How might truckers get back a measure of flexibility in the hours of service rules, such as that enjoyed by so many owner-operators of past generations? Namely, I'm referring there to the ability to split the 10-hour required rest period into two periods of any length they want. That’s the split sleeper berth option favored by a whopping 88% of readers who responded to Overdrive polling around the subject this time last year, with results published earlier in the year showing most readers wanted to be able to split as they saw fit, fundamentally.
Since the hard 14-hour daily duty maximum came into play more than two decades ago, greater duty-window and/or rest-period flexibility has been owner-operators' cardinal ask of regulators when it comes to the hours of service. When the electronic logging device mandate came into play in 2017, that ask only got more urgent, too.
After trucker appreciation week last week, we might see a bit of a clearer path forward. In this Overdrive Radio edition, Chief Editor Todd Dills and Senior Editor Matt Cole break down the details of the formal federal announcement to start the appreciation week of two proposed pilot programs to fully test the safety efficacy of two options for split flexibility:
- The split-as-you-see-fit option of up to 5/5-hour sleeper splits
- A daily up-to-three-hour pause button, so to speak, for the 14-hour clock.
It's not often we start the annual appreciation week with something other than a free soda at a truck stop or other deal from a vendor or supplier to write about. Yet for Cole the news wasn't entirely unexpected. The formal proposals had been teased back in June as part of what the DOT called a “Pro Trucker” package of efforts. The formal proposals open up a comment period on how regulators might set up and conduct the programs, each of which will be open to more than 250 drivers to participate.
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Absent Congressional directive to take regulatory action, further hours flexibilities for all drivers aren’t likely in the cards before the next decade rolls around after these studies conclude -- depending on results, of course. That timeline takes us into whatever administration follows the current one.
"Personally I don't see this as necessarily a partisan issue," said Cole. "If a Democratic administration were to come in" when 2029 rolls around, he felt FMCSA wouldn't be likely to wholesale abandon work put into potential new flexibilities. After all, some of groundwork for the 2020 split-sleeper enhancements was laid under the Obama administration.
[Related: Flexible split sleeper exemption extended another four years]
If these two studies show positive or even neutral safety impacts for participating truckers, it could really get things moving toward change for the next administration's FMCSA.
**Read and comment on the proposals, through mid-November. Split-sleeper comments can be filed here, while split-duty period comments can be filed here.
**More on the 2020 split-sleeper change, which itself offered a boost in duty-pause and split flexibility, via this link.
