A bill has been introduced to U.S. Congress that, if approved, would stop any further enforcement of the restart provision in the current hours-of-service (HOS) rules until an independent review is conducted.
"When the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration went ahead with its changes to the restart rule, it did so without waiting for essential research to be completed," said American Trucking Associations (ATA) President and CEO Bill Graves. "This bill would simply do what should have been done in the first place: delay implementation until we really know the true operational impacts, costs and safety benefits."
The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) found that the changes to the HOS restart rule would have a net annual cost of up to $376 million. That's much different than the $133 million net benefit the FMCSA claimed in its rule.
Added to that, Schneider National recently reported that productivity slipped 3-4 percent, their fleet safety performance has changed very little, and driver dissatisfaction has increased because of the new HOS rules.
Under the bill, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's (FMCSA) restart changes would be put on hold until the Government Accountability Office conducted a full review of the data and rationale that the agency used in its rule.
"We had hoped FMCSA would've listened to reason when we asked them to delay initially, but we hope they'll listen to Congress and rethink these changes," Graves said, thanking Reps. Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.), Tom Rice (R-S.C.) and Michael Michaud (D-Maine) for putting the legislation forward.
