House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla) joined with Highway Subcommittee Chairman Jimmy Duncan (R-Tenn); Railroads, Pipelines and Hazmat Subcommittee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa) ; and Small Business Committee Chairman Sam Graves (R-Mo) in a letter to President Obama expressing concern about the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) proposed changes to the hours of service rules for truck drivers.
The letter notes that "we have not seen any evidence that the current hours of service rules, in place now for more than 7 years, are unsafe and need revision . . . In fact, quite the opposite is true. Since implementation of the current rules, there has been a reduction in severe and fatal crashes involving large trucks, even as truck mileage has increased by almost 10 billion miles.” The Members also state that "We will aggressively oversee any attempt by the U.S. DOT to impose new regulatory burdens on the trucking industry by making changes to the current hours of service rules".
AGC wrote to the FMCSA in opposition to the proposed rule changes also pointing out that these amendments were unnecessary given the significantly improved truck safety record since the existing rules were put in place. AGC’s comments on the proposed rule change recommended the following: maintain the construction exemption but increase the distance coverage to a 100-air-mile radius, continue to allow 11 hours of driving time in each driving window, continue to allow the existing 14 hours maximum on-duty time within driving window, “on duty” time for construction drivers should not include waiting time to deliver product.
FMCSA’s proposed rule suggests the following changes:
- Reduce maximum driving time within each driving window from the existing 11 hours to 10 hours.
- Reduce maximum on-duty time within each driving window from the existing 14 hours to 13 hours.
- Limit allowed consecutive hours of driving to 7 hours or less following the last off-duty period of at least 30 minutes.
- Define on-duty as not including any time resting in a parked Commercial Motor Vehicle (CMV).