[NYTr] Court Again Strikes Down Trucking Hours-of-Service Rules

[nytr at olm.blythe-systems.com]

Public Citizen - Jul 24, 2007
http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=2480


Federal Appeals Court Again Strikes Down Longer 
Hours-of-Service Rules for Truckers

Second Ruling Against Bush Administration’s Dangerous Regulations Will
Help Keep Tired Truckers Off the Nation’s Highways

WASHINGTON, D.C.– A federal appeals court today struck down for the
second time a Bush administration regulation that increased both the
consecutive hours and the weekly hours that truck drivers are permitted
to drive without rest. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
again sided with Public Citizen in its contention that the Federal
Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) hours-of-service rule for
truckers, issued in Aug. 2005, could put motorists at risk.

Like the nearly identical rule issued by FMCSA in April 2003 – which
the court unanimously struck down in 2004 – the 2005 rule dramatically
increased both the consecutive number of hours that truckers may drive
before taking a rest and the total number of hours truckers may drive
per week.   

Public Citizen’s second lawsuit against FMCSA challenged these same two
aspects of the 2005 rule: a provision that allowed truck drivers to
drive for 11 consecutive hours before taking rest time, increased from
the old rule of 10 hours; and a provision which allowed drivers to
“restart” their weekly tally of hours after they had taken a break as
short as 34 hours. 

The 34-hour restart allowed truckers to drive 77 hours in seven days or
88 hours in eight days – a more than 25 percent increase over the
pre-2003 rules. On-duty hours during which truckers may drive also
climbed, so that a driver working 14-hour shifts under the new rules
can now work as many as 84 hours in seven days or 98 hours in eight
days – the latter a 40 percent increase over the old limits.

The lawsuit also criticized the agency’s regulatory impact analysis
used to justify these changes. FMCSA created a new model in response to
the court’s 2004 decision striking down the 2003 rule – supposedly to
take into account the increased risk associated with driving longer
hours – without providing any notice or opportunity for public comment.

The three-judge panel agreed with Public Citizen that the agency did
not provide any opportunity for notice and comment on its new model or
explain the methodology and assumptions that underlay it. The court
also faulted the agency’s model for failing to deal with the problem of
the added cumulative fatigue that would be caused by the 34-hour
restart, which permitted significantly greater hours of driving per
week. The court struck down the portions of the rule that permitted the
eleventh hour of driving and the 34-hour restart.

“This is the second time that a unanimous panel of the D.C. Circuit,
totaling six different judges, has found that the agency failed to
justify the rule’s increases in daily and weekly driving and working
hours. Congress directed FMCSA to make safety its highest priority and
to revise the hours-of-service rules to decrease fatigue-related truck
crashes. It also charged the agency with the obligation to safeguard
truck drivers’ health,” said Bonnie Robin-Vergeer, the Public Citizen
lawyer who argued the case. “Remarkably, in 2003 and again in 2005, the
agency responded by issuing regulations that dramatically increased
daily and weekly driving and working hours. The 2005 rule, like the
2003 rule before it, runs afoul of every one of these congressional
mandates.”

Public Citizen, Parents Against Tired Truckers (PATT) and Citizens for
Reliable and Safe Highways (CRASH) successfully challenged the
hours-of-service rule promulgated by the Bush administration in April
2003. The D.C. Court of Appeals agreed with the groups in a July 16,
2004, ruling that found FMCSA had failed to consider the effect of its
new hours-of-service rules on the health of truck drivers as it is
required to do under law. The court ordered the agency to revise its
regulation. In response, FMCSA issued new rules that took effect Oct.
1, 2005. The new rule was virtually identical to the one struck down by
the court and continued to place in harm’s way truck drivers and
passenger vehicle occupants on the highways, the groups said. The three
groups were joined this time in their challenge by Advocates for
Highway and Auto Safety, who filed a critical amicus brief in 2003, and
the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

“In today’s ruling, the court has once again sided with public safety
and rejected FMCSA’s illogical proposition that driving longer hours
and working longer days will somehow solve truck driver fatigue,” said
Judith L. Stone, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety,
which challenged the 2005 rule and participated as an amicus in the
2003 lawsuit. “The ruling reassures us that public health and safety
should always come first and must be the highest priority of federal
transportation officials.”

“The trucking profession has become ‘sweatshops on wheels’ because of
the excessive and unsafe hours of work and driving time required of
truck drivers,” said Daphne Izer, founder of PATT. “I have paid the
ultimate price for government policies that legally allow truck drivers
to work and drive exhausted. My 17-year old son Jeff and his three
close friends were killed in a preventable crash caused by truck driver
fatigue. I welcome the court’s decision that puts people before
profits.”

Each year more than 5,000 people are killed and more than 110,000 are
injured in large truck crashes. Truck driver fatigue is a major
contributor to severe crashes. Many studies have shown that truck
driver alertness and performance begin to dangerously deteriorate after
about eight hours of consecutive driving. After eight hours of driving,
the risk of a truck driver having a crash begins to increase rapidly.

READ the decision.
http://www.citizen.org/documents/fmcsaruling.pdf

READ Public Citizen’s brief and other materials in the case.
http://www.citizen.org/litigation/forms/cases/CaseDetails.cfm?cID=196