Restart Study: No benefit to driver safety, fatigue

Excerpt from Transport Topics article:

A congressionally mandated study on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s hours-of-service restart rule showed that it “did not explicitly identify a net benefit on driver operations, safety, fatigue and health,” the Department of Transportation Inspector General said March 2.

In a letter to congressional committees, the DOT IG said that the study, not yet released to the public, met all the requirements outlined in a fiscal 2015 funding law.

“We are currently in the final stages of review before transmitting the report to Congress,” said a USDOT spokesperson.

The study compared work schedules and assessed operator fatigue for two groups of drivers — those operating under the original restart provisions and those operating under the July 2013 restart provisions — and were large enough to produce statistically significant results, the IG said.

The suspended 2013 hours-of-service rule required a 34-hour restart with a weekly limit, and two consecutive 1 a.m.- to-5 a.m. rest periods.

American Trucking Associations President Chris Spear said the trucking industry was pleased that the report found no benefit to the “onerous and unjustified restrictions placed on the use of the 34-hour restart by professional drivers.”

Read the full Transport Topics article online.