DOT hosts Hours-of-Service listening session; participate in-person, online, or by phone

Tomorrow--February 17, 2011--the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will hold a public listening session on a proposed rule revising hours-of-service (HOS) requirements for commercial truck drivers. FMCSA Adminsitrator Anne Ferro and other officials will be on hand to hear your questions and comments.

From 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. EST, the public can participate by phone (1-866-254-5938, passcode 191857) or by watching the webcast.

Hours-of-service requirements are designed to help prevent accidents, injuries and fatalities by prescribing on-duty hours and rest periods for commercial drivers.

 

As part of the webcast, FMCSA officials will also take online comments and questions from the public starting at 12 noon until 12 midnight EST. You can submit your questions or comments using the webcast page.

Please visit the FMCSA web site for all the details about the live webcast and the on-line comment-and-question forum. 

Comments on the proposed rule may also be submitted by mail, fax and online through our traditional processes for receiving public comments on our rulemaking proposals. 

Our goal tomorrow is to hear what you think about the proposed rule. Whether you're a driver, safety advocate, enforcement official, truck company owner, union representative, or anyone with a concern about this proposed rule, this is a great opportunity to get involved in the rulemaking process..

I know you have lots to say about this proposed rule. We look forward to hearing from you. 

Comments

[Epiphone Les Paul Custom]

This hourse of service is a great step in the right direction. I understand that companies want truckers to do as much as possible but safety on our roads is more important. I can see that this could be a heated topic.

[Matt Olive]

I'm a rail crew transport driver from Iowa. The Iowa legislature adopted the Federal truck driver's rule for us. We follow the 70-hour on duty 10-hour driving rule. These regulations are virtually meaningless to us because of the way our corporation interprets "on duty" and "on rest”. First, rail crew transport drivers have nearly identical hours of service (HOS) that rail crews have. So why we aren't under the Federal Railroad Administration's (FRA) HOS regulations in the first place is baffling. They actually address rail crew's fatigue related concerns as they would us if we were forced to operate under them. But since we are not let me explain how the FMSCA rules are interpreted and exploited by rail crew transport companies:
Our on duty time is often intermittent. We can have a 3-hour run or a 12-hour run or anything in between. Once we complete a run we are seldom informed if we are placed on definitive rest. We are considered off duty during this ambiguous wait period. We are often called for another run to finish our 15-hour on duty window. However, if 8 hours happens to go by then we are considered rested by our corporation. A dispatch described it best when she stated, "Consider yourself rested if you don't hear from us in 8 hours". I have been driving rail crews around on my 22nd and 23rd hours of first going on duty. Is it legal to interpret on and off duty in this manner relative to FMSCA regulations?

How does the FMSCA interpret the definition of rest? Does the driver have to be clearly informed prior to the beginning of this 8-hour rest period? Rail crew transport companies seldom do this.

The 34-hour restart seldom applies to us except during slow periods. At our terminal full time drivers get one day off a week. This 24-hour period goes from 6:00 AM to 6:OO AM. However if you get a run that runs beyond the 6:00 AM start period you must finish that run. Also, we are required to be on call 24/7 so that management can ask us to do a run on our day off. So even on our day off we can't shut off our cell phone or landline and be assured of taking an uninterrupted nap.

Our corporation instructs us not to go beyond the 70-hour point even if it means ending a run early so that we're in compliance. But rather than a concern for safety, I think their motivation is more due to the concern that our availability for service would be legally and definitively lost for 34 hours rather than 8 hours or whatever is the number of hours lost from the log book 7 days prior. We are constantly looking over our shoulders calculating the number of hours we will gain at midnight when we are nearing the 70 hour limit. So I have had to quit a run at 7:00 PM in order to avoid going over the 70 hour limit only to get called shortly after midnight to start a new run because, like Cinderella, I've gained the hours I lost seven days prior. Do you think I'm better rested at that point? So although I like the 34-hour restart proposal to include to period between midnight and 6:00 AM, it's virtually meaningless to us because we our instructed to avoid going over 70 or we will be disciplined

Clearly, the spirit of HOS regulations is being perverted. Given that we have a completely disjointed and unpredictable work schedule like rail crews, we obviously need to be under FRA regulations relative to hours of service.

I've been working with my state chairmen of the Iowa House and Senate Transportation Committee either to adopt FRA HOS regulations for rail crew transport drivers or introduce a template bill I wrote that would change the meaning of "on duty" and assure in law that we receive clear notice when our 8-hour rest period begins. Unfortunately, just yesterday I spoke with Elizabeth Baird (Iowa DOT leg. liaison) that it was the legal feedback from a person who works for the Iowa legislature that Iowa DOT would risk losing funding from the Feds if they moved forward initiating this bill or adopting FRA regulations for Iowa drivers. Do you think Iowa's DOT funding would actually be withheld if pursued this course? Elizabeth thought it was an issue that would be better addressed at the Federal level. I may agree with her on this point from a legal point of view but from a political reality point of view I think it would be harder to accomplish at the Federal level. Do you think the Federal DOT would be willing to actively pursue and advocate for this change if I can find a representative to sponsor the bill, amendment, or whatever change that is recommended?

Please help,

Matt Olive

P.S. The log off proposal as being off duty is a bad idea. My corporation doesn't pay us for pre-trip, post-trip, already. Adding DOT log on and off information to the mix would be just another thing they don't pay us for even though we are in the process of performing service for them.