ARLINGTON, Va. – American motor carriers are urging the Obama administration to live up to its promise to relieve the burden of unnecessary regulations as it considers changes to the hours-of-service rules.

The proposed "costly changes" to truck drivers’ hours-of-service rules, if finalized, "would result in reduced wages for hundreds of thousands of drivers, significant administrative and efficiency costs for trucking companies, and most importantly, billions of dollars in lost productivity," ATA senior VP of Policy and Regulatory Affairs Dave Osiecki wrote in a letter to Cass Sunstein, administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget.
 

"These inefficiencies and costs would deal a serious and sustained blow to the huge ‘tangible goods’ economy that trucking supports, affecting not only shippers of freight, but ultimately consumers."

Proposed after political pressure from outside groups, the changes – which are rumored to include cutting the daily driving limit and overhaul the 34-hour restart provision — would "enact drastic changes to driver’s lifestyles and carrier operations without providing any safety benefit," says ATA.

"DOT described its proposal as a means to further improve trucking’s highway safety record. Yet, FMCSA’s own regulatory impact analysis showed that the proposal’s costs outweigh any potential crash reduction benefits," Osiecki wrote.

The current hours-of-service rules, in place since 2004, he said, have allowed for trucking to move 70 percent of the nation’s goods and achieve record low levels of crashes and fatalities – a fact FMCSA’s own data strongly supports.