A New Twist In The HOS Saga
Let's hope congress will intervene and take driver rules out of legal limbo.
Deborah Whistler
Editor
There's yet another wrinkle in the ongoing saga of truck driver hours of service rules. This time, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is reaching out to Congress to settle the legal limbo of the new driver work rules.
This entire process has become so complicated and ridiculous, I feel obligated to provide you with a glossary to help clarify which rule I'm talking about.
1. The Old, Old Rule: This is the stupidly complicated and antiquated work rules that drivers toiled under from 1932 to 2004.
2. The Old, New Rule: Proposed in 2000 - after many years of study, comment and debate from the multitude of players involved - FMCSA came up with a rule that was even more complicated than the 1932 rule. The hue and cry from virtually every party involved sent FMCSA back to the drawing board.
3. The New, New Rule: FMCSA came back with a better plan. Most of the silliness of the 2000 proposal was tossed and the new rule met with little opposition from the various segments of industry - despite the obvious loss in productivity it would impose on fleets.
Enter Public Citizen, the self-imposed protectors of our safety on the highway. So what if virtually everyone impacted by the new rule said it was an improvement? So what if even the drivers personally impacted were happier with the new rule? So what if government and industry had struggled for years to come up with a plan that everyone could live with?
So what? The safety "advocates" took the New, New Rule to court. They told the court the rule doesn't meet the wording of driver health criteria of the law that Congress drafted to change the Old, Old Rule. It's basically a word game gone awry.
The court agreed with Public Citizen. Bottom line? FMCSA is supposed to start the whole process over again.
Of course, improving driver health and safety was the aim of changing the Old, Old Rule in the first place.
And that it did. The New, New Rule ensures drivers have more time off, less non-driving work time, more flexible home time. It also has inspired fleets to put pressure to bear on shippers and receivers who leave drivers hanging at the docks for hours on end waiting to load and unload.
Several major truckload fleets report seeing safety improvements already under the New, New Rule, although it's been in effect barely a year now.
The court's ruling, though, has put everything in limbo.
FMCSA appears to be making its own stand. Instead of coming up with yet another rulemaking - which would have established a Newer New, New Rule - FMCSA has asked the industry to comment on the safety and driver impact of the New, New Rule. With this court-imposed rulemaking, not a change was made to the New, New Rule.
By not introducing changes to the rule, is the safety agency effectively saying they don't intend to rewrite the New, New Rule to satisfy the court? It appears so.
And they shouldn't have to. The rulemaking process to change hours of service rules was painstaking and it obviously worked. The Old, New Rule was completely revised in order to satisfy issues raised by the hundreds of agencies and industry factions involved.
Implementing that New, New Rule has cost industry and government millions. Will the court throw all that out the window and force us to go back to the Old, Old Rule of the 1930s? And that could happen.
FMCSA has made the right move. The issues should be (and were) dealt with in the context of the rulemaking process. Forcing yet another rulemaking process without having the time to analyze what the true impact the New, New Rule has had on drivers and the industry is an absolute waste of time and money and precious government resources.
If the industry is forced to go back to the Old, Old Rule, the costs would soar even higher. And that might cost more than time and money. It could cost lives.
Everyone in trucking should write their congressional representatives and urge them to let the experts, FMCSA, handle the intricate and complicated issues of driver work rules. Allow the agency time to access the real impact of the New, New Rule before forcing a Newer New, New Rule or reverting back to the Old, Old Rule.
Get the courts out of it.
E-mail Deb Whistler at dwhistler@truckinginfo.com
