The Obama Administration will reconsider the current hours-of-service rule that allows long haul drivers to drive for up to 11 hours straight.

For almost 65 years, truckers were allowed to drive for up to 10 hours at a time, but that changed in 2003 when the Bush Administration modified regulations, allowing 11 hours of driving time in a 14 hour period. The amount of required off-duty rest and recovery time was also reduced from a minimum of 50 hours to only 34 hours at the end of the work week; that is up for reconsideration as well.

Safety advocates like Public Citizen, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, the Truck Safety Coalition, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters say evidence shows that the longer truckers are behind the wheel without a substantive break, the risk of a traffic accident or fatality goes up accordingly.

“We will continue to push for a rule that protects trucks drivers instead of the greed of the trucking industry,” said Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa in a joint statement with the other safety groups that opposed Bush’s rule change. “Longer hours behind the wheels are dangerous for our members and the driving public.”

The American Truckings Association, however, believes the current rules should be maintained. "Safety in the trucking industry has greatly improved while operating under the current hours-of-service rules," said ATA President and CEO Bill Graves in their own release. "Over the past five years we've seen a strong decline in truck-involved crashes on our nation's highways."

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will draft a new proposed hours-of-service rule within the next nine months.

What are your thoughts? Should the hours-of-service rule be revised again?