NEW REGULATIONS TAKING EFFECT JANUARY FIRST -- PAM DRIVERS

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Date Posted: 12:16:20 05/16/03 Fri
Author: Stan
Subject: NEW REGULATIONS TAKING EFFECT JANUARY FIRST

First of all if it isn't broke don't fix it. Ten hours driving with eight hours off of course didn't suit everybody but it was a equitable compromise. "Tired four wheelers have no law against their hours behind the wheel." The trucking industry does phenomenally well per mile driven against the statistics for passenger cars when it comes to the accident rate.Just read the BS below.
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New rules let truckers drive more, require additional rest
By JUDY L. THOMAS
The Kansas City Star
Posted on Fri, Apr. 25, 2003

After years of delay, federal regulators issued a rule Thursday intended to get tired truckdrivers off the nation's highways and reduce the hundreds of deaths they cause each year.

But critics said the new rule will do little to reduce trucker fatigue and will be almost impossible to enforce.

Thursday's action allows truckers to drive for longer stretches at a time but also requires them to take longer breaks between shifts. It's the first major change to the federal regulations on driving hours since 1939.

"The hours-of-service final rule represents a significant improvement in addressing driver fatigue," said Annette M. Sandberg, acting administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the arm of the Department of Transportation that regulates the trucking industry.

"It is a rule that not only is based on science, but makes practical sense."

Trucking industry officials praised the action, saying it will make highways safer.

But safety advocates say that increasing the time that truckers can drive from 10 to 11 consecutive hours will only make them more tired.

"It's incredible," said Jeff Burns, a Kansas City attorney and board member of Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways. "We've got literally decades of science that say the risk of an accident goes up dramatically after eight hours on the road."

Under the regulations, which were four years overdue and take effect Jan. 4, truckers can be on duty a total of 14 hours -- including loading time -- fewer than the 15 total hours now allowed. Truckers must then take a 10-hour break, compared with eight hours under current rules.

Department of Transportation officials say the new rules would force truckers to get more rest and put the drivers on a more natural circadian, or 24-hour, schedule. They estimated that the regulations would save between 24 and 75 lives each year.

Safety administration officials said they had convened expert panels during the rule-making process, held hearings and reviewed more than 53,000 submitted comments.

Tired truckers are a major concern on the nation's highways. In fact, a December 2001 series in The Kansas City Star reported that trucker fatigue was a much bigger problem than the industry had acknowledged.

Truckers, pushed beyond their limits in an industry that thrives on low pay and long distances, are driving tired and killing hundreds on the road each year, The Star found. The series also showed that the government inspection system designed to keep those tired drivers off the road was ineffective -- when it was operating at all.

Safety advocates said the new rule has no teeth, because it does not require trucks to be equipped with electronic recorders that verify how much time drivers spend behind the wheel.

A requirement for recorders was included in an earlier proposal, but later withdrawn. Safety groups and the National Transportation Safety Board have repeatedly called for the use of the devices to help ensure compliance with the hours-of-service regulations.

Safety advocates said trucking regulators had caved in to the industry by failing to require the onboard recorders.

"This will allow widespread, chronic violations of driving, on-duty time, and rest-time limits to continue unabated," said Jackie Gillan, vice president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group.

Department of Transportation officials said they had decided not to require onboard recorders in trucks because the issue needed to be studied further.

"The agency plans to continue research on (electronic onboard recorders) and other technologies, seeking to stimulate innovation in this promising area," they said in the ruling.

Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said the regulations would make the highways safer.

"Over the last several years, FMCSA has made great progress in reducing commercial vehicle crash fatalities, and this rule should help to continue that momentum," Mineta said.

Trucking industry officials also lauded the new regulations.

"This is a package that our members can work with," said Bill Graves, president and chief executive officer of the American Trucking Associations, the industry's largest trade organization.

"We have worked hard all along for a rule that is a good mixture of common sense and sound science," said the former Kansas governor. "These new guidelines will allow the trucking industry to do what we do best -- move America's freight safely and efficiently."

Some truckers driving through the Kansas City area on Thursday figured the new regulations would help somebody, but not necessarily them.

"It's going to help the companies," said Tim Tye, a Nevada-based driver for Tru-Pak Moving Systems.

In the end, companies will get more work out of drivers for the same money, said Tye, who was parked at the Travel Centers of America truck stop in Oak Grove. He thought that as a driver for a large company, he would be OK. But for owner-operators who drive their own rigs, he said, it could be a different story.

Illinois-based owner-operator Anthony Kelley agreed. Truckers would be driving longer hours but for the same pay from shippers, he said.

"It hurts us more than anything," he said.

Todd Spencer, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, said the new regulations would do little to reduce driver fatigue.

"Not until shippers and carriers stop pressuring drivers to break the rules -- and drivers are paid for all the work they do -- will the hours-of-service rules have their intended effect," said Spencer, whose group is based in Grain Valley.

Like the trucking industry, however, Spencer's group did not support onboard recorders.

Congress created the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in 1999 in an effort to get dangerous trucks and truckers off the highways. The agency was ordered to cut large truck-related fatalities in half by 2010.

Fatalities have decreased but not at a pace to meet the goal.

According to preliminary estimates released this week by the federal government, the number of people who died in truck crashes last year was down 3.5 percent from 2001, dropping to 4,902 from 5,082. But the number of truck occupants who died increased slightly, from 704 to 712.

The safety administration's effort to change the federal hours-of-service laws and get tired truckers off the road had been stalled for years. Last fall, consumer groups sued the Department of Transportation, and the department agreed to issue the ruling -- along with numerous others that were long overdue -- as part of a settlement.

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