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HOS comment says truckers typically not using weekly hours allotment

ARLINGTON, Va. — Truckers typically do not come anywhere close to using the weekly allotment of on-duty hours, the American Trucking Associations said in a document filed as a comment to the current Hours of Service rulemaking.

In a document written to Tom Yager, division chief of driver and carrier operations in the Office of Bus and Truck Standards and Operations at FMCSA, Boyd Stephenson, manager of safety and security operations at ATA, said the association used two separate research projects to come up with its findings.

One project, conducted over a three-month period in April, May and June, was by RAIR Technologies and involved more than 118,000 drivers.

“ATA requested that RAIR calculate the total on-duty time for each seven, calendar-day period not each new period beginning with a 34-hour restart as the rule permits,” Stephenson wrote. “As you will see, drivers averaged 43.6 hours in each seven calendar-day period.”

The other project was conducted by ATA, which surveyed six association members and obtained results relating to 149 randomly-selected drivers for the month of April 2010.

“In this case, we determined how many hours each driver had been on-duty in any eight calendar-day period,” Stephenson wrote. “As you will see, these drivers averaged 57.5 hours in every eight-day period.”

Responses ranged between a minimum of 32.5 hours on duty and a maximum of 75.5 hours on duty.

The ATA noted that because the 34-hour restart provision allows drivers to begin a new 70-hour period, it is possible that some eight-day periods would appear with greater than 70 hours worked.

Stephenson noted the interest in the 34-hour restart provision in the current HOS rule.

“As you know, there has been substantial interest in how drivers use the 34-hour restart provision,” Stephenson wrote. “Some interested parties have theorized that motor carriers and drivers use the restart to abuse the HOS rules by driving up to 88 hours and working up to 98 hours in an eight calendar-day period (when using the 70-hour in eight-day rule). However, as the agency, itself, has pointed out in the past, the longer hypothetical hours in driving and duty schedules envisioned by critics of the 34-hour restart “requires an imaginary world with nearly perfect logistics for picking up and delivering a load.

“Information ATA has received from its members clearly indicates that drivers use the restart provision to take an extended off-duty period, typically more than 34 consecutive hours, and typically at home.”

The current HOS rule allows a driver t operate on-duty for up to 60 hours in any seven-day period or for 70 hours in an eight-day period for motor carriers operating every day of the week.

Editor Lyndon Finney of The Trucker staff may be contacted to comment at [email protected].

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