FMCSA seeks industry comment on several potential HOS changes

From Transport Topics.

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration officials have issued a proposal that seeks comment on several possible changes to the agency’s hours-of-service rule, ranging from how to increase driver or workday time in adverse driving conditions to revising the current mandatory 30-minute driver break after eight hours of continuous driving.

In a telephone news conference, FMCSA Administrator Ray Martinez said that the advance notice of proposed rulemaking is in the form of a series of questions asking stakeholders to comment on the proposal but does not guarantee the changes would be included in any further agency actions.

“Basically, what we have been doing is listening to our stakeholders in our regulated community over the last few months with regard to hours of service and what changes would they propose that would make sense and add flexibility,” Martinez said at the Aug. 21 conference announcing the proposal. “What we kept hearing was flexibility, flexibility, flexibility.”

The agency is seeking answers over the next 30 days to questions in four areas. Some of the questions are:

• Should the agency expand the current 100 air-mile “shorthaul” exemption from 12 hours on-duty to 14 hours on-duty, to be consistent with the workday rules for longhaul truck drivers?
• Is there adequate flexibility in the current adverse-driving exception that currently expands driving time by up to two hours?
• If the 30-minute rest break after eight hours of driving did not exist, would drivers obtain adequate rest breaks throughout a daily driving period to relieve fatigue?
• Do you have information that would support reinstating the option for splitting up the required 10-hour off-duty rest break for drivers operating trucks with sleeper-berth compartments?

See full article from Transport Topics online.