An online survey about the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s hours of service regulations shows three out of four drivers admit to have violated the agency’s hours of service regulations, and that 55 percent
said they’ll continue to deliberately violate the rules.
The survey, conducted by Ol’ Blue, USA on its web site at www.OlBlueUSA.org, was confidential and intended to obtain information on commercial drivers’ familiarity with the HOS regulations. The information gathered from the survey will be used to help Ol’ Blue, USA plan its future education programs and to make certain these programs provide the information and training that drivers want – and need – the most.
Of the 1,094 qualified respondents, 65 percent were company drivers, while 26 percent were leased owner-operators. Another 8 percent were independent owner-operators with their own authority, and 1 percent were involved in other occupations that require a CDL. The primary route these respondents traveled broke down to about 63 percent long haul (more than 500 miles from base), 32 percent regional (within 500 miles of base), 8 percent local (within 100 miles of base), and 3 percent of other types of routes. The total percentage exceeded 100% due to multiple route types. The results were tabulated by Crump & Associates, a market research company specializing in the transportation industry.
The survey revealed that the majority of drivers believe they understand the HOS regulations to an extent, but have questions. The “alarming, but not surprising” revelation, according to Ol’ Blue, USA officials was the fact that that 77 percent of the respondents admitted to deliberately violating the HOS regulations in the past, and that 55 percent said they were still deliberately violating the rules.
Drivers perceive that the most common (deliberate) violation is logging time as off-duty when actually on-duty (78 percent). Other common violations included using more than one logbook (21 percent), logging violations correctly in hopes that they will not be noticed (17 percent), and indicating that a team driver is operating the vehicle when they really are not (11 percent).
When asked how many days per month driver’s thought they were operating intentionally in violation of the HOS rules, the average answer was six days. When asked how many days per month they might be operating in violation of the regulations unintentionally, either by accident, oversight or honest mistake, the average answer was five days.
Nearly 17 percent of the respondents felt it necessary to violate the HOS rules in order to earn a reasonable income, while 38 percent strongly disagreed with that assumption. Thirty-eight percent said that their company expects them to violate the regulations as part of their job. Some 68 percent (31 percent somewhat and 37 percent strongly agree) thought that law enforcement officers do not know how to relate to commercial motor vehicle drivers.
Most drivers (60 percent) believe strongly that it is important to obey the rules, but 62 percent of those don’t know where to go to get answers to their questions about the HOS regulations. In the end, almost 70 percent of the respondents felt that the HOS regulations are difficult to understand and easy to violate accidentally.
To view the actual survey results, visit the Ol’ Blue, USA web site at www.olblueUSA.org/survey/.

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