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FMCSA Extends HOS Comment Period to Cover Additional Documentation and Clerical Amendments

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has published a notice advising it will extend the HOS comment period to March 4 from February 28. The additional time is to allow for review of addition documentation recently submitted to the public document by the Agency.

FMCSA advises that it has also clerical corrections to both the preamble and the regulatory text of its notice of proposed rulemaking on HOS requirements, published in the Federal Register on December 29, 2010.

At the request of the American Trucking Associations, FMCSA has placed in the public docket three additional documents concerning hours of service (HOS) for commercial motor vehicle drivers. This notice calls attention to the three supplemental documents that FMCSA has placed as electronic files in the docket:

~ FMCSA-2004-19608-6147 - Response to January 28, 2011, Request from American Trucking Associations, Inc. for Further Information on the Cumulative Fatigue Function Used in Docket Item Number FMCSA-2004-19608-4116 Titled "2010-2011 Hours of Service Rule Regulatory Impact Analysis for the Proposed Hours of Service (HOS) of Drivers Rule, December 20, 2010"

~ FMCSA-2004-19608-6147.1 - An Excel Spreadsheet presenting the information requested by ATA: coefficient estimates, an explanation of the coefficient names, and the formulas for the cumulative fatigue function used in Chapter 4 of the Regulatory Evaluation for the HOS NPRM, and displayed graphically in Exhibit 4-14 of that document.

~ FMCSA-2004-19608-6147.2 - An Excel Spreadsheet containing a column of data using the formula in the HOS Regulatory Evaluation to link the hours worked in the previous week to fatigue the following week.

On January 28, 2011, ATA requested further information on "Analyses of Fatigue-Related Large Truck Crashes, The Assignment of Critical Reason, and Other 3 Variables Using the Large Truck Crash Causation Study, May 30, 2008."

The study at issue estimated the impact that cumulative hours worked have on driver fatigue, and FMCSA used the study to calculate some of the safety benefits associated with the reduced driver working hours the Agency proposed in the NPRM. FMCSA placed the study, which analyzed Large Truck Crash Causation Study data, in the HOS docket (FMCSA-2004-19608-3481). While the study provides a detailed description of the analysis and methodology, it did not include the actual coefficients estimated for the cumulative fatigue function that linked greater working hours in a week with increased fatigue involvement in the following week.

ATA requested those coefficients on January 28, 2011, so it could recreate the safety benefit calculations FMCSA used in the Regulatory Impact Analysis. On February 1, 2011, FMCSA sent ATA the spreadsheets with a cover memo. FMCSA has docketed both the memo and the spreadsheets.

For further information contact:
Mr. Thomas Yager, Chief, Driver and Carrier Operations Division,
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration,
U.S. Department of Transportation,
1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE, Washington, DC 20590,
(202) 366-4325.

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