How Hours of Service Regulation Impacts Truck Drivers Essay

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Hour of Service Regulations on Truck Safety

Hours of Service regulations are overseen, developed and published by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. These regulations regard the number of hours in which a commercial vehicle operator (CMV) may (such as a truck driver or bus driver) may drive a vehicle in the U.S. The purpose of this regulation is to ensure that large vehicle operators have sufficient rest between shifts so that they are not recklessly operating a powerful machine that could potentially put others and themselves at risk of injury (for example, if the operator were to fall asleep at the wheel and lose control of the vehicle). The regulation is also designed to meet the needs of transporters of goods, who aim to have products shipped by deadlines in order to stay profitable. Thus, there are many considerations that go into the process of determining and setting this legislation and implementing it across the board.

Background

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is overseen by the U.S. Department of Transportation. It is this Department that actually regulates and enforces the provisions passed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The Department obliges CMV drivers to keep a log of hours driven on the clock as well as to record data entries of time spent in rest. Electronic record keeping is also an acceptable practice in today's digital age. The goal of the Department is prevent driver fatigue and ensure road safety.

The background history of the Department goes all the way back to the 1930s when the Interstate Commerce Commission put forward its own hours of service regulation, stipulating that drivers could only work for 12 hours per every 15-hour segment -- and work did not simply consist of driving; it also consisted of loading/unloading, reporting, prepping, etc. (FMCSA, 2014). Labor unions at the time, however, pressed for fewer hours max per week, as the max per week at the time stood at 60 hours. It was deemed that "the monotony or nervous and physical strain of driving such vehicles" could be greatly exacerbated by so many hours behind the wheel (Department of Transportation, 2000, p. 25548). Gradually over the following years and decades the rules regarding driving and driver fatigue were changed to give more consideration to the safety and precautionary concerns of roadway specialists.

Literature Review

The hours of service regulations can be viewed in two ways -- from the perspective of driver safety and from the perspective of carrier costs. For this reason, the available literature on the subject of hours of service should be examined from these two viewpoints. Cathey (2014) examines the impact of new hours of service regulations the costs that the trucking industry will have to endure as a result of the new directives associated with the 34-hour restart provision. This provision and its impact, Cathey (2014) observes, was assessed by the American Transportation Research Institute, which published a report on how negatively the hours of service rules have impacted truckers and carriers. Gathered from a survey of more than 2000 drivers and 400 carriers, the report found that more than 80% of carriers underwent a "loss in productivity" as a result of the rules' implementation as more drivers needed to be hired to meet delivery needs. At the same time, the new rules, according to drivers surveyed, actually decrease quality-of-life and contributed to "increased fatigue levels" (Cathey, 2014).

Lyden (2013) provides an overview of the new Hours of Service regulations and what they entail. The study notes that the American Trucking Associations have put forward legal challenges to the 2011 revisions. The regulations, while meant to service safety precautionary measures, did not meet the needs of labor groups, who "pressed the FMSCA to reduce the driving limit from 11 hours to 10," as the FMSCA kept the 11-hour limit on the books as the standard max. However, the new regulations have changed so that truckers' workweek is limited to 70 hours max, down from 82 hours (in a 7-day timeframe) under the previous provisions (Lyden, 2013). Additionally, a mandatory break consisting of 30 minutes for every 8 hrs of driving has been instituted in the regulations to ensure that drivers are breaking at least once for 30 minutes every 8 hours.

But most controversial is the 34-hour restart that Cathey (2014) identifies as problematic for truckers and carriers. According to the new regulation pertaining to hours of service, "Drivers who maximize their weekly hours must take at least 34 consecutive hours off, including 2 back-to-back periods between 1 a.m. and 5 a.

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m." (Lyden, 2013). The change in the restart provision is that under the old rule, drivers could take a 34-restart more than one time per week and skip the 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. protocol. Under the new rule, they cannot and may only take the restart one time per week. Essentially, this puts drivers and carriers in a more binding shift in terms of when they can be on the road and it handcuffs carriers. In other words, it limits the possibilities and flexibility of schedules that drivers could utilize in order to meet the hourly regulations. This could be the reason for the decline in QOL for drivers following the implementation of the new rules, as the added stress of trying to maximize distance over hours while adhering to the new restart regulations limits the possibilities that drivers have to juggle schedules, avoid traffic, and meet deadlines.

Importantly the new rule also clearly defines the penalty that must be paid for egregious violations of the regulations. Now, carriers are required to be fined up to $11,000 for each time that a driver goes over the 11-hour limit by more than 3 hours. Likewise, drivers could be fined up to nearly $3,000 per offense. Thus, Lyden (2013) notes that the drivers who are most likely to be impacted are the long-haul truck drivers who average over 70 hours a week of driving.

This conclusion is supported by the study of Hokey (2009) whose analysis of the history of hours-of-service regulation changes since the time of the 1930s shows that long-haul truckers are the main body of truckers impacted by regulatory activity. The difficulty with creating effective regulations in order to reduce the risk of driver fatigue and to ensure road safety, per Hokey's (2009) study, is that there is no possible catch-all that can adequately address the needs and habits of so many different drivers. Thus, by attempting to create a categorical set of regulations, the Department essentially limits the effectiveness of some drivers and carriers while attempting to augment and enhance the concerns of safety that others have. The end result is a compromise that appeases no one and serves only to raise calls for further overhaul and new regulatory guidance and implementation.

According to Bukowski (2013), the FMCSA asserts that "safety is our highest priority" and that the new 2011 rules "make commonsense, data-driven changes to reduce truck driver fatigue and improve safety for every traveler" on the road. Yet, as Bukowski (2013) observes, after 2 years, stakeholders in the trucking industry are not convinced that the regulations serve the stated purpose. Bukowski (2013) cites the same American Trucking Associations study cited by Cathey (2014) to show that "people become fatigued for a variety of reasons, the most critical one being how they choose to use their time off-duty" (Bukowski, 2013). The change in regulation fails to succeed in reducing fatigue, the study shows, because it does not regulate how drivers must spend their "off-time" -- which, Bukowski observes, is not always spent at rest. In short, "those who do not use that time responsibly to get rest will continue to be fatigued" (Bukowski, 2013).

The recent study by Boyce (2016) follows up on these analyses and indicates that more needs to be done in order to protect truck driver health and wellness, as current conditions are ripe for a crisis. Boyce notes that truck driver health can be viewed as "an external cost of logistics" and that a shortage of truck drivers presents a "looming capacity crisis" in the trucking industry. The effect will be noted not so much in road accidents as it will be in supply chain disruption and downward trajectories of economies across the nation. The regulation of hours-of-service, therefore, is only a small part of the strain and stress that impacts the life of a long-haul truck driver. What is really needed on the part of carriers, according to the study by Boyce (2016) is direct action that addresses the complete needs of the driver with regards to the economic environment, the causes and effects of an overall stagnant economy, the reduction in drivers across the board, and the overall communal health and mental state of truck drivers currently in the occupational field.

Methodology

The methodology used to gather the literature reviewed for this study included a combination of keyword searches.....

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