Truck drivers get a break from DC court

Better late than never, here’s a report from week before last on a development closely watched by trucking industry employers.

Reuters reports: “U.S. Court Throws Out New Trucker Driving Rules”

A federal appeals court . . . threw out new and controversial U.S. government regulations that had allowed commercial truck drivers to spend more time on the road without taking a break.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found the first major rewrite of the hours of service rule in more than 60 years was “arbitrary and capricious” on grounds the Transportation Department failed to consider driver health. . .

The court also expressed concern with other aspects of the rule and questioned whether some would stand up to more legal scrutiny. . .

The new rule cut two hours off a trucker’s allowable work day, including unloading and breaks, to 14 hours but permitted drivers to be on the road for 11 consecutive hours, up one hour.

The revision was aimed at increasing productivity and reducing fatigue, which can cause accidents. Regulators estimated the new rule would have saved up to 75 lives and prevented up to 1,300 fatigue-related crashes annually.

This was apparently a compromise rule that was not entirely satisfactory to trucking industry employers, despite the added hour of drive time. My industry sources were pleased with the result, as the new rule was not well received and apparently hard to administer.

Here’s the full text of the opinion: Public Citizen v. Fed. Motor Carrier Safety Admin., No. 03-1165 (D.C. Cir. 7/16/04)

Honestly, I gave it only a quick scan, enough to see that the court expected much more than some kind of compromise between interests of the industry and those of safety.

The agency was faulted for not treating driver health as a factor separate from safety.

The court expected science to be rigorously applied, criticizing the agency’s application of two studies: Dingus et al., Impact of Sleeper Berth Usage on Driver Fatigue (2002); and Wylie et al., Commercial Motor Vehicle Driver Fatigue and Alertness Study (1996).

Driver fatigue is a serious safety and health issue; big rigs driven by dozing drivers are killers (and not usually of truck drivers, who are well-protected in their perches above the roadway). Yet so much of the nation’s commerce involves highway transport that the economic impact of such changes must be given a great deal of weight as well, IMHO.

It will be very interesting to see what, if anything, happens next. The existing rules have been around with some revisions since 1962. How would they hold up under the same scrutiny?