Trucking Hours-of-Service Regulations: Good Law Going Bad
Driver fatigue and drowsiness are both conditions that can have a deadly impact on a commercial truck driver's ability to wield and maintain proper control of his or her vehicle. If control is lost, St. Louis truck accidents happen. With over 4,350 large truck accidents a year, it is important to make sure truckers are not avoiding sleep to stay on the road.
In order to tame this problem, in 1937 the Federal Government began regulating the amount of hours truck drivers are allowed to work in one time span. Referred to as the hours-of-service regulations, the Interstate Commerce Commission required truck drivers to work on a 24-hour cycle, limiting a driver's maximum drive time to 10 hours and requiring the driver to stop after 10 and rest for at least 8. There was also a cap put on the maximum amount of drive time one could accrue over several consecutive days. Truckers were allowed to drive 60 hours over 7 consecutive days and 70 hours over 8.
Many debates regarding the appropriate time limits have taken place over the past 70 years; however, in 2005, new rules dramatically increased the maximum driving hours. Today, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), part of the United States Department of Transportation, is the agency in charge of enforcing the hours-of-service regulations. The new rules allow a truck driver an 11 hour daily driving limit and a 14 hour daily duty limit, thus providing the driver an extra hour of driving and 3 additional hours to be working during the day, as long as he or she is not driving during those 3 hours.
The new rules extended the amount of time a driver can be awake and still working, while maintaining the required down time at only 10 hours. The 60/70 consecutive days limits were kept; however, a loophole, referred to as a 34-hour restart, was added. This restart provision allows a driver's maximum consecutive hours to restart if he or she has taken a 34-hour break in between time off and time on the clock.
The FMCSA must not think that driving for 11 hours will make a person fatigued; however, a study conducted in 1990, by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), to assess the role of alcohol and drugs in truck accidents in Missouri found that the most commonly cited cause of a fatal truck accident was, in fact, fatigue. The NTSB concluded, "the 31-percent incident of fatigue in fatal-to-the-truck driver accidents found in the 1990 study represents a valid estimate of the portion of fatal-to-the-driver heavy truck accidents that are fatigue-related."
Many factors influence driver fatigue. One could be that truckers are encouraged to drive longer hours, with shorter breaks, to increase their incomes. Another might be a driver wanting to get home for the weekend or keep trucking to avoid traffic. With so many uncertainties, one thing is for sure; with more truckers on the road driving longer hours, the possibility of fatigue and Missouri truck accidents increases.
At Page Cagle, one of the first things we look for when helping a person who has been injured in a trucking accident is whether fatigue played a role in causing the collision. If you or anyone you know has been injured in a truck related accident, please call John Page at Page Cagle for a free consultation with one of our St. Louis truck accident lawyers. John can be reached by calling 1.800.500.4658 or 314.322.8515. He can also be reached by email at john@pagecagle.com.
