The Trucker Newspaper - September 15, 2018

8 • September 15-30, 2018 Nation Thetrucker.com T
The Trucker: KLINT LOWRY
FMCSA Administrator Ray Martinez talks with reporters about the agency’s recently announced
Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking concerning possible revisions to HOS,
and the hope for as much feedback as possible from drivers and other stakeholders.
b HOS from page 1 b
to keep this on the fast track.
“One of the things this agency has been accused
of, and other federal agencies have been
accused of, is moving at a snail’s pace, at a glacier’s
pace,” Martinez said.
“We want to move this along on a fast track.
I think we’re at a critical moment here. It’s
been 15 years since Hours of Service has been
seriously addressed. This is a critical, possibly
pivotal moment.”
The conditions under which drivers operate
have changed since HOS was introduced,
Martinez explained. Highway congestion has
increased, but at the same time the push is on
for ever-faster delivery.
“It’s also a very healthy time for the industry,”
he said, and there’s a need to make sure
drivers’ time can be utilized both safely and efficiently.
In his first six months on the job, he said, if
he had to boil down what he’s heard so far into
a single message, it’s that HOS is an extremely
important issue to everyone in the industry, and
the most important aspect of HOS that needs
to be addressed is “flexibility, flexibility, flexibility.”
The ANPRM lays out possible changes to
four areas of HOS:
• Expanding the current 100 air-mile “shorthaul”
exemption from 12 hours on-duty to 14
hours on-duty in order to be consistent with the
rules for long-haul truck drivers
• Extending the current 14-hour, on-duty
limitation by up to two hours when a truck
driver encounters adverse driving conditions
• Revising the current mandatory 30-minute
break for truck drivers after 8 hours of continuous
driving, and
• Reinstating the option for splitting up the
required 10-hour off-duty rest break for drivers
operating trucks that are equipped with a
sleeper-berth compartment.
“These are the things we’re hearing when
talking with drivers and carriers,” Martinez
said.
The ANPRM also seeks feedback on two
recently submitted petitions requesting regulatory
relief from HOS rules pertaining to the 14-
hour on-duty limitation and pertaining to the
10-hour off-duty requirement.
What’s important at this stage, Martinez
said, is that the agency gets the feedback it
needs to move forward.
“Give us the information you think would
be relevant to making a decision — and this is
critical — whether we move forward with this
ANPRM. And if we do, what we would include
in it and why.”
Martinez emphasized the word “whether,”
he explained, because he wants to make sure
people don’t assume that now that the process
has begun that these changes are a done deal.
“It only happens if there’s participation and
good information is provided,” he said.
As much as everyone would like to see
changes as quickly as possible, he said, there is
no “magic wand” for government regulations.
There’s a step-by-step process.
“It starts by listening informally and then
taking it through the regulatory process,” he
said.
In particular, he said, last year’s runup
to the ELD mandate put HOS under a more
intense microscope, and the hope is that carriers,
associations or universities that have
compiled data that can shed some light on
these particular issues will share it.
From FMCSA’s perspective, the key to
considering making these changes to HOS
must be done “through the lens of safety,” he
said.
“Give us the information you think would be relevant
to making a decision — and this is critical —
whether we move forward with this ANPRM. And if
we do, what we would include in it and why.”
— FMCSA Administrator Ray Martinez
The Trucker: KLINT LOWRY
A standing-room-only crowd participates in an FMCSA listening session at The Great
American Trucking Show about possible changes to HOS regulations.
“This is a great opportunity to leverage
what you’re getting. Anything that can educate
us about this would be helpful.
“I say ‘educate.’ Obviously, we’re familiar
with the issues, but this is the opportunity for
the broader public to comment.”
Martinez said he came to this session in
part because he likes to hear directly from the
people he serves. But he also wanted to emphasize
that the agency is committed to moving
on this as quickly as the process will allow,
and that FMCSA is genuinely interested
in hearing from as wide a swath of the trucking
community as possible.
The conference room at the Kay Bailey
Hutchison Convention Center could barely
contain the sampling of the trucking community
who wanted to sit in on this initial listening
session, which lasted about 90 minutes
with nearly two dozen getting up to say their
piece before the FMCSA panel.
FMCSA expects to have three more listening
sessions. The first was to be held September
14 at Department of Transportation
headquarters in Washington, D.C. Others are
tentatively planned to take place on the West
Coast and southern East Coast.
The ANPRM can also be viewed and comments
left at fmcsa.dot.gov/regulations/
hours-service-advanced-notice-proposedrulemaking.
As of September 5, 1,521 reactions had
been left online. In a phone interview, Martinez
was pleased with the quantity and quality
of the responses so far
“The level of engagement, I would classify
as being unusually high,” Martinez said.
“It’s the robust type of response that we were
looking for.”
Along with the volume of responses, Martinez
said, from the sampling he’s viewed
so far, the responses coming in have been
thoughtful and substantive.
“The theme of the need for flexibility is
coming through loud and clear,” he said.
Martinez said he didn’t want to go into too
much detail about the feedback, because he
doesn’t want to even inadvertently steer the
conversation.
“We want their insight, their experience
on how these possible changes in Hours of
Service rules relate to safety, because again,
that’s what we’re talking about here. How
would these things make the roads safer, how
it would make your jobs safer?”
He again encouraged drivers and carriers
to keep it coming.
“Provide us with thoughtful comments,
give us your experience on the road, how it
ties back to safety, because that allows us to
say this relates to safety.
“Over 1,500 comments is a good thing, but
there’s more than 1,500 truckers in the United
States,” he said, “This is the perfect time to
stand up and be counted.” 8