Is there anyone in the trucking industry involved with moving freight, either behind the wheel or behind the desk, who likes the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration�s (FMCSA) new HOS proposal? Aside from discussing whether or not the new regulations are sound policy, FMCSA�s proposed HOS changes have ignited a firestorm of negative response.

Suspicious Timing

FMCSA released their proposed revisions to the current HOS regulations on December 23, the day before Christmas Eve. I believe the timing wasn�t accidental. Aware the revisions might stir up a hornet�s nest, FMCSA must have hoped the new regulations wouldn�t receive much attention in the flurry of gift-wrapping and TV specials.

The timing didn�t work. Bill Graves, the American Trucking Association (ATA) president, pounced on them with a scathing round of criticism. According to Graves, the agency �has dropped three big chunks of coal under trucking�s Christmas tree.�

Fixing What Ain�t Broke

Actually, there are seven elements to the proposal, and Graves doesn�t like any part of them. He believes �the Obama Administration�s proposal is overly complex, chock full of unnecessary restrictions on professional truck drivers, and, at its core, would substantially reduce trucking�s productivity.� If adopted, he predicted the regulations would produce the following effects:

• Reduce drivers� maximum daily drive time to 10 hours.
• Reduce drivers� maximum daily-working time window by an additional hour.
• Effectively abolish the 34-hour restart, as it currently exists.

Graves then went on to blast the administration.

�When viewed against trucking�s sterling safety record,� Graves said, �it�s plain that the Obama administration�s willingness to break something that�s not broken likely has everything to do with politics and little or nothing to with highway safety.�

A Misguided Failure

If the regulations really are pure politics, they�ve backfired big time. So far, no interested party has expressed support for them. Transport Topics, the weekly voice of the trucking business, usually tries to take an above-the-fray tone in its political coverage. Entering 2011, however, they led with an editorial calling the proposal �a misguided failure that seems certain to make the nation�s roadways less safe than they are today.�

Several other trucking journals have echoed TT�s disapproval � more are sure to follow.

The Owner Operator Independent Driver Association (OOIDA), which is typically a reliable counterbalance to ATA and the big fleets, hasn�t yet pronounced judgment � a likely sign of their own discomfort with the regulations.

�We are carefully analyzing the proposal,� said Todd Spencer, the executive vice-president of OOIDA. �However, I can tell you that to make additional safety gains, the next hours-of-service rule must be more flexible to allow drivers to sleep when tired and to work when rested. The rules must encourage truck drivers to get off the road when they are tired and must not penalize them for doing so.�

Even Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was guarded in support of FMCSA�s revised regulations, confining his comments to rather vague sound bites. �A fatigued truck driver,� said LaHood, �has no place behind the wheel of a large commercial truck.�

First Draft

How firmly does FMCSA stand behind its own work?

First, we must remember this is not their final draft of the regulations. Interested parties have until Feb. 28, 2011, to comment on the revisions. The agency will then consider input and issue a final revised version.

While most federal regulations undergo some sort of public review period, FMCSA is offering a particularly wide window. Industry observers believe the Obama administration never intended to mandate safety regulations that they knew would enrage big trucking companies. Many professionals believe this proposal is designed to allow FMCSA to back off and issue a final version that sets looser standards.

If this approach is true, a legitimate question to ask is why FMCSA didn�t issue regulations they intended to keep? The likely answer is �politics.� I believe Bill Graves is correct when he characterizes the administration�s regulations as political � what he doesn�t mention is that his own position is equally so.

Compromise Ahead

FMCSA�s �new improved� regulations are a response to court rulings on lawsuits launched by Public Citizen and the Teamsters Union. In this process, judges rule on points of law but don�t set policy, which is up to the other branches of government; consequently, politicking is inevitably a part of the process.

All regulatory policy has a political element; it�s hard to imagine otherwise. As ATA President, Bill Graves� job is to represent the business-end of the industry, which will always favor longer hours of service, just as the Teamsters will always favor shorter hours. The most likely interpretation of this flak-catching set of rules is that the administration hopes to eventually find some compromise (as it has in other areas) acceptable to both drivers and the trucking industry as a whole.

Dirty Word 

Basing hours-of-service regulations purely on safety standards would be nice, but is not realistic. In the end, trucking is a business, and considerations of the bottom line are not out of place. While accidents are costly to drivers and companies � and everyone wants to reduce them � the trucking industry must balance safety with productivity, because the results are central to the nation�s economy.

Friend, that�s politics � and with all respect to Graves, �politics� is not a dirty word. Instead, it�s how things get done in the real world.

This story was drawn from articles in TruckingInfo.com, The Trucker, Wikipedia, Wall Street Journal and Transport Topics.

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