
Court Rejects Agency Reasons for Trucker Hours Rule, Calls Arguments 'Troubling'
by Guest Blogger, 7/24/2004
In a stinging rebuke, an appeals court rejected a change to regulations limiting the daily and weekly number of hours that truckers can work without rest breaks. Although the court based its decision on the agency's failure to consider a statutorily mandated factor, it also identified weaknesses in several arguments commonly raised to block regulation, repeatedly calling the arguments "troubling."
The suit was brought by Public Citizen, which calls truck driving "one of America's most hazardous occupations." Public Citizen notes that almost 700 truckers die in crashes every year, and those crashes put all other drivers at risk.
About the Rule
The rejected rule, which was issued in April 2003 by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, differed significantly from the version in the agency's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPR) three years earlier:
- The final rule increased the maximum total daily driving from ten to eleven hours and dropped the NPR's requirement of a mandatory two-hour break during the day.
- The NPR, citing research about circadian rhythm cycles, would have required a 24-hour daily cycle. The explanation in the final rule admitted the 24-hour cycle would be "ideal from a scientific viewpoint" but stressed that an "inflexible" across-the-board requirement would unduly disrupt the trucking industry. The final rule mandated a 24-hour cycle only for drivers who took the maximum off-duty time (ten hours) and worked the maximum number of driving hours (fourteen). Those who maximized driving hours and minimized off-duty hours (ten hours), by contrast, were allowed to work on a 21-hour cycle.
- The NPR would have mandated a "weekend" of 32 to 56 hours, including two night-time periods, in order to prevent drivers from working five consecutive night shifts and to allow drivers to compensate for sleep deficits during "circadian-optimal times." The final rule mandated only a 34-hour "restart" phase, that would allow drivers to drive another seven- or eight-day work week after one 34-hour off-duty block. The restart provision would have actually increased the number of hours truckers could drive each week above the cap from the old existing rules. As the court noted, the old rules had set absolute caps of 60 hours for a seven-day week, or 70 hours for eight, whereas trucking companies could game the new rules and force truckers to work 77 hours in a seven-day period.
- The NPR would have reduced the "sleeper-berth exception" of the old rules. Under existing rules, drivers could break their required eight hours of consecutive rest into two separate periods totaling eight hours if they spent the rest period in the trucks' sleeper berths. The NPR would have closed this loop-hole for solo drivers but retained it, in modified form, for team drivers. The final rule rejected the NPR's closure of the sleeper-berth exception, calling the NPR's approach "inflexible" because the use of sleeper berths is "firmly entrenched in the practice, culture, and equipment of the trucking industry." FMCSA also argued that there was no evidence that the sleeper-berth exception posed a "safety hazard" and rejected existing studies as "inconclusive."
- The NPR would have required electronic on-board recorders to monitor compliance with the rule. The agency rejected EOBRs in the final rule, citing insufficient evidence of the costs and benefits of EOBRs.
- Notice of Proposed Rulemaking: 65 Fed. Reg. 25,540 (2000)
- Final Rule: 68 Fed. Reg. 22,456 (2003)
- Decision in Public Citizen v. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, No. 03-1165 (D.C. Cir. July 16, 2004) (also on Westlaw at 2004 WL 1585847)
