HOS

The Department of Transportation (DOT), reacting to more than 5,200 comments filed on potential changes to truck driver hours-of-service (HOS) and other regulations, is moving in that direction.

The federal government is making several moves to answer that ever-vexing question that regulators have been trying to answer for decades about the universe of more than 700,000 motor carriers, “How safe are you?”

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) announced this week that a public listening session on potential changes to truck driver hours-of-service (HOS) rules on September 14. This announcement follows an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) issued by the FMCSA on August 23.

Logistics Management Group News Editor Jeff Berman recently caught up with Larry Gross, President of Gross Transportation Consulting to talk about the 2018 Peak Season, capacity, pricing, and things shippers can do to get through the rough patches.

With all the moving parts in the trucking sector these days, in the form of things like carrier pricing power, tight capacity, and the secular driver shortage, things like trucking regulations can get overlooked. But at this week’s SMC3 Connections event at The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, that was far from the case in a session that featured Larry Minor, associate administrator for policy at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), and Dan Horvath, director...

When looking at the last three-to-four years in the logistics and freight transportation sectors, it is clear that there has been an “unusual and high level of activity” occurring. That was a key theme of a keynote speech at this week’s SMC3 Connections conference held at The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia by John Wiehoff, CEO of global logistics services provider and freight forwarder C.H. Robinson. In a wide-ranging speech, Wiehoff categorized some of the bigger...

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.”

The fed is hitting truckers with a barrage of costly regulations in an era of scant profits. Everything from emissions, training standards, electronic onboard recorders, fuel mileage standards and speed limiters are in play—and it’s only going cost shippers more.

Truck drivers hours of service limits may be tweaked under a fiscal 2017 transportation funding bill passed by an influential Senate appropriations committee this spring. Under the move spearheaded by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the legislation set a 73-hour cap as the allowable hours per seven-day work week that truck drivers may work before taking a break.

Regardless of capacity, pricing, or the economy, trucking industry regulations are never far from the freight transportation limelight. That is especially evident when it comes to the federally mandated hours-of-service (HOS) regulations. As usual, the current state of HOS remains somewhat fluid. And the reason for that has to do with legislation coming from the Senate Transportation Appropriations legislation that is currently being considered by the Senate.

A law of unintended consequences is alive and well. Just ask trucking lobbyists and those inside the Department of Transportation working feverishly to fix what they describe as a “technical glitch” that threatens to scrap the entire law covering truck drivers’ hours of service.

Trucking regulations are once again front and center for carriers and shippers and are making an immediate impact on carrier costs, capacity, rates, and relations between shippers and carriers. During this webcast—co-presented by Logistics Management and NASSTRAC—our expert panel brings shippers up-to-date on the state of trucking regulations and how these rules are impacting carrier costs, capacity and rates.

Various economic headwinds are standing in the way of true retail sales growth, even though the numbers show modest gains.

The rule, which will take effect on January 29, 2016, adopts regulations that prohibit motor carriers, shippers, receivers, or transportation intermediaries from coercing drivers to operate commercial motor vehicles (CMVs) in violation of certain provisions of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations.

A new Government Accountability Office report on the effects of changes to truck driver hours of service rules has sparked a war of words between the American Trucking Associations and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the arm of the Transportation Department that is in charge of making those rules.