ATA Urges Support for Strengthened HOS Restart Study Provision

The American Trucking Associations asked members of the House Appropriations Committee to support a stronger version of the bipartisan hours-of-service restart study requirement Congress approved last December.

The letter, signed by more than 120 other interested organizations, highlights the need for Congress to prevent the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration from what it calls “skewing results of its study to fit its own conclusions – conclusions that run counter to the industry’s experience under the agency’s onerous restart restrictions.”

“It would ensure that FMCSA’s study is representative of all drivers who use the restart provision and that it considers the full impact of putting more trucks onto the road during daytime traffic,” the letter said. “Moreover, the provision would prevent insignificant results from being used to justify wide-reaching regulations.”

Without the stronger language, ATA argued that FMCSA could be allowed to re-impose the restrictions once its current study is completed – even if that study shows the restart restrictions were overly constricting and harmful to public safety.

“We have said since Day One that FMCSA failed to do even the most cursory investigation of what these restrictions would mean for highway safety in the real world,” said ATA President and CEO Bill Graves. “The American public deserves to have these rules, which studies have shown raise crash risk on our highways, thoroughly and fairly examined. We urge the House Appropriations Committee to hold FMCSA’s feet to the fire until we get a full and fair analysis of the impacts of these restrictions.”

Category: Featured, General Update