Letter to the Editor: HOS Rule's 34-Hour Provision Defended

’m 65 and have been driving for 50 years.

The 34-hour rule is a good rule. Think about the driver who is hanging around a truck stop miles from home, waiting for his hours to catch up to him.

The 10-hour rule is also a good rule. The eight-hour rule didn’t give the local driver enough time to go home, eat, shower, talk to his wife, sleep, get up the next morning, get ready to go to work and drive to work. Come to think of it, is 10 hours off enough?

I drive a sleeper, and if I’m two hours away from the terminal and have another 100 miles to go and I get sleepy, I can’t take a one-hour nap, refresh myself and drive back to my terminal without being in violation.

I’m in violation a lot.

I don’t need anyone to tell me when to drive or sleep. I do what I want to do to get there safely.

The two-man team rule is nuts. I drove team for a chemical company from 1966 to 1969. We didn’t have any set rules. As long as we drove five hours on and five hours off, we could drive forever. This eight hours on and eight hours off is physically impossible. You’re lucky to sleep four hours at a time. We used to use alcohol to help us sleep.

The Department of Transportation should let the team set its own sleeping schedule. They will be fine. We were.

Bob Clouter

i>Over-the-Road Driver

airlawn, N.J.

This letter ran in the Jan. 9 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.