Hours of Disservice * USA - ATA board votes to oppose regulating detention time

Grain Valley,MO,USA -Land Line Magazine, by David Tanner -May 20, 2011: -- The House bill HR756, calls on the U.S. Department of Transportation to quantify detention time, issue regulations to set the maximum number of hours a driver can be detained without compensation, and impose penalties against shippers and receivers that don’t pay for unreasonable detention time... According to a Government Accountability Office report that coincided with DeFazio’s bill in February, 65 percent of drivers reported losing revenue because of wasted time at the docks and 80 percent of drivers reported that detention time hindered them from meeting hours-of-service requirements... FMCSA Administrator, Anne Ferro, is on record saying the issue must be addressed. FMCSA’s own study showed detention time costs truckers $3.9 billion and costs the public $6.5 billion in lost productivity... An OOIDA study showed drivers can lose as much as 40 hours a week waiting to be loaded or unloaded... While the ATA’s position on detention time is infuriating, it’s also typical, OOIDA President, Jim Johnston, said... “I really can’t find the words to express my disgust and anger over this,” and added, “But when you think about it, and the things that these people have done in the past that are similar, like supporting speed limiters on trucks, electronic on-board recorders, increased truck size and weight limits, increased roadside enforcement, it’s not surprising..."


* ATA's Dan England: “No carrier wants to see our drivers’ time wasted”   

Arlington,VA,USA -Transport Topics -18 May 2011: -- Last month, a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration advisory committee recommended that FMCSA seek authority from Congress to impose penalties against shippers, receivers and brokers who “unduly detain” commercial vehicle drivers... American Trucking Associations said its board of directors voted to oppose efforts at regulating detention times — the time drivers and trucks wait to load or unload their cargo... The Government Accountability Office said in January that 59% of drivers reported delays of more than two hours at freight terminals, making it hard for them to comply with federal rules on driving time... (Photo from bigrigdriving: trucks waiting at warehouse)


* OPINION: Detention Self-Help.  "The last thing the trucking industry needs is for the federal government to decide just how long is “too long” when it comes to loading and unloading trailers"

Arlington,VA,USA -Transport Topics -23 May 2011: -- There’s no doubt that the failure of some shippers and consignees to promptly load or unload trailers is a serious issue for the trucking industry.  And because of this, most fleets have added detention rules into their contracts with their customers, detailing just how long it should take for a trailer to be loaded or unloaded...  When shippers fail to meet the rules, fleets are then able to charge their laggards for the time that is lost: both to help cover drivers’ wasted time and for tying up the equipment...  So we understand the motivation behind the recent moves to put more pressure on fleet customers to not impede the flow of commerce by detaining drivers and equipment...  But we also strongly believe that this is not an area that needs a new round of federal regulations and oversight to solve, because the so-called “solution” could turn out to be a lot worse than the problem...  But we have to strongly object to the solution he proposes: the creation of national standards by the Department of Transportation and the imposition of fixed penalties for violations...  This is surely a situation where the involved carrier has to determine acceptable detention times — and the penalties to be assessed when customers violate them...

New Driver Rules * USA - Trucking Recovery Faces Roadblock From

The sector could stall out from forced cuts to drivers' on-road time

(Video from YouTube, by aaronnflanders -30 Jan 2011: Hit a little snow storm on the way to RI. It was 18+ inches by the time I got back to CT)

Lancaster,PA,USA -Investor Place, by Susan J. Aluise -Feb. 18, 2011: -- Just as the trucking industry labors to drive away from a deep recession and defray runaway diesel fuel prices, there’s another potential roadblock to recovery: the possibility of new federal rules on how and when drivers work and sleep... While the extra margin of safety proposed is a noble goal, there are significant costs in time and money that likely will eat into the margins of trucking companies as they ease back onto the road to profitability... The Department of Transportation’s “Hours of Service” rules were put in place decades ago to curb accidents caused by driver fatigue. By limiting the number of daily driving hours, requiring minimum daily rest periods and keeping drivers on a 21-24-hour schedule, the rules aim to reduce cumulative fatigue by maintaining the natural sleep/wake cycle, or “circadian rhythm”... The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) wants to cut a driver’s maximum daily driving time to 10 hours from 11 hours and reduce the on-duty “workday” to 13 hours from 14 hours. Regulators also want to eliminate the so-called “34-hour restart,” which allows drivers to work more weekly hours if they take 34 consecutive hours off. Comments on the plan — and there are more than 7,600 so far — are due to FMCSA by March 4...   If FMCSA passes the rule as is, additional costs and delayed shipments could put the brakes on the fragile recovery and inhibit the rebound in share prices...

HOS RULES * USA - Time is wasted with Hours-of-Service rules

Analysis: "The rule requires time – something that is in short supply in an industry trying to meet deadlines"

New York,NY,USA -Fleet Owner, by Brian Straight -December 29, 2010: ... The problems with the new Hours-of-Service regulations proposed by the Dept. of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration: “It’s one of those things where we try to balance highway safety against driver health against driver income against driver happiness (miles and home time),” Jay Thompson at the Gerson Lehrman Group, wrote. “As one who follows and tries to make sense out of numbers, improving safety numbers from where we are now is extremely difficult. The other main ingredient in truck safety is the drivers’ attitude, which these rules have us potentially going in the wrong direction” ... Thompson has a number of issues, but it all comes down to time. While DOT didn’t make the changes many expected - specifically a set 48-hour restart period – it came close to doing that under the guise of the 34-hour restart by mandating two consecutive rest periods between midnight and 6 a.m... Based on my math, that means the only way you can have a 34-hour restart would be if a driver could manipulate their hours to end work exactly at 8 p.m. Anything before that simply extends the restart window to many more hours up to 48... The added time to a driver’s week has another impact, Thompson concludes... “If truckers lose a half hour a day in driving time, that’ll be at least a hundred miles per week - or a penny & a half per mile lost by the truck owner and a 4% pay cut for drivers. For profitable fleets like Swift Transportation, Schneider National, US Xpress Enterprises, Werner Enterprises, Estes Express and others, it can be a minimum 10% addition to the [operating revenue]. For others like YRC Worldwide and Arkansas Best Corp, it’s all of their buffer..." Thompson hints that fleets may look for ways around this, including speeding trucks up to get more miles covered in a given shift. That, he says, will result in more fuel usage and increased potential for accidents...  (Photo from fleetowner: driver thumbnail)