Hours of Service -How Stupid Can You Get?!
Court tosses 34-hour restart, 11-hour driving limit
Tuesday, July 24, 2007 – Truckers will once again face another new hours-of-service regulation, thanks to a ruling that eliminates the 34-hour restart and 11-hour driving limit.
The U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a ruling today on a pair of challenges to the current hours-of-service regulations.
In the decision issued by the court, the 11-hour driving time limit and the 34-hour restart were thrown out. No changes to the sleeper-berth provision were made. The court ruled based on procedures followed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and not on the merit of the challenged provisions.
I don’t know why, but I am amazed some time by the rulings that come from several of our higher courts when it comes to the trucking industry. Before I get into my comments on the above article, let me try to explain the 11 hour driving limit, the 14 rule, and the 34 hour restart for those that are not involved with the trucking industry.
The 11 hour driving rule:
A driver can only drive 11 hours in a day then he/she has to take a 10 hour break with 8 consecutive hour of that in the sleeper-berth.
The 14 hour rule:
Once a driver drops from the off duty status, (sleeper-berth or off-duty-not-driving), to the on duty status, (driving or on-duty-not-driving), he/she has 14 hours to get all duties, (driving, loading, unloading and ect..) done. Then he/she has to take a 10 hour break with 8 consecutive hours in the sleeper-berth.The 34 hour restart:
A driver after sitting 34 consecutive hours off-duty gets a restart of their hours. They means that is they are one the 8 day/70 hour rule, their clock is set back to 0 and they get their full 70 hours back.
Now, let me give you a for instance. A driver gets up at 0500, takes 30min to get ready, and then does a 15min inspection of the truck at 0545, (which is required by DOT regulations), drives 2 hours to a pick-up point. It then takes 3 hours to get loaded and the driver is required to either be on the dock to count the freight or sit in a drivers room for that time, which by DOT regulations he/she has to log as on-duty-not-driving. It is now 1045. Then he/she drivers 6 hour and realizes that he/she is tired and since rush hour traffic is starting, decides to take a 2 hour nap. When he/she wakes, it is 1845 (0645pm), the roads are cleared out and he/she is alert and ready to drive. Even though the driver has only driven 8 hours of his/her 11 hours of driving time, because of the 14 hours rule, that driver can only drive another hour, then he/she has to take a 10 hour break.
Since 2 hours equals about 120 miles if on the open road, and can vary if in the city and dealing with rush hour traffic, that driver is going to go ahead and stay under the wheel, instead of taking a nap, because miles are $$. Drivers are paid by the mile and NOT by the hour.
That is the issue that OOIDA and many other trucking groups was wanting addressed. That is why this case was in the court system. The rules the way they are force drivers to drive tired if they want to make a living.
INSTEAD of throwing that damn 14 hour rule out, they through out two of the rules that actually benefit drivers. With this courts ruling, drivers will be going back to only being allowed to drive 10 hours in a day, and having to work off the hours they have falling off from the day before and STILL have to drive tired. So now drivers are going to make even less money and push themselves to not stop when tired BECAUSE, time is $$, miles are $$.
So you tell me, HOW STUPID CAN YOU GET?!?!
