Opinion: DOT Plays Politics With Hours of Service

American Trucking Associations and the trucking industry have spent years trying to get the U.S. Department of Transportation to change the Depression-era hours-of-service rules for drivers. As a former long-haul driver, I know just how out of touch with a person’s body clock the current rules can be.

That’s why I have personally dedicated many volunteer hours over the past several years working with other ATA members and staff to highlight this issue so that DOT will act swiftly in crafting more productive, safer rules. I know that ATA, along with active ATA members, have met repeatedly with DOT officials to try to convince them to act.

We have heard lots of promises. You may recall that over a year ago, George Reagle, then associate administrator for the Office of Motor Carriers, pledged to issue proposed new rules by the summer of 1998. When faced with the self-imposed deadline during the dog days of August 1998, the promise was amended to the fall.

As time marches on, and the hours-of-service rules become ever more outdated, I have an additional, growing concern. We are now entering a new election cycle, with control of the presidency and both houses of Congress hotly contested. It is my concern that with the elections in plain sight, DOT will put the special interests that will help in their election efforts ahead of real safety goals. A proposal may be submitted in the name of safety, but my concern is that it will be drafted in the name of politics.

Why do I believe DOT will play politics on the hours-of-service issue? First, the department has a recent track record of caving in to political constituencies on important motor carrier safety decisions. You may recall that late last year, when some self-styled “safety” partisans complained that they were not invited to play a key role in OMC’s safety summit, the summit was cancelled at the last minute. More recently, when these same groups indicated that they would not agree to sit down to work out new hours-of-service regulations in a negotiated rulemaking, DOT abandoned the effort. And recent remarks about hours of service by some DOT officials have been remarkably consistent with the public remarks of these same adversaries of our industry. The pattern is clear: Politics rules at DOT.

If DOT continues to bow to these groups, the result could likely be a set of regulations that are not science-based (as the industry has urged), and fail to properly balance two very important goals of our growing, 24-hour, just-in-time economy: safe highways and moving freight.

Make no mistake about it. Professional truck drivers want to make the roads as safe as possible. They are among the safest drivers on America’s highways today. Their safety record, which has steadily improved each year, proves it.

Now, the government has an opportunity to seize the moment and advance safety even further by reforming the archaic hours-of-service rules in a science-based fashion. It will be sad, indeed, for the trucking industry, as well as for the motoring public, to end up with rules that advance the political interests of a few while jeopardizing the many.