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Mar 14, 2017

TRUCKERS CANNOT BE ON PERPETUAL DUTY * India

* Delhi - Logistics firms try to make ride smoother for drivers


--- Logistics companies have started designing systems to ensure that their drivers are well rested even as the vehicles keep moving... Logistics start-up GoBOLT, for instance, has detached the truck and driver through a double driver and driver relay system... A truck, if maintained well, can run 24 hours. But a driver cannot be on perpetual duty... Driver relay systems are different. A Delhi-Ahmedabad route, for instance, is broken into Delhi-Jaipur and Jaipur-Ahmedabad, with different drivers for the two phases... The driver who gets off at Jaipur takes another truck back to Delhi, so that he is back home the same night, said Sharma, adding this is much like flying hours for pilots... SP Singh, Senior Fellow of the Indian Foundation for Transport Research and Training, said the concept of relay drivers would require a lot of cargo and the challenge would be to ensure sustainability... However, the overwhelming majority of trucks do not adhere to this condition as they look to cut costs for their end-customers in the highly unorganised and competitive industry, he pointed out... 
(Photo: Truck operators are increasingly going for the double and relay driver models to ensure driver welfare and speedy coverage)   --   NEW DELHI, India - The Hindu Business Lines, by MAMUNI DAS - March 12, 2017

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Nov 17, 2016

TRUCKERS' H.O.S. * USA: Congress' debates about

* DC - Safety groups renew battle over trucking riders

--- Safety groups are renewing a fight over spending bill provisions that they worry would endanger truck drivers and other motorists on the road... In a letter to House and Senate appropriators on Tuesday, a coalition of consumer, public health and safety groups called on Congress to steer clear of certain provisions regarding trucker rest and meal breaks in a continuing resolution, or a catchall spending bill, citing a “dramatic” increase in truck crash deaths and injuries... The issue has been a lightning rod in the debate over fiscal 2017 transportation spending legislation, which is an otherwise non-controversial appropriations measure... In the House, appropriators proposed a technical fix without the new cap on hours. But the lower chamber's spending bill also included another trucking provision that would preempt state laws on commercial trucking meal and rest breaks... 
(Getty Images)  --  Washington, DC, USA - The Hill, by MELANIE ZANONA - 15 Nov 2016

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Sep 14, 2016

TRUCKERS REGULATIONS * South Korea - Resting 30´after driving 4 hours

* 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... After the revisions take effect, all drivers of cargo trucks must rest for at least 30 minutes after driving for four hours straight, except at times of natural disasters, accidents and other extraneous circumstances, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. 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 ($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... 
(Photo: Seoul trucking at North Korea border)  --  Seoul, S.Korea - Yonhap/Korea Times - 13 Sept 2016

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May 6, 2016

ELECTRONIC LOGGING DEVICES * USA: ELD's FOR TRUCKERS' HOS

* New Jersey - Shippers nervous about truck capacity not waiting to act on ELDs


... Trucking companies are already reining in capacity swelled by nearly 285,000 truck orders last year. Now cancelled orders are racking up, along with the unsold inventories of heavy trucks at dealership lots and manufacturers... The big unknown at the conference and the one that keeps shippers awake is the potential impact of the electronic logging mandate. The U.S. will require truck drivers to replace paper logbooks for recording hours of service with electronic logging devices starting by December 2017. That’s expected to squeeze truck capacity, but no one really knows by how much or how soon... As many as half of U.S. trucking companies do not yet have ELDs, Leathers said, and the second round of purchasers are likely to be smaller companies that will initially lose more productivity, thanks to reduced truck utilization, than their larger competitors did. Additionally, those carriers lost somewhere between 3 percent and 5 percent of their productivity when they installed ELDs... That’s the very reason shippers aren’t delaying action on ELDs, but are starting to incorporate requirements that carriers have ELDs or a plan to adopt them by December 2017 in contract bids...
Newark, NJ, USA -  JOC, by William B. Cassidy - May 03, 2016 
 * Missouri - OOIDA: Court decision on e-log mandate could come by end of 2016

--- The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association says it expects the courts to rule by year’s end on whether or not to uphold a DOT rule to require truckers to use electronic logging devices to track hours of service... OOIDA filed a lawsuit earlier this year with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit asking the court to strike down the rule. OOIDA argued in its legal complaint that the mandate violates truckers’ 4th Amendment rights and does not have a safety benefit...
(Photo: XRS-in-vehicle-EOBR-module)   --   Green Valley, MO, USA - CC Digital, by James Jaillet - May 4, 2016

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Apr 25, 2016

TRUCKERS' HOS * USA: DEBATES

* DC - Appropriators back transportation spending bill with trucking fix

-- The Senate Appropriations Committee easily advanced a transportation spending bill on Thursday containing a trucking provision safety advocates have been pushing against this week... The spending bill contains a technical fix to a drafting error made in last year's government spending bill. A provision in that bill said proposed changes to the hours of service rule for truck drivers — which were enacted in 2013 but later suspended — cannot be implemented until the DOT proves the regulation would improve driver health and safety... But legislators left out essential language clarifying what would happen if the agency fails to find that the rule is beneficial for drivers, which would force the DOT to revert to rules put in place more than a decade ago... The bill fixes the issue and caps the time truck drivers can spend behind the wheel or on duty at 73 hours per week... Safety advocates have blasted the new cap, saying it will encourage longer workweeks for truck drivers; they say the trucking industry lobbied heavily for the change... 
(Getty Images)   --  Washington, DC, USA - The Hill, by Melanie Zanona - 21 April 2016

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Apr 22, 2016

TRUCKERS' HOURS of SERVICE USA: * TRUCKING "giveaways" resisted - **

* DC - Coalition calls on Senate to reject 'anti-safety' agenda in DOT funding bill
-- With the U.S. Senate set this week to take up the annual budget for the Dept. of Transportation, an ad hoc coalition of safety, labor, law enforcement and public health groups is urging lawmakers to resist the “insatiable” economic agenda of the trucking industry... “We strongly urge you to oppose any special interest anti-truck safety riders including changes to the truck driver hours of service (HOS) rules that would jeopardize the safety of truck drivers and the motoring public,” reads the letter to Appropriations committee leaders. It’s signed by representatives of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways, Parents Against Tired Truckers, Truck Safety Coalition, Road Safe America, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Federal Law Enforcement Officers Assn., the Trauma Foundation, and others... The coalition’s plea comes just days after Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Environment and Public Works Committee, sent a letter of her own to leaders on the Appropriations Committee urging them to oppose efforts to include an “outrageous” provision in the THUD appropriations bill that would “dock the pay of truck drivers” by superseding state labor and wage laws for drivers engaged in interstate commerce... 
(Photo: Highway bill restart 'suspension' needs a redo)  --   Washington, DC, USA - Fleet Owner, by Kevin Jones - Apr 19, 2016

** DC - Senate prepares to make truck safety even worse

-- Safety advocates are crying foul over yet another change to trucking safety rules that the industry is trying to slide though Congress with no hearings, no public evaluation and no scientific study... The move comes just days after The Huffington Post revealed that large trucking industry groups have spent the last several years quietly circumventing normal legislative procedures to win safety rule concessions — even as truck crashes have been on the rise... Normally, transportation policy is decided by the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. But failing to make progress there, the trucking industry seems to have persuaded the Appropriations Committee to add its policy provisions to spending bills... In this case, according to advocates who have been briefed about the bill, the industry wrote a provision that will place some sort of cap on truckers’ work, keeping either driving or working hours to 73 per week... Exactly what the cap — which is about 30 hours more than most Americans work each week — would mean is not completely clear. Representatives for Democratic and Republican leaders on the committee declined to make the language available to HuffPost, saying it will be public after the full committee considers the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development spending bill for 2017 this Thursday... 
(Photo: The industry has given lawmakers language that will set 73-hour maximum work weeks for drivers) -- Washington, DC, USA - The Huffington Post, by Michael McAuliff - 19 April 2016

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Jan 29, 2016

TRUCKERS HOS DEBATES * USA: More dangerous roads?

* Alabama - Trucking regulation could cause more danger for motorists

-- A regulation enacted by the US Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that reduces the hours truck drivers can spend on the roads could actually be dangerous to everyone on the roads... The rule states that truckers can only spend 14 hours a day "on duty" from the moment they start. This eliminates their flexibility, particularly the ability to take a nap during the day... Also, the distance truckers have to drive hasn't changed, but the time they have to get there has shrunk. This means that drivers may have to speed in order to get where they're going, making the roads unsafe... WAAY-31 spoke with Brenda Hopson, whose husband is a truck driver, and she says that the regulation has "cut their income almost in half" by reducing the amount of hours he can work... The Department of Transportation declined to comment on the piece, saying only that the regulation was intended for "safety"... 
(Photo: A Generic Semi Truck)   --  Huntsville, ALA, USA - WAAY TV, by Jeff Martin and Breken Terry

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Oct 21, 2015

HOS * USA: “Significant negative impacts” ... The 34-hour restart provisions

* Pennsylvania - HOS sits atop trucking’s critical issue list

-- The annual survey conducted by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) to rank trucking’s most critical issues found that hours of service (HOS) is again at the top of the list for the third year in a row... ATRI added that “significant negative impacts” on the industry from the 34-hour restart provisions first implemented in July 2013 as part of an overall of those regulations are the main sticking point for the industry... The full “top ten” critical issues list released by ATRI includes: 

  ° HOS 
° The Compliance Safety Accountability (CSA) program 
° The driver shortage 
° Driver retention 
° Truck parking 
° Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs) 
° Driver health & wellness 
° The economy 
° Transportation infrastructure, traffic congestion, and funding 
° Driver distraction 

 In its own research, ATRI said it found that 80% of motor carriers indicated a loss of productivity directly attributable to the now-suspended rules, and driver pay impacts were estimated to range from $1.6 billion to $3.9 billion annually... 
Philadelphia, PENN, USA - Fleet Owner, by Sean Kilcarr - Oct 18, 2015

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Aug 19, 2015

HOURS of SERVICE * USA: Debate

* DC - GAO: FMCSA study on 2013 hours-of-service rule flawed, safety conclusions could be inaccurate


 -- A new Congressional report says the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has limited ability to truly evaluate the 2013-implemented hours-of-service rule because its study did not meet research standards and has data constraints... The GAO report covers the agency’s 2014-released study on the HOS rule, not the one currently in the works required by a December 2014 DOT-funding act, which also suspended certain portions of the 2013 rule... The U.S. House’s transportation committee asked the Government Accountability Office to review FMCSA’s study on the 2013 HOS rule... In December, Congress suspended the two-night provision until September 30, 2015 or when the FMCSA completes a new study, which ever comes later. It also suspended the once-per-week limit of the restart’s use...  
Washington, DC, USA - Overdrive, by Jill Dunn - July 30, 2015

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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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May 28, 2015

PRESENT TRUCKERS' H.O.S. * USA: Safety improvement or not ?

* New York - A foolish attempt to weaken truck safety
-- The trucking industry is again pushing Congress to allow bigger and heavier trucks with overworked drivers behind the wheel onto the country’s roads... Republican lawmakers have attached a long industry wish list to an appropriations bill that will be voted on by the House in the coming weeks. It includes provisions that would allow trucks to carry longer trailers across the country, make it harder for the Department of Transportation to require drivers get more rest before they hit the road and forbid the department from raising the minimum insurance it requires trucks and buses to carry. The insurance levels have been in effect since 1985... Trucking companies seem to have been emboldened by their success last year in getting Congress to temporarily suspend parts of a Transportation Department regulation meant to give truck drivers at least 34 hours of rest. That rule was meant to ensure that truck drivers got at least two consecutive nights of rest after working 60 hours in seven consecutive days or 70 hours in eight days. The industry had complained — wrongly in our view — that the rule, which went into effect in July 2013, “exacerbates congestion” and could make highways less safe by forcing more truck drivers onto the roads during morning rush hours... The language in the House appropriations bill will forbid the Obama administration from fully reinstating that rule unless a study shows that the rule resulted in a “statistically significant” improvement in safety, work schedules and driver fatigue, health and longevity. That is an impossibly high bar to meet and, if enacted, the measure will surely result in more tired and sleepy drivers on the road... It is hard to know for sure why the number of fatal accidents increased. It could be that there were more trucks on the road in 2013 than during the recession. But this data should give lawmakers serious pause before they make major changes to trucking regulations in an appropriations bill...
(Photo from Associated Press, by Eric Gay)  --  NY, USA - The NYT - May 26, 2015

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May 13, 2015

TRUCKING ISSUES USA * Hours of Service * Highway Fund extension * Trucking audits by OIG

* DC - ATA pushes Congress for tough HOS study

-- The American Trucking Associations (ATA) Tuesday urged members of the House Appropriations Committee to support a stronger version of the bipartisan hours-of-service restart study requirement Congress approved last December... The letter, signed by more than 120 other interested organizations, highlights the need for Congress to prevent the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) from skewing results of its study to fit its own conclusions — conclusions that trucking advocates say run counter to the industry’s experience under the agency’s onerous restart restrictions... The letter cited recent findings by the American Transportation Research Institute showing an increase in not only daytime driving by large trucks after the restart restrictions were imposed, but a statistically significant increase in property damage and injury crashes as a result... Without the stronger language, ATA argued that FMCSA could be allowed to re-impose the restrictions once its current study is completed — even if that study shows the restart restrictions were overly constricting and harmful to public safety... 

 * DC -  Highway Fund extension
-- In addition this week, the ATA called on Congress to quickly pass a short extension of the federal highway program while continuing to focus on a long-term bill... The trucking industry already pays $16.5 billion in federal highway user fees, and has repeatedly urged Congress to raise the primary user fee — the fuel tax — in order to fund important projects to reduce congestion, improve capacity and efficiency and create jobs... 
Arlington, VA, USA - Trucking News - May 13, 2015


* DC - DOT OIG initiates audit of FMCSA's review of high-risk carriers 

 -- The Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Transportation has initiated an audit of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s efforts to intervene in cases where a motor carrier is identified as high risk for an accident... Those interventions include targeted roadside inspections and compliance reviews... In 2013, the National Transportation Safety Board investigated four carriers involved in crashes that collectively resulted in 25 fatalities and 83 injuries. These investigations revealed that FMCSA conducted safety reviews of the carriers prior to their crashes — one only 5 days before — but did not uncover certain pre-existing safety deficiencies or act on others until after the crashes... The OIG cited a particular case in 2014 where a motor carrier known to FMCSA as high-risk was involved in a fatal crash in Illinois, after which a lawmaker called for an audit. Despite the carrier’s risk status, FMSCA did not conduct an investigation, the OIG’s office said... The OIG’s office said its audit objective is to assess FMCSA’s processes for ensuring that reviews of motor carriers flagged for investigation are timely and adequate...
Washington, DC, USA - The Trucker News Services - 11 May 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 10, 2014

HOS * USA: Foxx's letter - ATA & OOIDA's

* DC - DOT chief Foxx asks lawmakers not to suspend 34-hour restart

Washington,DC,USA -The Trucker News Services -5 Dec 2014: -- Transportation Secretary, Anthony Foxx, Thursday sent a strongly-worded letter to several members of the Senate and House Appropriations committees asking them not to include language suspending the 34-hour restart provision of the Hours of Service rule... Secretary Foxx told lawmakers in the letter, he was seriously concerned that any suspension of the 34-hour restart would put lives at risk as it would increase the maximum allowable work limits for truck drivers from an average of 70 hours per week to over 82... Although he didn’t say, it is quite possible the letter was in response to news reports Wednesday that said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, would re-introduce language suspending the restart in the appropriations bill that would keep the federal government in operation after Dec. 11...
* DC - ATA, OOIDA urge suspension of 34-hour restart 

Arlington,VA & Grain Valley,MO, USA -The Trucker News Services -8 Dec 2014: -- Two trucking associations that often have opposite opinions about issue affecting the trucking industry, Monday called for Congress to include in any omnibus appropriations bill legislation to suspend the current 34-hour restart... Todd Spencer, OOIDA executive vice president, said the association considers the claim made by those opposed to Sen. Susan Collins’ amendment to suspend the 34-hour restart rule saying truckers will otherwise work 80 hours or more per week to be a misleading scare tactic... Spencer pointed to a survey by the OOIDA Foundation completed last year in which about 46 percent of respondents reported feeling more fatigued since the changes, and 65 percent said they receive less income. The report also says that the one 34-hour restart per week provision has caused 56 percent of the respondents to lose mileage and loads hauled per week. In comments, many respondents said they experience less time at home and increased stress.... 


* DC - Collins giving trucking early Christmas present, Claybrook says

(The Trucker file photo)
Washington,DC,USA -The Trucker News -8 Dec 2014: -- Four years ago during the Christmas season, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration released its first draft of the new Hours of Service rule with a vastly different 34-hour restart provision, prompting American Trucking Associations President and CEO, Bill Graves, to remark that the FMCSA had just dropped three chunks of coal in trucking Christmas stocking... Now the tables have turned, says one well-known safety advocate... Safety advocate Joan Claybrook says if Congress suspends the current 34-hour restart provision, American’s will pay the bill in lost lives and horrific injuries... She was one of several speakers, including Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Maine, at the news conference held to encourage members of Congress to leave the restart provision intact, saying suspension of the provision would be a major change to federal truck safety regulations and dramatically increase the number of working and driving hours for truck drivers as well as repeal their two-day weekend off...

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Sep 5, 2014

TRUCKERS´HOS RULES * USA

* DC - FMCSA defends ‘science’ used for HOS to Congressmen; GAO asked for evaluation

Washington,DC,USA -The Trucker News Services -3 Sept 2014: ... On July 1, 2013, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration required drivers to comply with a new 34-hour restart rule in order to reset a driver’s weekly driving limit. The new 34-hour restart rule requires a driver to be off-duty for 34 consecutive hours, which must include two periods between 1 a.m. – 5 a.m. This rule change has had the effect of extending some drivers’ restart period, and cutting the number of hours they are able to work... The American Trucking Associations, it's a staunch opponent of the new HOS rule... House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, R-Pa., and Highways and Transit Subcommittee Chairman Tom Petri, R-Wis., said they had requested that the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) evaluate two studies on which the new HOS rules were based... The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration late Wednesday staunchly defended the science used to develop the new Hours of Service rule...

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Jul 6, 2013

* USA - MORE HOS DISCUSSIONS: "To choose between making money and getting rest"

* Virginia - Truckers Are Losing Sleep Over 70-Hour Work Limit

Winchester,VA,USA -The WSJ, by JOSH MITCHELL -July 2, 2013: -- A long battle between truck drivers and federal regulators is culminating in giving truckers something that many don't want: More sleep... The changes—the most significant overhaul of rules governing truck-driver hours in a decade—shorten the workweek, restrict how many nights truckers can be on the road and require rest breaks during the day... The Obama administration says the regulations will reduce crashes from sleep-deprived drivers getting behind the wheel. They would effectively cap a driver's average workweek at 70 hours, down from the previous maximum of 82... Trucking companies say the sweeping changes, which took effect this week, will cost them money—by requiring more trucks to carry the same number of loads—with little benefit... The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration plans to enforce the rules by routinely checking drivers' work logs, in which they are required to report their schedules, and imposing fines up to $11,000 for companies and $2,750 for individual drivers for each offense... 
(Image by Zuma Press - A truck stop in Nevada)
The rules went into effect on Monday that limits the work week to 70 hours from 82, requires a 34-hour “re-start” period after working 70 hours that must include two 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. time periods, and mandates drivers take a 30-minute break during the first eight hours of a shift... "It's just making it harder for the small businessman out here to compete with the big boys," said Robert Simonds, a 54-year-old from Martinsville, Va., who has driven a truck for two decades, "It's people that are making decisions behind a desk that have never been behind a wheel" ... Big truck companies that can shift around workers easily will be able to adjust better than independent owner-operators like him. But he acknowledged he doesn't know the precise effect the new rules will have on his business... Explanation from FMCSA Administrator, Anne Ferro, and quotes from two drivers, one who seems to agree with the agency that truck drivers need regulating and one that seems indifferent to the rule but who does allude to an argument that the rules may make drivers have to choose between making money and getting rest...

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Dec 28, 2011

New HOS Rule * USA

* Will Cause Delays for Manufacturers and Cost the EconomyH

Washington,DC,USA -Truckinginfo -28 Dec 2011: -- National Association of Manufacturers has come out against trucking's new hours-of-service rule, saying the rule will have a negative impact on manufacturers' supply chains, distribution operations and productivity... In a statement NAM said, that the regulation is a prime example of leaders in Washington creating additional uncertainty for the economy at a time when they should be focused on policies to help get Americans back to work...  Adding these new requirements on top of the already cumbersome regulatory burden facing manufacturers will cost jobs and increase the prices of consumer products, NAM President and CEO, Jay Timmons went on to say...

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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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Nov 21, 2011

Truckers' Hours Of Service * Australia

* Tired truckies to get a fair break

(Video from YouTUbe, An Australian Sugarcane Truck - 130 meters)
Sydney,NSW,Australia -The Daily Telegraph, by Patrick Lion -November 22, 2011: -- Fatigued truckies will be able to dob in unsafe work conditions to a new industry watchdog that will also have extraordinary powers to improve their pay and conditions...  In a bid to lower the road toll, the federal government will set up a transport spin-off of Fair Work Australia to improve pay and conditions of truck drivers who are forced to speed and carry heavy loads to earn more money...  Transport Minister, Anthony Albanese, will reveal the new Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal today, which will have the power to order companies to alter arrangements involving financial incentives that encourage risky behaviour...  For example, a truck company offered a contract by a big supermarket below the rate needed to do the job safely could approach the tribunal...  The move comes amid widespread concerns over the pressures on truck drivers to speed to meet deadlines, carry illegal loads and work without pay to fulfil deliveries...


* Australia - Truckers forced to push limits, break laws

Sydney,NSW,Australia -Land Line (USA), by David Tanner -21 Nov 2011: -- A survey in Australia shows that truckers are detained up to 500 hours at the docks each year without pay and are routinely forced to break speed and fatigue laws to meet deadlines. The federal government is responding with a series of reforms that include shipper accountability and trucker compensation...  The survey, conducted by the Transportation Workers Union of Australia, showed 48 percent of Australian drivers are forced to spend a full work day each week in unpaid detention time at the docks...  Tony Sheldon, Transportation Workers Union national secretary, is calling on the federal transport minister, Anthony Albanese, to make reforms that discourage risk-taking...  Nearly 40 percent of the truckers surveyed said they felt pressure to drive longer hours to meet client demands, and 27 percent of drivers said they are forced to speed to meet deadlines...

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