Study Says Rules to Add $611 Million in Annual Costs

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ompliance with the new hours-of-service rules will increase trucking companies’ net cost by $611 million a year and require them to hire an additional 84,300 drivers, hitting small fleets the hardest, according to an analysis done for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

The estimates, from a regulatory impact analysis prepared by ICF Consulting and Jack Faucett Associates, assumed that many drivers now exceed the hours-of-service limits, but that all will comply with the new rules.

The study estimated that cheating on logbooks results in 8% more hours worked in long-haul operations and 1% more for short-haul truckers.

The new rules, announced by FMCSA April 28, allow truckers to drive one more hour but take away one hour of overall work time.

For the full story, see the May 5 edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.