News
T he Federal Motor Carrier Safe-ty Administration has decided to conduct another rulemaking re-garding hours-of-service regulations as part of an Oct. 26 settlement with groups challenging the current regulations. A federal appeals court has twice rejected hours rules FMCSA has im-plemented since January 2004, and several groups have been challeng-ing the current regulations for allow-ing 11 hours of driving per shift and a 34-hour restart of cumulative on-duty limits. The agreement with Public Cit-izen, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, the Truck Safety Coali-tion and the International Brother-hood of Teamsters places a hold on that litigation pending the comple-tion of a rulemaking on driver hours of service. Under terms of the settlement, FMCSA must begin a new rulemak-ing process and submit a notice of proposed rulemaking to the Office of Man-agement and Budget within nine months. The agency will have an-other 12 months to issue a final rule. Meanwhile, the current rules will re-main in effect. Safety is our highest priority at the U. S. Department of Transporta-tion, and so we believe that starting over and developing a rule that can help save lives is the smart thing to do, said U.S. Transportation Secre-tary Ray LaHood. The American Trucking Associa-tions said it looks forward to par-ticipating in the upcoming rule-making process to further demon-strate how the current hours rules are working and why they should be maintained. The current rules have been prov-en safe over the last five years, said Clayton Boyce, ATA vice president of public affairs. The crash rate, injury rate and fatality rate are all at historic lows. The science is on the side of the current hours-of-service rules. ATA noted that DOT figures show the trucking industry is the safest it has been since DOT began keeping crash statistics in 1975. Truck-in-volved fatalities have dropped by 19 percent since the new rules took ef-fect, and the number of injuries has decreased by 13 percent since 2004, ATA said. Over that period, the num-ber of registered trucks has risen by hundreds of thousands, while the number of miles driven by large trucks increased by more than 2 bil-lion miles. The settlement came one day be-fore FMCSA was to file its brief in the litigation over the hours rules. Revamping Hours FMCSA to reconsider HOS regs as part of suit settlement AVERY VISE FOR THE RECORD TRUCKING NEWS Senate Committee Approves Ferro The U.S. Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Oct. 27 approved the nomination of Anne Ferro to be administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration of the U.S. Department of Transporta-tion. Ferro must be approved by the full Senate, but a timetable had not been set at press time. August Surface Trade Declines Surface transportation trade among the United States, Canada and Mexico declined 24.9 percent in August from a year earlier, dropping to $54.3 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Transpor-tation. Trade rose 5.3 percent in August from July 2009. Total truck imports to the United States dropped 19.8 percent to $18.4 billion from a year earlier, while exports decreased 16.1 percent to $20.1 billion. U.S. Traffic Deaths Decline The number of traffic deaths on U.S. roads reached a record low in the first half of 2009, according to projec-tions released Friday, Oct. 9, by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Estimates show that 16,626 people died in traffic crashes between January and June a 7 percent decline from 17,871 for the same period last year. I-40 Remains Closed After Rockslide Interstate 40 is closed in North Carolina near the Ten-nessee state line due to an October rockslide that could take a couple more months to clear and repair the road. Motorists traveling west to Tennessee should take I-40 West to I-240 West in Ashe-ville to I-26 West. Follow I-26 West from Asheville to I-81 South in Tennessee, back to I-40. Eastbound motor-ists will follow the reverse directions. Mack, Volvo Complete Internal Merger Mack Trucks and Volvo Trucks North America, which FYI NEWS BRIEFS 14 TRUCKERS NEWS DECEMBER 2009 continued on page 84 B R U C E S M IT H