The hours-of-service rules set to take effect next year for truck drivers will add a significant cost to the trucking industry without providing much of a benefit, American Trucking Associations said Tuesday in a court filing.
It is the first brief ATA has filed in its lawsuit, first filed in February, challenging the hours-of-service rule that will put restrictions on the 34-hour restart that drivers can use to reset the weekly driving maximum.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration “claims that restart restrictions and the off-duty break requirement are justified by the cost-benefit analysis in FMCSA’s regulatory impact analysis,” ATA wrote. “That ‘analysis,’ however, is a sham.”
Starting in July, the restart period must include two spans from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m., and drivers can only use it once per week. Additionally, drivers must take a 30-minute break before driving more than 8 hours.
“FMCSA stacked the deck in favor of its preferred outcome by basing its cost-benefit calculations on a host of transparently unjustifiable assumptions [and] therefore cannot justify the 2011 final rule on the ground that it has net benefits,” ATA wrote to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Another group that includes Public Citizen and Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety has also sued FMCSA over the trucking hours rule, claiming it is too lax and does too little to prevent driver fatigue. That group’s brief also was due Tuesday, though it had not been submitted as of mid-afternoon.
The court has ordered FMCSA to respond to allegations from both sides by Sept. 24.
