U.S. Truckers Get FMCSA Wish, 33-Foot Twins Turned Back

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A provision many in trucking wanted to make it harder for U.S. regulators to limit interstate truck drivers hours behind the wheel was included in legislation that’s expected to be passed by Congress but calls for allowing longer trailers failed to make it in the measure.

The American Trucking Associations is praising Congress for “recognizing the harm done by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) 2013 hours-of-service restart restrictions and requiring the agency to meet an appropriate safety, driver health and driver longevity standard before re-imposing those restrictions.”

In 2013, FMCSA required that drivers using a 34-hour restart to reset their weekly allotment of hours have two periods between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. in their extended off-duty period and limited the use of those extended rests to once a week.

ATA believed at the time, that these restrictions would push more truck traffic into riskier daytime hours, increasing, not decreasing the risk of truck-involved crashes. ATA also believed that FMCSA’s driver health and longevity theory had no basis in reality.

The 34-hour restart provision was suspended in Dec. 2014 as part of a bill signed by President Obama and pushed for by the ATA. The restart suspension was put in place to allow the government to properly evaluate the rule change to determine if it was possibly increasing driver risk.

“We’re pleased that in the omnibus spending compromise released today, Congress has seen fit to demand that FMCSA ‘show its work,’ before imposing unnecessary and onerous restrictions on the use of the 34-hour restart by commercial drivers,” said ATA President and CEO Bill Graves. “FMCSA foisted these restrictions on the industry without doing a proper investigation into how they might impact trucking safety and truck drivers’ health and longevity, so it is completely appropriate for Congress to establish a safety and health standard.”

The provision is part of a spending bill that keeps the U.S. government operating through the 2016 fiscal year.

Meantime, despite a push by ATA, the group failed to get its wish for allowing twin 33 foot trailers nationwide. The group and other supporters claimed allowing them would make trucking more efficient while opponents in law enforcement and safety said they would lead to more truck involved crashes.

“We’re disheartened that Congress allowed itself to be cowed by the fear mongering tactics of anti-truck lobbyists,” said ATA Chairman Pat Thomas and senior vice president of state government affairs for UPS. “By removing language that would have allowed twin 33s on U.S. highways, Congress has passed up a huge opportunity to improve highway safety and trucking’s efficiency.” 


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