In a new report to Congress, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration acknowledged that there has been a “significant increase” in post-crash inspections recording at least one out-of-service hours-of-service violation since the 2020 HOS changes.
Yet the agency contends HOS changes themselves cannot be established as cause for the increase.
- The new report was required by Congressional directive that FMCSA analyze impacts of the HOS regulations by comparing specified violation/crash data to data collected prior to the 2020 rule change.
- That 2020 HOS change added some split-sleeper flexibility, expanded the short-haul exemption, expanded the adverse driving conditions window, and changed the 30-minute break requirement.
- Among findings in the new report, FMCSA noted no statistically significant shift in pre- and post-change crashes and fatalities, yet demonstrated a significant decline in the injury rate.
Before Sept. 29, 2020, when the new rule went into effect, the rule only allowed drivers to split daily 10-hour off-duty breaks into 8- and 2-hour periods, as long as the eight-hour period was spent fully on the sleeper berth log line. The new rule brought on additional sleeper-split flexibilities by allowing for up to 7- and 3-hour periods, with an additional change: the shorter of the two periods no longer counts against the 14-hour daily on-duty window, perhaps the most significant of the changes.
In its first report to Congress on the results in 2023, FMCSA said HOS violations had seen a significant uptick, but crashes and fatalities were mostly flat. The agency then noted that “initial trends may have been confounded by the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on industry operations and FMCSA’s emergency declaration that provided HOS regulatory relief" to truckers hauling "in support of COVID-19 relief efforts.”
[Related: FMCSA to Congress: Safety impacts of 2020 HOS changes inconclusive so far]
For its new report, the agency analyzed inspection and crash data from two years before and after the 2020 changes.
FMCSA tracked no statistically significant shift in pre- and post-change crashes and fatalities. There was, however, a statistically significant decrease in injury rate in the post-crash period.
The number of single vehicle crashes -- a measure associated with fatigue, distraction, and impairment, the agency said -- increased in the post-HOS-change period, yet the crash rate shift wasn't statisticlally signficant either, FMCSA added.
“This finding may be partly due the influx of new carriers and drivers during the post-change period,” the agency said.
As noted above, the agency’s review of post-crash inspections showed a “statistically significant increase” in the number of post-crash inspections with at least one out-of-service (OOS) HOS violation -- increasing by 17.3% in the post-change period from the pre-change period. But FMCSA stopped short of directly delineating hours-regs changes as the cause of the increase.
While the average number of post-crash inspections per month was essentially flat from the pre-Sept. 2020 period, the number of inspections with an HOS violation (OOS or not) was higher post-2020.
“External factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on supply chains and the influx of new carriers and drivers during the post-change period may have influenced this finding,” the agency said.
FMCSA in its report to Congress noted the well-documented decline in overall monthly inspections in the post-change period during the pandemic, yet said the proportion of HOS violations and OOS HOS violations increased.
FMCSA reported a 12.5% increase in HOS violation rates and a 34.6% increase in OOS HOS violation rates. The agency said "the revisions to the HOS regulations did not reduce the enforcement rate of HOS violations; in fact, OOS violations increased" in 2020-'22 time period after the rule change.
Law enforcement activity around HOS has been on the rise in subsequent years. Overdrive sister data company RigDig's accounting of violations issued annually shows real numbers rising from slightly more than 410,000 HOS violations in 2023 to more than 500,000 last year nationwide.
With HOS violations measured as a percentage of all violations nationally, year 2026 further underscores the enforcement trend, with data current through most of February:
[Related: ELD tampering in the crosshairs for CVSA's annual Roadcheck blitz]
In the new report, FMCSA examined associations among driver crash involvement, driver HOS violation involvement, and the HOS rule change period, testing whether the effect of HOS violations on crash risk differed pre- and post-rule.
FMCSA found that drivers who have an HOS violation have a 66.4% greater chance of crash involvement than those without an HOS violation. Yet the rule-change period did not show a statistically significant association with crash involvement, indicating no difference in crash odds between pre- and post-rule periods. Increased crash risk associated with HOS violations, too, remained consistent across both pre- and post-rule periods.
For single-vehicle crashes, analysis found drivers with an HOS violation have a 62.5% higher chance of crashing compared to drivers without a violation, FMCSA said, also consistent pre- and post-rule.
Ultimately, FMCSA concluded, “commercial motor vehicle crash involvement is influenced by numerous exogenous and confounding factors, including the COVID pandemic and resulting supply chain pressures that affected motor carrier safety during the post-change period.”
To truly assess the impacts of the HOS changes, FMCSA recommended comparing “safety outcomes for carriers that adopted the new provisions against those that did not.” Today, though, “sufficient data to make this direct comparison" just aren't available, FMCSA said. “The macrotrend analysis comparing pre- and post-change periods is further limited by the narrow scope of the HOS changes and the presence of various other confounders.”
The Congressional report comes as FMCSA is exploring potential future HOS flexibility changes. The agency in March issued a call for a limited number of truck drivers to “pre-test” two previously-announced HOS pilot programs -- one that would allow a “split-as-you-see-fit” option of up to 5/5 sleeper-berth splits, another enabling drivers to pause their daily 14-hour clock for between 30 minutes and three hours each duty cycle.
[Related: FMCSA offers details on proposed HOS-flexibility pilot programs]
