Was trucking wrong about hours of service?

Updated Aug 19, 2013

hours night truck stopAccording to recent studies, forecasts on the impact the new hours of service rule will have on the industry may have been overstated and cell phones may not be the crash-causers most believe them to be. 

Overdrive sister site CCJ‘s Kevin Jones wrote a column about both studies this week, pointing to a study from Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany, that said the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration could have actually overestimated the the impact of the hours of service rule and underestimated its safety benefits.

What FMCSA didn’t take into consideration, says the study — and writes Jones, “There’s a catch, of course…” — Was the trucking industry’s ability to adapt to the rules.

Click here to see Jones’ full write-up and analysis on the studies, where he also touches on driver phone use, specifically a study from Carnegie Mellon’s Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences that “calls into question the effects” of cell phone use.