Shelved 34-hour restart provision does not provide a net safety benefit, says report

When the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) called for significant changes to the 34-hour re-start as part of the truck driver Hours-of-Service (HOS) regulations, which took effect around mid-2013, there was major pushback from both shippers and carriers.

The restart rules required truckers who maximize their weekly work hours must take at least two nights’ rest when their 24-hour body clock demands sleep the most—from 1:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. This rest requirement allows drivers to restart the clock on their workweek by taking at least 34 consecutive hours off-duty. The final rule allows drivers to use the restart provision only once during a seven-day period.

While the impetus for the rules was in the name of safety, trucking stakeholders cited lost productivity due to the restart that capacity, which was already tight at the time it was enacted. And the American Trucking Associations (ATA) said repeatedly that the primary issue with the restart rules was that they push more trucks onto the road during daytime hours, which they said is a consequence the FMCSA failed to fully analyze from a safety standpoint.

The good news for freight transportation stakeholders was that the restart rule has been shelved since December 2014, with the objective to suspend the new HOS restart rules for one year and during that time have the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration study the rule during that time to analyze its safety benefits and provide an understanding if how the restart changes impact drivers, as well as safety and productivity issues in trucking. More than a little time has gone by since that occurred, but earlier this month the trucking sector got some more good news on the HOS front.

More good news came in the form of the DOT’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) review of the FMCSA’s final report on the Commercial Motor Vehicle Driver Hours of Service Restart Study.

The main takeaway of the OIG’s findings was that “the study did not explicitly state a net benefit from the use of the two suspended provisions of the restart rule on driver operations, safety, fatigue, and health.”

Findings for the study were based on various metrics, including: comparing work schedules and assessing operator fatigue for two driver groups, those operating under the original restart provisions and those operating under the July 2013 restart provisions; comparing work schedules and assessing safety-critical events and operator fatigue between drivers from a statistically significant sample of drivers comprised of fleets of all sizes (long-haul, regional, and short-haul operations) in various sectors, including flat bed, refrigerated, tank, and dry van; assessing driver safety-critical events, fatigue, levels of alertness, and driver health outcomes by using electronic and hard copy records of duty status; and using data from ELDs to the extent practicable.      

The ATA was bullish about the OIG’s findings, too.

“The release of this report closes what has been a long, and unnecessary, chapter in our industry’s drive to improve highway safety,” ATA President and CEO Chris Spear said in a statement. “We knew from the beginning that these Obama administration restrictions provided no benefit to safety, and in light of the DOT’s findings – corroborated by the DOT Inspector General – it is good for our industry and for the motoring public that they will be done away with permanently as specified by language ATA lead the charge on including in the most recently passed Continuing Resolution.”

The ATA’s top executive added that Congress repeatedly told the FMCSA that rules of this nature must show a benefit to safety, explaining that this report clearly showed there was no benefit.

“This marks the end of a long struggle, but hopefully the beginning of a new era of inclusive and data-based regulation,” Spear said.  

The 34-hour restart rule was viewed by many shippers and carriers as disruptive from the get-go, with some calling it a drain on both the shipper and carrier communities

“Trucking impacts the entire economy and with the last several decades of no cohesive highway infrastructure plans; the increases in congestion, at critical times of the day none the less, is impacting capacity,” a food shipper told LM. “Capacity in trucking, or lack thereof, creates higher costs to get capacity commitments from an ever shrinking carrier base.”