Opinion: Hearings on Hours Need Focus

By George Reagle

ormer director

ffice of Motor Carriers

After more than 60 years, everyone who knows trucking would agree that the hours-of-service regulations need to be carefully analyzed and updated to meet the demands of life in the 21st century.

There is serious disagreement, both within trucking and elsewhere, over exactly what changes need to be made. Therefore, let’s agree on some basic principles:

• Highway safety is too important an issue to rush. Let’s take the time necessary to make changes that will achieve everyone’s goal of reducing truck-related crashes and fatalities.
• We ought to acknowledge what we know — that is, the body runs on a 24-hour clock — and what we don’t know — such as the exact percentage of fatal crashes involving fatigue.
• Fatigue research is not an exact science; compromise is necessary and appropriate.
• Driver input is crucial, although it may not be scientific.

The new Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is right to seek public input, but its decision to rely on “come one, come all” public hearings is the wrong approach. The agency should conduct focus groups around the nation to systematically gather input from drivers, dispatchers, safety directors, and motor carrier enforcement. The six public hearings held by the then-Office of Motor Carriers in 1997 to gather public comment on the advanced notice of proposed rulemaking provided valuable information, but it was difficult to analyze because there was no limit on who could testify and what they could say. FMCSA understood this problem and tried to limit testimony at the first public hearing on the NPRM in Washington, D.C., to specific topics. After industry groups raised concerns that the agency was trying to stifle debate, FMCSA opened the May 30-June 1 hearing to general discussion of its proposal.

	More HOS Coverage
	Shippers Join Criticism of DOT Hours Proposal (July 10) McCormick: Lobby Congress on Hours Proposal (July 10) Latest Hours Hearing Draws Diverse Responses (July 6) Pressure Mounts to Pass Hours Ban (July 3) How to Submit Comments on the Hours Proposal
	Shop Online
	Hours of Service Information Pack Hours of Service Exemption Survey

The agency also has not yet publicly responded to a proposal by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance and American Trucking Associations to hold listening sessions on the NPRM in New Orleans during the National Truck Driving Championships and the National Safety Inspector Competition.

Professionally conducted focus groups, in which participants are asked specific questions, can help address the issue of what is right and what is wrong about the present hours-of-service regulations.

The proposed rule also raises complaints from the industry about how FMCSA’s proposal will work in the “real world.” The agency doesn’t know the answer because its proposal has not been tested in revenue runs.

Development of the current proposal was hobbled because of the prohibition until 1998 of road-testing various alternatives to the current hours-of-service regulations. The seminal Driver Fatigue and Alertness Study assessed the impact of drivers working 13-hour runs in Canada as well as the 10-hour driving shifts allowed in the United States. We didn’t have authority to test various scenarios, such as the 12-hour driving time in the current proposal during the period the study was under way.

One of my major accomplishments as associate administrator for motor carriers was convincing Congress to give us the authority in 1998 to conduct pilot projects to test and evaluate possible changes to the hours-of-service regulations. Soon after receiving that authority, OMC initiated a pilot project to assess the viability of replacing paper records of driver service with electronic logbooks. The agency is currently evaluating the first full year of data on the project conducted with Werner Enterprises to see if electronic logs improve compliance with hours-of-service regulations. I would suggest that the new FMCSA use its current authority to initiate additional pilot programs to test and evaluate possible changes. The agency could run several pilot programs over the next two to three years to realistically understand the benefits and pitfalls of these changes. It makes logical sense for DOT to “test” ideas in an evaluative program before they become the law of the land. This would allow industry and government to be less polarized and work together toward the common goal of improved safety.

Additional pilot projects involving the use of electronic on-board recorders might make FMCSA’s proposal to mandate their installation in many trucks more palatable. The industry, 85% of which is composed of seven trucks or less, must want some significant real-world benefits before wholesale adoption. One such project could require carriers with accident rates twice the national average to install recorders within a specified period. This project would prove once and for all whether the technology actually saves lives. If successful, DOT could make recorders mandatory for all problem carriers while offering some form of incentive to other carriers to install the equipment.

This is just one example of a pilot project that, combined with carefully structured focus groups, would provide substantive data that would allow FMCSA to propose revisions to the hours-of-service regulations that would actually achieve the agency’s goal of reducing fatigue-related crashes, injuries and fatalities.

After the focus group data has been evaluated and the pilot projects have been underway for two or three years — the minimum time needed to provide good data — FMCSA should conduct a “fatigue summit” to present the data to industry groups, driver representatives, the safety community and other stakeholders and receive input on what changes should be made to the regulations.

George Reagle has worked on motor carrier safety issues for 30 years. He was the associate administrator of the Office of Motor Carriers under the Federal Highway Administration, 1993-99, and earlier served at the National Transportation Safety Board and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. He is now a transportation consultant in Columbia, Md.