TV in Green Bay, Wisc., alleges that drivers are being ordered to alter logbooks in order to be able to keep their jobs... Federal law mandates the number of hours that a driver is allowed to work behind the wheel each week in an effort to reduce the number of accidents resulting from fatigued drivers. Commercial drivers are limited to shifts not exceeding 14 hours per day, and may only drive a total of 11 hours. After those 11 hours, drivers must then be off-duty for 10 consecutive hours... However, drivers interviewed by the station said their employers order them to alter logbooks to show they have complied with federal regulations. These handwritten sheets are turned in to the U.S. Department of Transportation in order to verify drivers have worked the proper number of hours... They are forced to drive longer hours so that their employers can make more money, the station reports... An officer with the Wisconsin State Patrol told the station that only 100 employees across the state are responsible for inspecting the thousands of trucks that travel on state roads every day... The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reports that nearly 4,000 people died in crashes involving trucks and other commercial vehicles in 2013. According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, about 750 people die each year in accidents attributed to fatigued commercial vehicle drivers...
(Photo: Driver stay awake alarm if may be feeling drowsy)  --  Green Bay, WIS, USA - BUSINESS WIRE -May 28, 2015

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Apr 29, 2015

DRIVING LIMITS * USA: Truckers forced to exceed legal ones

* Wiscosin - Electronic monitoring of driver hours could prevent crashes, injuries and deaths


-- Semis rule the roadways. When those wheels are turning, money is made by the companies and the drivers. There’s a financial incentive to drive longer hours... But federal rules limit the number of hours a driver can work, so they’re not falling asleep at the wheel... Some drivers say getting around the law is easy–making the roadways a danger... Veteran truck driver Gary Bakley of Shawano revealed that various employers oblied to break the rules and keep driving, he says if he didn’t alter his driver log books, he would get fired... Those logs are handwritten sheets required by the Department of Transportation to verify the number of hours a driver works... Federal law limits commercial driving shifts to 14 hours. Only 11 of those hours can be behind the wheel. And the driver must then follow that time with 10 consecutive hours off-duty... Concerned about his safety and the safety of other drivers Bakley says he couldn’t take the pressure of cheating the system any longer. He filed a whistleblower complaint... FMCSA wanted to require electronic driver logging devices back in January of 2011. Some major trucking companies, like Schneider in Ashwaubenon, have used the devices voluntarily for years... The agency expects the rule to be put into place by October, giving carriers another two years to get the devices on the trucks... As for Bakley, he no longer drives for the company that uses paper driver log books. He is now on the road with his own truck, driving as an owner-operator... 
Shawano, WIS, USA - FOX 11 Investigates, by Mark Leland - April 28, 2015

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Apr 7, 2015

RULES AND REGULATIONS * USA: Truckers' Hours Of Service

* DC - Restart study challenged

--   Virginia Tech Transportation Institute is currently in the planning stages of a congressionally mandated study of the hours of service 34-hour restart provision, and one lawmaker is calling for a series of steps to ensure the study is valid. United States Rep. Richard Hanna has criticized the Department of Transportation for choosing VTTI to complete the study, saying that the same institute has produced flawed results in the past. In a letter to DOT Secretary Anthony Foxx, Hanna requested that the department take action to protect this study... Hanna’s first recommendation is for a peer review team for the VTTI study... The second point, Hanna wants VTTI to change the way it is recruiting drivers for the study. VTTI is currently seeking drivers who work between 60 and 70 hours per week and who routinely work at night. Hanna holds that this is not a representative sample of drivers in the industry... Hanna also wants to alter the study plan itself. VTTI currently plans to compare restarts that include one overnight to those that compare two or more overnights... Finally, Hanna is asking VTTI to add an area of emphasis to the study, under which it will collect safety critical event data from 5-9 a.m. Many drivers have criticized the most recent version of the 34-hour restart because it results in more truck drivers on the road during morning rush hour, increasing the potential for vehicle interactions and accidents. This effect deserves special consideration, Hanna asserts... The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association has gone on the record in support of Hanna’s suggestions...
Washington, DC, USA - Go By Truck News - April 6, 2015

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Feb 8, 2015

HOS STUDY* USA: Virginia Tech to conduct critical truck driver work hours

* Truck driver hours of service rules

-- The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute is preparing to begin a congressionally mandated study of truck driver hours of service rules, focusing on recently suspended restart provisions. The study will eventually be used to determine whether those restart rules should be scrapped or reinstated, or new U.S.A. regulations developed to better reduce driver fatigue... An estimated 250 truck drivers from various types of carriers will take part in the five-month study, which will examine the effect of the 34-hour restart on driver fatigue and safety... The study is the latest step in a long debate over how many hours U.S.A. truck drivers should spend driving, working and resting each day and week. Since 2004, the trucker HOS rules have permitted 11 hours of driving and three hours of non-driving on-duty time per day... The rules have gone through several permutations, however, with versions of the regulations overturned by court challenges and congressional action and superseded by new rules... After the Federal Motor Carrier Administration introduced the latest version of the HOS rules in 2013, the debate focused on the 34-hour restart provision, introduced in 2004 to help drivers “restart” their duty-cycle clock more quickly and begin a new work week... Blacksburg, VA, USA -JOC, by William B. Cassidy -Feb 05, 2015

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Dec 17, 2014

HOS RESTART RULES * USA: FMCSA's

* DC - FMCSA preparing notice about suspension of restart provision

(Photo: Backups in Jersey City after a truck jackknives) Washington,DC,USA -The Trucker News Services -15 Dec 2014: -- The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration said late Monday that in anticipation of President Barack Obama signing the $1.1 billion spending bill the agency is preparing a Federal Register notice to officially announce the suspension of the current 34-hour restart provision... The bill includes language suspending the restart provision until Sept. 30, 2015, and orders the Department of Transportation ...Until at least that date, the 34-hour restart provision in place prior to July 1, 2013, when the current restart became effective, will be enforced... The pre-July 1, 2013, restart provision allows a driver to take as many restarts as he or she chooses during a work week and does not contain the requirement that a restart include two consecutive 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. time periods...

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Dec 7, 2011

HOS * USA - House, Truckers Seek to Block Change

* Industry argues tigher regulations would backfire, put more trucks on the road

(Photo: Trucks parked at a rest stop USA)
Washington,DC,USA -The Journal of Commerce, by Mark Szakonyi -Nov 30, 2011: -- Trucking companies urged Congress on Wednesday to block proposed changes to truck driver work hours, arguing tighter restrictions would backfire by putting more trucks on the road and making highways more congested and unsafe... The comments came at a hearing aimed at building momentum to stop changes already moving through regulatory channels that could sharply overhaul the rules on how long and when truck drivers can be on the road... An FMCSA report released in October said the number of large trucks involved in fatal crashes declined 21 percent in 2009 from 2008, the largest annual decline since records have been kept. Fatal truck crashes declined 31 percent from 2007 through 2009, the agency said in its report... But FMCSA Administrator, Anne Ferro, told a House subcommittee the rate of accidents caused by fatigue has increased in recent years. She also said fatalities historically have declined during a recession, and the recent drops came as economic activity in the United States retrenched sharply from 2007 to 2009...

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Mar 15, 2011

HOS * UK - Drivers' Hours Law: Understanding the 4.5-hour break rule

London,EN,UK -Road Transport, by Karen Crispe -15 March 2011:  ...  The exact wording can found in the Regulation (EC) 561/ 2006 Article 7, which states "after a driving period of 4.5 hours, a driver shall take an uninterrupted break of not less than 45 minutes, unless he takes a rest period" ...  The 4.5-hour break rule is one of the fundamentals of Drivers' Hours Law, yet surprisingly it is still the one that is regularly breached by drivers, writes Karen Crispe, managing director of Tachodisc...  Despite all the information available, confusion and misunderstanding of the rule remains rife...  The level of enquiries has also increased since the introduction of Graduated Fixed Penalties. Why? Drivers want to avoid a penalty so have a vested interest in becoming knowledgeable about the law as well as the consequences of their employer not complying with the rules, i.e. they will be the one in the front line, and the one who could face the penalty or worse. In turn, this is forcing operators, especially those that may not be fully conversant in all the legislative changes that have occurred over the last five to six years, to be able to clarify the rule when questioned by drivers...  Also, The Act makes it an offence for an operator to use a vehicle on the road when the driver does not comply with the drivers' hours rules.   (Picture from truckertotrucker: Trucker's restart hours)


* UK - Drivers' Hours: don't push the law to the limit


London,EN,UK -Road Transport, by Mike Sherrington -15 March 2011: -- It's no secret that some drivers are put under pressure to sail close to the wind when adhering to their legal hours. At a job interview, a Commercial Motor reader was told: "Although we have to adhere to the law, drivers' hours are really an inconvenience. We expect you to work to the limit of your hours. If you get back into the yard before your hours expire, it really winds us up" ... The driver, who was interviewed by an operator in the North-West, was then told that he was expected to cut his journey time so tightly that he should have only a couple of minutes left out of his allotted hours. He would be paid not by an hourly rate, but a percentage of the amount his vehicle made on the trip. When he looked at the proposed routes he realised it would be impossible to complete journeys without becoming a health and safety risk. He would be forced to speed and suffer stress from the working methods. So he decided not to take the job...  With margins in the industry becoming ever tighter because of rising fuel prices, many firms are trying to squeeze as much out of their drivers as possible...  Putting drivers under such pressure could lead to serious accidents - but what is the legal situation?

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Jul 22, 2009

Policy Decisions * UK - Review of Driving Hours Rules

London,UK -HGV (Ireland) -22 July 2009: -- UK Transport Minister, Paul Clark, has launched a wide-ranging consultation on the hours many van, bus and other professional drivers can worked... Drivers' hours rules set daily driving and duty limits, and in some instances break and rest requirements, in order to improve road safety, promote good working conditions and ensure fair competition between operators... The consultation covers the UK domestic drivers' hours rules. As well as van and many bus drivers, these apply to refuse collection and breakdown vehicles and a range of other professional drivers. They do not apply to lorries or buses on longer routes, which come under the scope of European Union drivers' hours rules... The consultation is part of a comprehensive review of the domestic rules and although it proposes no legislative changes the responses will be used to inform future policy decisions...

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