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New HOS rules would hurt small carriers, ATA board member testifies

WASHINGTON — The proposed changes in the Hours of Service rule would have a profoundly negative impact on small businesses, would restrict productivity and would result in greater congestion and increased emissions, the president of a 75-truck motor carrier told a House subcommittee Tuesday.

Testifying on behalf of the American Trucking Associations before the House subcommittee on Investigations, Oversight and Regulations, Jim Burg, president of James Burg Trucking Co. of Warren, Mich., said the impacts were significant because according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, 99 percent of the nation’s trucking companies would be classified as small businesses.

The subcommittee titled its hearing as “Do Not Enter: How Proposed Hours of Service Trucking Rules are a Dead End for Small Businesses.”

Burg, who is a member of the ATA Board of Directors, said that if the changes proposed by the FMCSA were implemented his truck fleet would need to “add additional trucks and drivers – and their corresponding expenses – simply to counter the loss in productivity.”

“By estimates, we would need to increase our retained earnings by between 20 percent and 25 percent just to maintain our current level of financial stability,” said Burg, who added that productivity losses would also “likely be felt by small business shippers, manufacturers and retailers in the form of increased costs.”

ATA has repeatedly said that the current rules are working and should be retained rather than changed based on political pressure.

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“FMCSA’s proposed changes to the Hours of Service rules are unnecessary and unjustified,” Burg said. “Both safety and compliance have improved under the current regulations which have been time-tested since 2003. In contrast, FMCSA’s proposal to replace these rules with an untested set of regulations leaves safety to chance.”

Burg said the FMCSA should abandon its proposal and retain the current HOS regulations.

Subcommittee Chairman Mike Coffman, R-Colo., called into question the need for the changes, noting that since 2003, there had been a 33 percent reduction in fatal truck crashes and a 40 percent decline in truck crashes resulting in injuries. With minor exceptions, the current HOS rules have been in place since 2004.

“Despite these major improvements in driver safety, the FMCSA has now proposed complicated and cumbersome travel requirements for drivers meant to increase truck safety by reducing the daily maximum driving limit, decreasing the maximum on-duty time limit, requiring mandatory breaks, and changing the current 34-hour restart provision,” Coffman said in his opening statement. “The decreased instances of crashes involving commercial trucks over recent years begs the question: is this new rule really necessary?”

Others scheduled to testify Tuesday morning included Paul James, president of Rex Oil Co. of Denver, testifying on behalf of the Petroleum Marketers Association of America;

Rusty Rader of J.J. Kennedy of Fombell, Penn., testifying on behalf of the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, and  J.D. Morrissette, senior vice president of Interstate Van Line Operations of Springfield, Va., testifying on behalf of the American Moving and Storage Association.

Noticeably absent from the witness list were representatives of the FMCSA and Department of Transportation.

The Trucker staff can be reached to comment on this article at [email protected] .

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