WASHINGTON — The United States Postal Service is asking transportation department rulemakers to exempt its contracted motor carriers from the new hours-of-service rules.

Claiming that overhauling operations and routing to comply with the HOS rules is nearly impossible, USPS has submitted an application to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to allow an unspecified number of carriers that that transport for USPS to revert back to the HOS rules in place before January 2004.

USPS, being an independent agency of the executive branch of the U.S. government, is already exempted. However, the regulation as it’s currently written states any motor carrier under contract with such firms — but which retains full responsibility for its commercial vehicles — remains subject to the HOS rules.

The FMCSA has allowed room in the rule to consider special exemptions. Although it must publish a notice of each exemption request and provide the public an opportunity to inspect the application, including any safety analyses that have been
conducted, and consider public comment.

USPS requests the exemption apply to motor carriers operating under approximately 5,100 separate contracts. The mail deliverer did not specify the number of drivers be allowed to operate under the pre-2004 HOS requirements, but did say their schedules were “split shift” in “short-haul operations with an average delivery route of 61 miles roundtrip.” Under the terms of the USPS contract, drivers
are required to arrive and depart from postal facilities on schedule since deviation from the schedule would result in congestion at USPS
trailer yards.

If granted, the exemption would have a serious affect on private parcel delivery companies, which, by complying with a more stringent HOS regime, may be placed at a competitive disadvantage.

USPS argues the exemption “would achieve a level of safety equivalent to, or greater than, the level of safety obtained under the current 14-hour rule (which prohibits operators of property-carrying vehicles from driving after the 14th hour of coming on duty) because these drivers would be able to return home at the end of each work day rather than having to stay away from home overnight.”

But the union representing hundreds of thousands USPS workers disagrees, arguing that USPS’ plan has less to do with safety than adding drive-time hours, which makes it easier to consolidate facilities and thereby eliminate jobs.

“The request for the waiver may also be part of USPS efforts to reconfigure mail-processing operations. The change would give the Postal Service more flexibility in its consolidation efforts, allowing it to merge operations in plants that are even farther apart,” the American Postal Workers Union states on its website. “In that case, an exemption from the hours-of-service rule would impact all APWU crafts.”

Interested parties may submit comments identified by DOT DMS Docket Number FMCSA-2005-22660 at http://dmses.dot.gov/submit/. Follow the instructions for submitting comments on the DOT electronic docket site. Or Fax: 1-202-493-2251.