Legislative Alert: Hours of Service

By Craig Piercy, ACPA Washington Advocate

I suspect that if you are a concrete pump owner and you are reading this, you have had some run-in with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administrations (FMCSA) Hours of Service of Drivers (HOS) regulations. On one hand, it's obviously not in the public interest to have severely-fatigued people operating heavy machinery on public highways. On the other hand, like most federal regulations, HOS takes a policy targeted at long-haul trucking drivers and applies it across the transportation sector in a one-size-fits-all manner, which can create significant disruptions on the job site for concrete pumpers.

Hours of service regulations were first established by the federal government in 1939, and remained untouched until January 2004, when the DOT published a new rule that incorporated the latest research on human fatigue and alertness. Legal challenges over the next several years prompted numerous reviews and revision, but by September 2010, updated statistics showed that since the rule's implementation, the number of truck-involved traffic fatalities had dropped to the lowest level in recorded history-a 33 percent decrease from the 2004 levels. HOS rules have continued to be updated, most recently in 2013, and remain a measure that if implemented properly can be life-saving. Unfortunately, the rules have also grown more complex with each writing, making compliance a more challenging task, and disproportionately impacting smaller companies.

The ACPA has begun a comprehensive examination of this issue, with an eye toward understanding the concrete pump-specific impact of the current FMCSA regulations and exploring the possible legislative and regulatory avenues available for relief. The first step in the process is developing a detailed understanding of precisely which portion of the rules create the most havoc at the job site for concrete pump owners and operators. There are two major areas of concern.

The 100 air-mile exemption and the 30-minute break

The current hours of services rules require that drivers keep a detailed Record of Duty Status (RODS) log to track their hours on duty, miles driven and their mandatory off-duty periods. However, drivers operating within a 100 air-mile radius of their work reporting location do not have to keep a RODS log nor must they take a mandatory 30-minute rest break every eight hours, so long as they return to the work reporting location and are released within 12 consecutive hours. The problem starts when a pump operator, working under the 100 air-mile exemption, exceeds the 12-hour threshold. This could happen under a variety of common circumstances, such as delays in the start time of a pour. At that point, he has not kept a RODS nor taken a 30-minute break, and thus has technically violated federal regulations, even though he had no intention of doing so.

The 14-hour duty limit  

Current FMCSA regulations limit commercial drivers to no more than 14 hours of consecutive on-duty time, of which no more than 11 hours can be spent driving.  The time it takes for an operator to drive to a job site, set up the equipment, complete the pour and drive back to the garage can sometimes exceed the 14 hours. Now, the operator is stuck in a logistical dilemma. He cannot leave the pump on site, but he also cannot drive the pump back to the garage without going over the hours of service restrictions. The operator could drive his own car home, but that would require having two operators on duty to get the personal car to the job site and to get the concrete pump back to the garage, necessitating two people for what should be a one-man job.

Possible solutions  

The FMCSA has an established process for considering applications by a company or industry organization for exemptions to the HOS regulation. The petitioning organization must convince the government that its proposed change to the regulations would not have an adverse impact on public safety. However, if successful, the FMCSA can grant specific exemptions for up to two years, and can renew them going forward. 

ACPA member Input needed  

We have to look before we leap. Several ACPA members have offered to provide documentation of their operational activities to determine which parts of the hours of service rules are most restrictive. That said, we are looking for more information so that we can better direct our efforts. Have you ever been audited or penalized by the FMCSA or a state authority? Have you been able to find effective hours of service workarounds? Let us know. We will treat all the information we receive with strict confidentiality. Please contact Christi Collins of the ACPA National Office at (614) 431-5618.