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This lawyer thinks he has a good handle on what the court is looking for when the FMCSA comes back on the deadline on Aug 30. And it’s not a pretty picture for companies or drivers.

Opinion: There’s a Bad Moon on the Rise

If trucking companies, owner-operators and shippers did not like the hours-of-service regulations that went into effect Jan. 4, they could hate what the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration comes up with following the decision in Public Citizen v. FMCSA.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down the new HOS regulations because, it said, FMCSA failed to consider the effect of these regulations on the health of the driver, as required by statute.

There are many who think this is an easy problem to fix. Simply have FMCSA issue additional findings that say it has considered the health effects of the regulations and they have no adverse effect on driver health.

However, this approach ignores the bulk of the court’s opinion, in which the judges pointed out all the other problems they saw with the new rules and why they considered them to be arbitrary and capricious. Any one of these other problems would have been sufficient to declare the regulations void.

Even though the official ruling was about driver’s health, there’s more to the picture.
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Everyone remember Public Citizen? They’re the ones that sued to change the Hours of Service, then when FMCSA didn’t do it the way they wanted it done, they sued again.

It’s probably just me (again). As I was reading their web site and their press release about the decision a few things kept popping out at me. These are direct quotes from their site. They’re not supposed to be political. It’s all about safety, right?

In a major victory for the safety of motorists and truck drivers, a federal court on Friday unanimously struck down a Bush administration regulation

That may be innocent enough. Granted it was during the Bush Administration. But why mention it like that?
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U.S. Response to HOS Ruling Likely to Come Near Deadline

The federal government probably would wait until just before a 45-day court deadline expires before announcing its response to the court’s decision overturning its revised driver hours-of-service regulations, said Department of Justice officials.

“It will probably be very close to the deadline before we decide what to do,” said Mat-thew Collette, a Justice Department attorney who represented the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration before the federal appeals court that overturned the rules.

Likewise, Charles Miller, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said the decision on what to do could wait until “the night before the deadline.”

The agency has until Aug. 30 to respond to the court’s ruling.

In other words - They don’t have any freakin’ idea what they’re going to do.

ATA Conducting Hours-of-Service Survey

This decision, which has not yet gone into effect, will likely result in a renewed rulemaking process by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and could result in a transition back to the old HOS rules during this process.

To avoid unintended safety consequences and unnecessary costs to the trucking industry that could result from a transition back to the old rules, ATA will be urging the court to issue a “stay” of its decision. If granted, a “stay” would allow the new rules to remain in effect for a limited period of time during FMCSA’s rulemaking process.

The information requested in this survey will enable ATA to more effectively demonstrate to the court potential safety and cost implications of transitioning back to the old HOS rules.

Between this survey and whatever else the government and ATA has up their sleeves will prevent another “rule making process” and we can get back to driving and be done with this nonsense.

The Asian Pacific Post - Canada goes to Vietnam’s deadly roads to find truckers

About 200 truckers from Vietnam, reputed to have some of the world‘s deadliest drivers, will be behind big rigs on Canadian roads soon, The Asian Pacific Post has learned.

Ranked by the World Health Organization and the World Bank as having one of the highest road fatality rates in the world, Vietnam‘s road carnage is referred to an “epidemic“ of death and disability.

“I don‘t think this is a good idea,“ said Diep Trinh, president of the Vietnamese-Canadian Federation, the umbrella body which represents 14 provincial Vietnamese-Canadian associations with thousands of members.

Looking forward to seeing those 200 Viet-Canadian drivers in the USA?
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News

Pull in to any truck stop in Texoma and you`ll likely see, hear and even smell rows of semi trucks idling while their drivers take breaks. The Environmental Protection Agency announced recently that practice wastes tons of fuel and hurts air quality. The EPA estimates more than half a million long haul trucks idle eight hours a day, 300 days a year. A spokesperson with the EPA says, “When you add all that up, you start to rack up some serious pollution numbers. With 180,000 tons of nitrogen oxides every year.” The EPA says those emissions create ozone and smog. The agency also estimates idling trucks result in 960 million wasted gallons of diesel fuel every year.

It’s probably worse because you don’t just stop for 8 hours. Most stop longer, especially now since the mandatory break is now 10 hours.
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