Truck Injury Lawyer Blog : Truck Accident Lawyer & Attorney: Morgan Adams : Contingency Fee Truck Accident Lawyer

I thought the new Hours of Service (HOS) Regulations made sense, and that there wouldn't be much controversy about the new regulations. After all, the new regulation just put back into place the old rule. The old rule required drivers of 80,000 pound tractor trailers to stop after driving 10 hours.  The law was changed under President Bush to allow truckers to drive 11 hours, an extra hour over the prior regulations. So the proposed regulations just put things back the way they were. No harm, no foul, the government gets a do over because they messed up when they extended the HOS to 11 hours. Not a controversial move I thought when I first read it. WOW was I wrong! The trucking companies hate this proposal.

But why? Studies, such as the Penn State study (“On the Relationship of Crash Risk and Driver Hours of Service”) presented by Dr. Paul Jovanisat the 2005 International Truck & Bus Safety Security Symposium in Alexandria, Va. have shown that " the crash risk is statistically similar for the first six hours of driving and then increases in significant steps thereafter. The 11th hour has a crash risk more than three times the first hour."  The 11th hour of driving is therefore 300 percent more dangerous than the first hour of driving. Of course the longer a truck is in motion the more money the trucking company makes. Should those profits really come at our, the public's, expense? 

Don Schneider was able to make the Forbes 400 list as a Billionaire as the owner of Schneider trucking. Perhaps an industry that creates BILLIONAIRES can think about public safety... at least this once? Most drivers would also appreciate being limited to 10 hours of driving. They know that 11 hours is to long to be on the road. There is a reason they call trucks rolling sweatshops. 

Here is hoping that the industry outcry doesn't overcome common sense on this. The 10 hour rule is far safer and simply puts the industry back where they were before the Bush expansion. It should be the law.

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The FMCSA and the trucking industry knows how dangerous sleep apnea is for a truck driver. The FMCSA states HERE that: 

Staying awake means staying alive. Sleep apnea is a major contributor to daytime drowsiness—a condition that could prove deadly for commercial truck drivers and everyone sharing the road with them. It is a condition where, during sleep, a narrowing or closure of the upper airway causes repeated sleep disturbances leading to poor sleep quality and excessive daytime sleepiness. Since excessive sleepiness can impact a driver’s ability to safely operate the commercial vehicle, it is important that drivers with sleep apnea are aware of the warning signs.

The research arm of the American Trucking Association (ATA), American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI), states that sleep apnea exists in almost 1/3 of commercial driver and contributes to wrecks. See the white paper HERE.

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One of the startling numbers that have been released from the 2010 Roadcheck was that violations for false logs were up over 18% from 2009. I have previously blogged about the problems with false logs and how tired truckers are dangerous truckers who are 2.5 times more likely to be in a wreck. While electric on-board recorders (EOBR's) are a long way from perfect, they will surely be better than the method we have now.

There are multiple other posts on this blog on the topics of fatigue, sleep apnea, and the dangers of tired truckers because so many people are killed each year as a result of these drivers trying to just get in a  few more miles. Drive safe and pull over when tired!

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Ken Shigley recently posted an entry on his trucking blog entitled  "Five common sense ideas for reducing the risk of truck driver fatigue." Ken has a lot of things right with this post but one thing I  believe is wrong is not asking for a 6th common sense reform, and that is simply to have drivers paid by the hour instead of by the mile.

Driving by the mile encourages drivers to push to make a few more dollars. Drivers are encouraged to push to exceed the hours of service requirements and push past the limits of safety. In fact trucking companies know this, government studies prove this, but companies still pay by the mile so that it is the driver that takes the risk of any slow down in on the highway due to construction or rush hour congestion. If the truck breaks down, the driver isn't paid until the problem is fixed. 

Perhaps because courts have held drivers who are paid hourly are entitled to overtime (Bostain v. Food Express, Inc.---P3d---, 2007 WL 611259 (Wash March 1, 2007), the Washington Supreme Court held that interstate truck drivers are entitled to overtime compensation for any hours worked in excess of 40 hours per week) trucking companies don't want to pay by the hour. Do you know that truck drivers have been exempted from the federal law that protects almost every other American worker from being overworked without fair pay, the Fair Labor Standards Act?

Paying by the mile also encourages speeding. After all, if you just go a bit faster you can travel more hours in your allotted number of driving hours and earn more money. Drivers also speed to make up the miles that were missed due to traffic, mechanical problems, or other delays.

If truck drivers were paid by the hour then the trucking company would assume the risk of any delay. The driver will get paid the same regardless so he is not given an incentive to speed or drive over his hours of service. Until the trucking industry faces this fact drivers will both continue to speed and drive past their hours of service. The wrecks due to speed and fatigue that could easily be prevented will continue, leading to more tragedies on our roads.  

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