What should shippers make of the much-anticipated revisions to US hours-of-service regulations for trucking and the acrimony that has followed?
There are several things certain to have an impact on shippers using for-hire carriers to haul freight into the US or who use their own private fleets. The first involves the productivity of motor carrier operations under the new rules, which go into effect in 2013.
While daily driving time was not changed from 11 hours, the maximum hours a driver can work per week was reduced by 12 to an average of 70. The new rules, laid out by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) also require drivers using the 34-hour reset provision (used to get drivers started on a new duty cycle) to take at least two nights off between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. According to the FMCSA, research shows that crash risk increases with longer daily and weekly work hours. So it made sense to reduce the number of hours a truck driver should be expected to work because consistently working long hours is associated with chronic fatigue, higher risk of crashes and chronic health problems. But it didn’t make sense, according to the FMCSA, to also reduce the number of hours a driver is allowed to drive in a day because the research did not show a “significant distinction” between the risk associated with working 11 hours versus 10 hours or 9 hours.
The US trucking industry, although pleased to be keeping the 11 hours of driving time, is not happy about the significant reduction in maximum weekly driving time. Dan England, chair of the American Trucking Associations and chair of C.R. England, believes both the trucking industry and shippers will suffer the impact of reduced productivity and higher costs. Motor carrier executives say the loss in productivity will force them to add both trucks and drivers to compensate. Any loss in productivity should be a concern to shippers doing business in the US because industry experts believe trucking capacity is getting tight. Our own Transportation Buying Trends research, conducted in partnership with CITT, CITA and Cormark Securities, shows that Canadian shippers expect truckload carriers to have the most significant pricing power in 2012 and tightening capacity is a major contributor to this.
England also believes these changes may actually increase truck-involved crashes by forcing trucks to have more interaction with passenger vehicles when the rules require drivers to rest from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. twice per week. The largest percentage of truck-involved crashes occur between 6 a.m. and noon, so this change will put more trucks on the road during the statistically riskiest time of the day. That too should be a concern.
The final area of concern is the possibility the new hours of service could end up bouncing around US courts for years before anything is resolved. That has been the reality since 2003 when the FMCSA decided to increase daily driving time to 11 hours from the 10 hours which had been in effect since 1939. The rule was immediately challenged in court by the Teamsters union and safety advocates who, unlike the FMCSA, believe the research shows that additional hour does make a difference in driver safety and health. The 11-hour daily driving limit has actually been rejected twice by a federal appeals court yet remains in effect. Further legal challenges are almost a certainty. Gregory Beck, a lawyer representing safety advocates, has already served notice that renewed legal action is possible. And on the other side, Bill Graves, head of the American Trucking Associations has also warned that his members are not happy with the reduction in the driver work week and will be considering legal options.
Aside from the uncertainty created by the constant legal challenges, what should be a concern is the drain on resources this creates both with the government and with motor carriers. Fighting over whether one extra hour of driving actually has a measurable impact on safety takes time and concentration away from other areas – for example, emerging technologies such as lane monitoring or collision avoidance systems – which could have a larger impact on improving truck safety and productivity.
I also hope you will continue the conversation on issues affecting all transportation modes by joining me in the Transportation Track at the upcoming Supply Chain Canada conference, May 8-9, International Centre, Toronto. Go to www.supplychaincanada.com to register.
