US trucking groups seek more-flexible driver work rules

William B. Cassidy, Senior Editor | Feb 15, 2018 5:43PM EST

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Changing the hours-of-service rules could give US truckers more flexibility or mask shipper inefficiencies. Photo credit: Shutterstock.

Calls for more flexible truck-driver work hours are intensifying as the new electronic logging device (ELD) mandate roils trucking operations and supply chains. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), a key opponent of the ELD mandate, petitioned the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to change the existing hours-of-service (HOS) rules.

“We think it’s time to seriously address the lack of options available for truck drivers whose schedules are at the mercy of shippers, receivers, weather, congestion, and other obstacles, to operate safely,” Todd Spencer, acting president and CEO of OOIDA, said in a statement Wednesday. The current rules “force” truckers to drive while fatigued, Spencer said.

OOIDA specifically wants truckers to be allowed a rest break of up to three consecutive hours once per day during a 14-hour on-duty period, effectively stopping the 14-hour clock while the driver is off duty. The current 30-minute rest break, mandatory after 7 hours on-duty, would be eliminated. Drivers would still need to log 10 off-duty hours before starting their next shift.

“There are many operational situations where the 30-minute rest break requires drivers to stop when they simply do not need to,” said Spencer. “It’s either impractical or unsafe.” The owner-operator group claims the current driver work rules are overly complex, provide no flexibility, and do not reflect the physical capabilities or limitations of individual drivers.

The ELD mandate, without doubt, has led to a loss of flexibility for truckers when it comes to managing their daily clock. There is no faking electronic logs, or at least it is much harder. Some would like HOS rules changed to give truckers more driving time, or control over that time, but others will question the safety impact, and who benefits from such flexibility.

OOIDA is likely to find allies in its push to change HOS rules, although others may offer different plans. “As the industry comes into compliance, ATA [American Trucking Associations] is looking beyond the deadline, and addressing long-standing issues with HOS rules,” ATA CEO Chris Spear said in a video address to the JOC Inland Distribution Conference last autumn.

Spear singled out the sleeper berth provision of the HOS rules and detention time at shippers as areas where the FMCSA could focus. The FMCSA plans to conduct a flexible split sleeper berth pilot project, in the works since 2015, later this year. Drivers enrolled in the project will be able to divide their current 8 hours of consolidated off-duty sleeper berth time into two periods.

The FMCSA plans to run a test of “flexible” sleeper berth hours using 200 to 240 drivers from large, medium-sized and small trucking companies, Nicole Michel, an FMCSA mathematical statistician, said at the Transportation Research Board’s 97th annual meeting in Washington Jan. 9. “Drivers have requested more flexibility in the 14-hour on-duty clock,” she said.  

The FMCSA pilot project will be run in four to five 90-day cycles starting this summer, Michel said. “We will use actigraphy watches that will be worn continuously to collect data on whether a participant is awake or sleeping,” she said. Actigraphy wrist watches use sensors to monitor rest and activity cycles and track sleep time. The drivers will also use FMCSA smartphone apps.

Trucking interests, including OOIDA, are not content to sit back and wait for pilot project results. ELD vendor KeepTruckin in November created a petition asking the FMCSA to allow drivers to extend their 14-hour day by two hours “when they are detained for extended periods of time at a shipper or receiver facility.” That would push allowable working time to 16 hours a day.

Others would, and certainly will, argue that allowing drivers to work 16 or 17 hours a day to accommodate inefficient shippers and receivers is not the answer to concerns that detention and delays may force drivers to “race the clock.” Advocacy groups are likely to oppose extending daily driving or working times to levels similar to those found in pre-2003 HOS rules.

The ELD mandate eventually will provide drivers and carriers with data that can be used to get shippers to “race the clock” and get truck drivers through their gates more quickly. Truckers will be able to show, and will have to show, precisely how long they were kept “on-duty, not driving” while at shipper and consignee docks, and charge shippers for excessive detention.

In a period of tight capacity, high freight demand, and rising truck rates, many shippers are moving to put more “driver-friendly” policies in place at gates and loading docks, and to scale back detention time. But many shippers likely are not. The question is, will the market force them to seriously address these issues if capacity remains tight and demand gets hotter?

The Department of Transportation’s (DOT's) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released a report Jan. 31 on the effects of driver detention on the economy, the efficiency of the transportation system, motor carrier safety, and the livelihoods of truck drivers. The DOT OIG concluded driver detention does affect truck and highway safety, supporting some truck driver claims.

“We estimated that a 15-minute increase in average dwell time — the total time spent by a truck at a facility — increases the average expected crash rate by 6.2 percent,” the OIG said. But gathering accurate data on detention and its relationship to total dwell time at a shipper or receiver is difficult, the report said, as there has been no mechanism to report or verify that data.

“Accurate data on driver detention are not available because motor carriers and drivers do not collect data on the time spent actually loading and unloading and delays,” the OIG report said.

“Motor carriers and drivers track only dwell time that is greater than the time allowed by their contracts for loading and unloading.” Electronic data are unavailable for a large portion of the industry that relies on paper records, the OIG said. The ELD mandate could change that.

Regulators may need to revisit the one-size for all approach to HOS in a variegated trucking industry, John Seidl, a transportation consultant with Integrated Risk Solutions and former FMCSA motor carrier investigator said at the JOC Inland Distribution Conference. “They need to consider different rules for different industries, or sectors of trucking,” he said.

“The old pre-2003 HOS rules are still in effect for motor coach drivers,” he noted. “Why can’t the HOS rules for property carriers be broken into regional, over-the-road, construction?” The FMCSA did take such an approach in 2000, in its first attempt to change HOS rules. Those HOS proposals were panned by trucking interests and eventually scrapped by Congress.

Seidl said a joint effort by ATA and OOIDA to get FMCSA to make changes in HOS rules “would really be a step forward. Following the current [HOS] regulations can cause potential issues for drivers. Without the ELD mandate, were they being followed all this time? No. But a combined effort by these two organizations would be a great approach.”