Ferro: Agency will propose EOBR rule
Electronic onboard recorder proposal expected in late 2012 or early 2013.
Headline News
New FMCSA rule cuts drivers’ weekly hours
December 22, 2011
| by: Overdrive Staff
Truckers will have fewer hours per week to work under a new hours of service rule announced Dec. 22 by U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
The long-awaited revision from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration requires two early morning four-hour rest periods with the 34-hour restart, and does not change the 11-hour driving limit during one shift.
Drivers and companies must comply with the final rule by July 1, 2013.
Drivers cannot drive after working eight hours without first taking a break of at least 30 minutes. Drivers can take the 30-minute break whenever they need rest during the eight-hour window.
The final rule retains the current 11-hour daily driving limit. FMCSA had previously favored a reduction to 10 hours. The agency says it will continue to analyze risk data associated with the 11 hours of driving time.
The rule requires truck drivers who maximize their weekly work hours to take at least two nights’ rest – from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. The proposed rule had called for two periods of midnight to 6 a.m.
This rest requirement is part of the rule’s 34-hour restart provision that allows drivers to restart the clock on their work week by taking at least 34 consecutive hours off-duty. The final rule allows drivers to use the restart provision only once during a seven-day period.
What else is new…the government sticking its nose into a business it has NO idea of how it operates or what it takes to operate!
Who wants to operate during daylight hours with other daily traffic, increasing the risk of acciddents?
I would think the opposite should be true and that is to operate when the traffic is less!
Why will the fmcsa not listen to the drivers th at are doing the job?
Well maybe we should all shut down and let these people figure out how to get stuff done on there own.
yes sir
If independent truckers had a lick of sense along with a little backbone, we could shut down the system and make a difference.
We could bring to light all the unfair, unjustified rules and regulations including state by state rules that differ for no reason other than to discourage competition and efficiency, the HOS rules that put more trucks on the road at peak traffic times and all the other baloney that restricts our livelihood and actually works against road safety.
In this age of instant communication (and before the gov. enacts internet “rules” for our “safety” that would circumvent our plans, which they would probably label “terrorist”) We could get enough owner operators to pull it off.
What are we waiting for!???
When are these jerks ever going to get it through their heads that we aren’t children and we don’t need the Feds. to tell us how to drive and when to take a rest. Maybe they want to tell us when to go potty and come and tuck us in at night as well. These idiots haven’t got a clue about anything anymore.
If you act like children then the nanny state will dictate how you work..And they did throw in a thirty minute potty break..
if we are gonna be ruled by a communist goverment then why dont doctors,lawers,farmers and everybody else have to be regulated how long you can work? i love my country but i hate my goverment!!!!!!!!!!
That will never happen cause the big companies like J.B.,Swift,and schneider won’t support it.I think those assholes in Washington need to get in a truck and see what it’s like before they mess with the truckers.
Sounds like a plan. What are they thinking?
Thank God I retired last year and don’t have to put up with the government’s stupidity any long.They let people make rules that have no idea what it’s like to be a driver,they should make them live on the road with a driver for a month then they would see what their stupidity does to people’s live’s.They want you to drive when your tired and sleep when your wide awake then they bitch because driver’s have accident’s.
Ray LaHood is an idiot, these aholes in DC do not have a clue as to what drivers need as far as rest and what causes fatigue. Sitting in your truck even longer away from home worrying about the money you’re losing and how you’re going to feed your family is more fatiging than driving twelve more hours a week. LaHood, Ferro, and all FMCSA people are IDIOTS
they need to get there heads out of there but 58 years drivering
A vote for Ron Paul is a vote against this sort of foolishness
THE ONLY THING THAT WILL EVER WORK IS A ALL TRUCK SHUT DOWN UNTIL THEY LISTEN TO US.. We all talk about it but we never do it afraid of losing a customer or loss of money.. The way I see it we will be losing money any way ( 12hrs = about 675 miles or a load or two a week for regional movers) add that up for a year!!! If we dont act the only choice our shippers will have is to add trucks more truck means more chances of saftey issues more trucks = more pollution more fuel consumption higher fuel prices!!!
look i dont like the feds. buy you have to admit that there is drivers that r as rouge as hell. we have bad drivers out there as well as good ones. do as the feds say or they can make your life as bad as they want.a shut down get real, big companys wont do it and indpt drivers dont have the ass/or balls to do it .quit bitchen like a girl
I sure as hell would like to know when these idiots in our goverment (fmcsa specificly ) are going to grow a set a balls and and do the right the right thing for a change, the previous rules worked great,the trucking industrys safty rating is the best in the world, but these idiots cant see that i have driven for 30 yrs 4.5 million miles no accidents i pride myself in being a very very safe driver as of now i no longer drive. I quit iam tired of getting kicked in the teeth for doing a very good job for this country and i,am very sure i,am not alone in that feeling, ray lahood and all the other assholes in the fmcsa and all the gd so called safty advocates can kiss my ass!!
As a local driver, the 70 hour max rule doesn’t affect me as much as it will affect the over-the-road drivers. But what does really screw me up is the two night rest period. I work graveyards so that rule effectively removes 800 dollars a month from my income because I usually work 6 days a week. So the “safety” groups got what they wanted. But I bet that they won’t be happy and a new lawsuit will follow shortly.
Ditto here we run 6 days on an evening run shuttling van trailers so the guy on the other end can deliver…..this will kick us in the pants for restarts.
OMG these friggin idiots have no idea what this is going to do to the industry and also the cops trying to inforce the change. I swear I am so ready to just hang it up I can’t take much more of there BS.
IT IS TRUCKING NOT OFFICE WORK OR A @#$@$#$%$ FACTORY Job,keep caving in to busy bodies and unions and watch the wrecks happen.Narrowing a drivers ability to decide for himself how to do his day and disaster looms!It is NOT fatigue you deceitful Bastards,it is trying to run humans like robots.I am so tired of this baby sitter attitude this govt. has,sick of it 30 years and more of this crap!
I have never obeyed the stupid laws because they are unsafe,never hurt anyone no wrecks,With technology today the ability is there to moniter your every move.The only reason the roads are safe is because experienced drivers know to discard the rules and drive their way which is safer.Where is the media and why are they not talking to truckers(not just drivers)to get the straight scoop?every time they interview someone they search out the slowest prospect they can find for a comment.
As long as Paper pushers can make the rules for the Workers, Drivers well have this mentality that caves into any LAWYER or Orginazation that believes they no better then the Individual who has YEARS of experience, Ive never had a ticket, or accident or freight claim yet Im treated as If I dont understand the laws or If Im tired I should sleep, How about we pass some laws that enforce driver detention pay, or make shippers keep appointments, the time wasted weekly by many drivers waiting to pick up or unload is far worse, Lahood is an Idiot, His Lackys and fellow Corporate pencil pushers are Idiots, There arent enough quality, professional drivers lets make it harder now to retain them, add some CSA, Sleep Apnea, EOBRs, On Board Video and NO CELL PHONES and we all might as well park em. Maybe what truckers in this country need is some backbone to say GET OFF OUR BACK AND OUT OF MY TRUCK, If my driving record is good, I dont need the Governemtn to attempt to Improve my quality of Life. BAH HUMBUG LAHOOD !!!!!
I have been driving for 16 years thanks the Lord never had a major accident. I’m a owner/op.; with own authority. And the only thing this will do to me is cutting my income. It will not help to get more rest this country is becoming more and more a comunist country I agree with all of you they want to tell us even when to go to the bathroom. I will support stopping our trucks and let them drive!.
The bleeding hearts the government is listening to are funded by the railroad, it used to scroll across the bottom of the screen on their commercials.
The other side of this goes right along with the current regimes policy of, We won the election and we will do what we want and you will live with it. So far everyrhing the people have come out against they have passed anyway.
It is time the people reminded them that they are just employees and the people are the boss and they will do what they are told.
Lahood and the fmcsa have just undone what we have worked to accompolish for the last twenty years.
You will see another exodus of the experienced drivers form the industry and we will be left with the school graduates who havent figured out that you learn from the older drivers and you learn something new everyday or that truck will kill you and other people.
We have until july of 2013 to get this corrected before we have to comply but it will be a fight.
Well once again we’ve sat back and bitched at each other rather than did something constructive. We can gripe and complain about the FMSCA all we want but the truth is we keep voting/or not voting and refuse to stand up in a real unified manner and use out unified voices.
all the whining and complaining in truckstops and on web sites is just that whining.
You guys/gals need to grow some backbone and quit this!!! Take a stand! Unified we get something / divided we are just bitching!!
This whole hrs of service things just bizarre to me-it’s so simple to fix !
12 on and 12 off
i been working the 70 hr week since i started driving didnt know you could do 82 hrs in a week
I think this new HOS thing is confusing. These people in the government need to be experienced truck drivers in order to be one of the people making up this stupid confusing bullshit rules. I also believe that if all of us truckers just saif the hell with everyone and every last one of us stopped driving as sort of a strike against this crap that eventually they would freak out if they didn’t get their clothes and food and whatnot.
That a new one for me, I did not know that we could work 82 a week. I always the 70 hours rule. I know of the 60 hours and 70 hours rule, were did the 82 hour come from. What can i say i just a truck diver
Michael, you can be ‘on duty’ 14 hour sand take your ten hour break and run 14 again. If you start at 8 AM monday, at 10 PM Friday, you will have 70 hours in…take 36 consecutive off and you can run 14 hours Sunday…that 84 hours in 7 days.
sorry…82
having a senior moment…84 in 8 days
Back to my comments-
My idea is simple-12 on duty and 12 off duty for singles – and a mandatory 72 consecutive hrs off after 120 in 10 days.
Teams split 6 on and 6 off-can anyone acually stay in a sleeper 10 hrs in a moving truck?? Not me!
Lets see if I got this rigth… Safest hwy in how long? And now you want to do what? A doctor can work 24 hrs straight during an operation to save someone’s life, though he can’t think for himself after 16 hrs straight.. A patrol officer works an average of 16 hr shifts and uses a laptop while driving..lawyers work round the clock to change laws they know nothing about..Why is it that our bodies are suppose to work like robots and everyone else;s isn’t? I been a driver for 16 yrs, an o/o for 14, and my own athority for 6 yrs. Have had 0 claims or accidents in over 14 yrs. Someone please tell me what I am doing wrong. LaHood climb in a truck for wk..see how we are trated at the shippers and recievers, see who cuts who off on the hwy, see who’s not home on the wkend or holidays, see who has more patience than most and gets treated like you are less than.. We put up with alot to keep this country moving,just like others who keep it safe. Give us the same respect that you want, let us work when we are able NOT when someone else thiks it is.. We know are how are bodies work YOU don’t!!
Get used to being screwed by the government boys! I have 32 years out here and it is a mix of local and OTR. The government has regulated fuel to the point my old (1998) Detroit will barely run without some kind of additive to put back what I pay extra for them to take out per EPA regs. And the new engines, well most of them require hog piss(urea or DEF fluid) to meet regs, HOG PISS!!!!!!!!!Hours of service changes so many times…who can keep up. On board recorders…might as well all be converted to non thinking meat in the seat steering wheel holder robots.These EORB are just there so DOT and lawyers have another tool in the arsenal against us drivers(the safest in the world BTW) and can use them to check our logs or as a means of extracting more money in a law suit. The good times of making money in this business are nearly over, too many folks have put their hand in our pocket. Have you ever stopped to figure out how much it costs to put a truck and trailer on the road,what with plates, permits, 2290, UCR, IFTA, rising insurance costs, rising fuel prices, tire costs too, then some high school kid working at a brokers office offers freight for $1.00 to $1.50 a mile that either needs tarped or some other special services and can’t understand why I need more!!!!!! I got a buck a mile back in 70′s when fuel was .29 9/10 a gallon. Oh sure I get almost twice the mileage I used to but at nearly $4.00 a gallon we have too. Perhaps the answer is simple here….put a few ex-truckers in office and at FMSCA maybe then the boys in the suits will loosen the ties and let some blood get to the brain and make a few smart decisions. I am one of lucky ones, I have lived through the “good times” in our industy and am damn glad for it, things will only get better when we vote out idiots and make our voices heard at FHWA and FMCSA. By the way ATA does NOT represent my views and never has, The ATA is NOT truckers who work out on the road its CEO’s, CFO’s,and other reps from large companies who stand to profit by choking us litte guys out. Wise up, Drive safe, and Merry Christmas!
P.S. Christmas is my holiday, if you find it offensive then shut up and go have your own celebration, Christ is my Savior and I am not giving Him up for your petty sensibilities. You have your rights and I have mine. This is the United States of America and that is how it works here ….get over it or get out!
Craig: GOD BLESS MERRY CHRISTMAS
AMEN brother and A MERRY CHRISTMAS to you
Just read the new rule on the FMCSA websire. It is really well organized and easy to read. i don’t like the new 34 hour restart rule. But, I understand their reasoning. It does not take effect until 2013. Hoefully, we can get them to amend it. Wish they had given us flex on the 14 hour rule that they were considering.
I don’t have a problem with the new rule personally. I already operate somewhat, within these hrs. anyway. But, to make it mandatory for all truckers to take an early morning break at least twice a week, seems impossible, due to lack of parking. The majority of drivers, drive during the day and rest through the night and early morning hrs. and already face a parking dilema. There is a minority that prefer to drive at night and rest during daylight hrs. to have both groups trying to find parking during the same 4 hr. window seems impossible.
Furthermore, I know the FMCSA is focused on safety. If they really want to make a difference on the highways of this country, they should start educating the average driver as to whats going on out here. Most of them don’t have a clue. Just because they pass a driving test, doesn’t make them good drivers. It’s already been proven that the average driver cause more accidents than CDL drivers do. Start regulating them, and leave us CDL drivers free to do our jobs.
I see it as the fmcsa has handed all of us a pay cut in the name of safety.
Until we all get enough balls to stand together and make a stand against this type of crap they are just going to keep walking over us.Hell we’re easy money to them they know we are to chick in-shit to stand up to them so they do what they want.Come on people we have to make this stop
The Only Way to get these safety groups and the fmcsa out of our business..Is to get congress to take this up..make the changes we need..and make it LAW…
Im glad I sold my trucks last april. Just like the military they generalize everything. Some drive better at night. Everyone is different. All they do now is force drivers to drive tired!!!! I felt so much safer when i could pull over and sleep and not cut my self short on drive time. Id sleep 5 drive 5 sleep 5 drive 6 and stay within my 11 and never once drove tired!!
This is enough of the old BS,WE SHOULD ALL QUIT AND TELL THEM TO SHOVE IT.
“the culmination of the most extensive and transparent public outreach effort”
More propaganda!
The only fatal i’ve recently seen was caused by a fool in a car cutting off a truck causing it to flip and burn resulting in the death of the driver and his pregnant girlfriend minding their own business @ 6:30am on 95 in CT.INSANE!
Don’t worry folks. This just means the rates will go up for everybody and we will get more money for working fewer hours RIGHT??
And will our friends from South of the Border have to follow these rules too???
Quit Bitchin about it and do some thing about it!!!!! PARK THEM UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE!!!! for the change we need NOT them
I hope all trucking companies will increase their rates by 12 percent to offset the money the idiots sitting behind the desks just took out of our pockets. The idiots don’t even have the brains to realize they just increased our day on the road by 30 minutes.
we finally get going with the last change, the country is in financial disaster and they think it’s a good idea to spend who knows how much to fix something that’s not broken. they should leave it alone and fix the whitehouse. just let them truckers roll 10-4
This why I want out of this business after 27 years the regulations get worse and worse I hate it anymore
I suppose I can as easily ignore the latest missive from FMCSA as well as I have ignored the rest for the past 25 years of accident free driving. Remember folks, most DOT officers aren’t that smart and are easily fooled. KEEP ON TRUCKIN’!!!!
this is not going to work its harressment by the fmcsa. How can you regulate one person (the truck driver) and not anyone else, the ploice can work double shifts, the fireman can work doubles, the house wife can work 24 hour shifts. the govt. can go to work at 7:30 in the morning and be there for 8 hours then go to the bar and have a few drinks with their buddies (lets say 4 hours at the bar) lets say its 30 min. drive from home to work then 15 to the bard then 45 wack home so when they get back home their wife wants to go out to eat so away they go for something to eat then a couples more drinks them have to drive home again. how manny get pulled over and get away with drunk driving because they work for the govt?if truckers are to be regulated then regulate veryone in the U.S. its discrimination. its time to stand up and do whats right
HHMMm, I just wonder what will happen when the number of accidents goes thru the roof due to tired drivers. There is gonna be an all time record number of fatigued drivers out there .None of this due to any doing of there own. mother nature gave us a body clock.It’s just that simple,you cant force a human to work night shift if they cant handle it.You cant force some people to work daylight hours.What will they do when mass numbers of people die..How will they regulate us then..The parking issue is an issue they purposely ignore.More and more shippers and recievers are forcing drivers to leave after loading and unloading.If i had the money to start a coalition to organize the truckers and get some response to get some unity going,along with enough members to all take a 34 hr restart at same time i do believe that would be sufficent .It could possibly take a little longer,but i think 34 hrs without any trucks moving.That would get there attention…
I have been an o/o on my own for some time. the way I see it the harder I run the harder I have to run. So one way to protest this hours of service rule is to just slow everything down, we all know it is hard to stage a complete shut down so why not just s-l-o-w—d-o-w-n. We just might get some atention and then we might just get a complete shut down. Run 50 hrs a week not 70 do 3 1to5 periods before restart preferably @ home.
DOGMAN SAYS
WHAT DID YOU ALL EXPECT WOULD HAPPEN WITH THIS LIBERAL-FIED GOVERMENT THATS SLIMED ITS WAY INTO DC. THEY HAVE A LOT O NERVE,SCREWING WITH THE TRUCKING INDUSTRY.OUR ECONOMY IS IN THE TANK,JOBS ARE BEING SHIPED OVERSEAS BY THE THOUSANDS.YOU WOULD THINK THEY WOULD HAVE OTHER THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT.IF THE GENERAL PUBLIC UNDERSTOOD WHAT DC WAS DOING THEIR WOULD BE MORE PUBLIC OUTCRY.WHEN OUR RATES GO UP PRICES IN THE STORES WILL RISE.
Ladies and gentlemen, I agree almost completely. May I offer a solution for complete compliance. A safety seminar for 7 days nation wide. ALL drivers and dispatchers to attend in closest cities. Speakers and instructors from FMCSA, EPA, DOT, DPS, etc. will address us and share the concepts of safety and efficiency, and openly recieve feedback from experienced drivers, and have these drivers work with new drivers, very productive. For the first two days p.o.v.’s will have that extra freedom on the road unencumbered with cmv’s,and then the inevitable, they run out of gas, grocers are out of food, no fuel to the airports or train terminals, or mines. Could it be that while the safest truckers in the world are learning the mandated safety laws, the country comes to a stop? Could it be that while the truckers are at the seminar, the power goes out?….
Yep, those who can’t, teach. Sit behind a desk and tell drivers how to run. IF all could stop for just a week, the results would be amazing but so many are living from paycheck to paycheck they are afraid to. You know trucking is truly THE BIGGEST business in this country. There is nothing that does not depend on trucking. So why are we treated this way?
Because we can’t get together and go on strike and let the system colapse.
Very sad.
[...] on it here in the comments or by email: tdills [at] rrpub.com. For all who’ve weighed on the Overdrive news piece already, thank you for all the thoughts. Let’s keep the conversation going, there or here. [...]
They need to regulate the shippers and receivers. The way they steal our money for lumper services and the time they tie us up sitting around waiting on them to take their sweet time is causing us to break the law with our log books. As for the 30 minute time break, the government is treating us like kindergarden children and telling us its time to take a nap. Its just another example of people sitting behind a desk and not knowing how the real world operates. Maybe they should get in a truck for a month and get out there and see whats going on and then make a decision on telling us what to do.
I sure am glad I am not owner opp any more. I drive for a company as a dedicated driver out of A.B. Brewery and this B.S will not effect me as I am home every nite and work every other sat. But I feel for those whom it will effect. For goodness sake I do not know how many different DOT / State Troopers I asked and they could not even explain to me SPLIT SLEEPER BERTH. How in the world does any one expect them to explain any new laws these insane people keep coming up with that most if not all have never driven a semi??? and they have no clue as to what they are making laws and policies for???
It almost seems as if thay are trying to do away with any driver of value and all that will be left will be illegal aliens that will drive for .10 cent a mile. Maybe that is what they want.
@ Chambliss Trucking: “…why are we treated this way?”
Are you serious? Well, since you obviously don’t know, I invite you to put down your cell phone, turn off the satellite radio, and turn on your CB…especially in a traffic jam or near a group of major truck stops. Also, take notice of the inconsiderate jackasses that pass you and never give a signal all because you didn’t give them the lights to come back over? Or, how about that jackass that is loaded heavy following another heavy truck and waits until right before someone is getting ready to pass before cutting them off just so he can run the same speed he was running when he was behind the other heavy truck. To this day I still haven’t figured that one out.
Have you been in a TV room lately at one of the truck stops? The smell is ungodly! But I guarantee if the subject of showers comes up in there you will hear some idiot say that he doesn’t have time to take a shower because he has to run twelve and a half log books, but yet he has time to sit there and run his mouth through an entire movie…or two…or three.
Well, I am going to quit there because I’m quite sure you know exactly why we are treated this way. This is the way the children, the ignorant, the uneducated, and the crazy are treated. We are treated this way because our government knows that we, as an industry, will do nothing but piss, moan, and groan all while continuing to do what this country has come to expect of us—deliver their freight and stay the hell out of their way!