The Truck Safety Coalition, including Parents Against Tired Truckers (P.A.T.T.) and Citizens for Reliable And Safe Highways (CRASH), claim the revised final hours-of-service rules ignore truck safety issues.
The groups said the new HOS rules, proposed last week by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), will not reduce fatigue by allowing 11 hours of consecutive driving time with no requirement for on-board recording devices.
The two organizations say such devices are necessary ensure enforcement.
"Decades of research, both on commercial drivers and shift workers, has shown that increasing the length of time a worker must spend performing certain tasks correspondingly reduces alertness and performance," the coalition wrote. "This leads to an increased risk of worker deaths and injuries, as well as driver errors such as motor vehicle crashes.
"Under this final HOS rule, truck drivers will be forced to deal with personal and family matters and get sufficient sleep to restore alertness and safe driving performance in as little as 10 hours each day. This is an unrealistic demand and will likely result in insufficient quality sleep and increased crash risk."
The coalition said FMCSA's exclusion of on-board recording devices, "only goes to illustrate the agency's reluctance to meaningfully enforce its own proposed HOS rule changes. In 2000, the FMCSA admitted that commercial driver paper logbooks were widely falsified and that a high percentage of drivers routinely violated the maximum number of driving hours permitted."
Drivers themselves have admitted this fact in independent surveys, such as the survey published by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the group said.
"Increasing the number of consecutive hours that commercial drivers are permitted to operate their trucks is clearly an effort to trade off trucking industry economic interests against improved safety, an action that violates congressional instruction and intent."
The truck safety advocates did claim a few victories in the dispute, recalling the original HOS rule proposal from the FMCSA would have extended the consecutive driving time to 12 hours.
"With the support of truck safety advocates around the nation, we were able to get this decreased to 11 hours," the groups wrote. "Additionally, the new rule moves the trucking industry towards an appreciation for a drivers circadian rhythm, which is the foundation for normal sleep patterns in people."
P.A.T.T. and CRASH vowed that, over the next few months, they will make a requirement for on-board recording devices to monitor driving hours a top priority with the Department of Transportation and Congress.
"The National Transportation Safety Board (NTBS) has repeatedly called on the FMCSA to ensure HOS compliance by requiring the installation and use of on-board electronic recorders. P.A.T.T. and CRASH will continue to support this position."
The groups said the new HOS rules, proposed last week by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), will not reduce fatigue by allowing 11 hours of consecutive driving time with no requirement for on-board recording devices.
The two organizations say such devices are necessary ensure enforcement.
"Decades of research, both on commercial drivers and shift workers, has shown that increasing the length of time a worker must spend performing certain tasks correspondingly reduces alertness and performance," the coalition wrote. "This leads to an increased risk of worker deaths and injuries, as well as driver errors such as motor vehicle crashes.
"Under this final HOS rule, truck drivers will be forced to deal with personal and family matters and get sufficient sleep to restore alertness and safe driving performance in as little as 10 hours each day. This is an unrealistic demand and will likely result in insufficient quality sleep and increased crash risk."
The coalition said FMCSA's exclusion of on-board recording devices, "only goes to illustrate the agency's reluctance to meaningfully enforce its own proposed HOS rule changes. In 2000, the FMCSA admitted that commercial driver paper logbooks were widely falsified and that a high percentage of drivers routinely violated the maximum number of driving hours permitted."
Drivers themselves have admitted this fact in independent surveys, such as the survey published by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the group said.
"Increasing the number of consecutive hours that commercial drivers are permitted to operate their trucks is clearly an effort to trade off trucking industry economic interests against improved safety, an action that violates congressional instruction and intent."
The truck safety advocates did claim a few victories in the dispute, recalling the original HOS rule proposal from the FMCSA would have extended the consecutive driving time to 12 hours.
"With the support of truck safety advocates around the nation, we were able to get this decreased to 11 hours," the groups wrote. "Additionally, the new rule moves the trucking industry towards an appreciation for a drivers circadian rhythm, which is the foundation for normal sleep patterns in people."
P.A.T.T. and CRASH vowed that, over the next few months, they will make a requirement for on-board recording devices to monitor driving hours a top priority with the Department of Transportation and Congress.
"The National Transportation Safety Board (NTBS) has repeatedly called on the FMCSA to ensure HOS compliance by requiring the installation and use of on-board electronic recorders. P.A.T.T. and CRASH will continue to support this position."
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