Federal regulators and a group representing auto insurers are backing conflicting data on the safety implications of new potential hours-of-service (HOS) exemptions for short-haul drivers. According to the article from the freightwaves.com and its author John Gallagher

The nonprofit Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), which promotes motor vehicle crash safety and is backed by most major vehicle insurance companies, contends that the HOS changes proposed by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) in August could make the roads less safe. Gallagher also wrote in his article.

“Driver fatigue is a major risk factor in large truck crashes,” IIHS senior statistician Eric Teoh said in a statement Sept. 9. “Creating more exceptions to the hours-of-service limits, which already allow drivers to log long hours, isn’t likely to improve safety and may well cause harm.”

IIHS is particularly concerned with the FMCSA’s proposal to change an exception for short-haul commercial drivers by lengthening the maximum on‑duty period for drivers from 12 to 14 hours and extending the 100 air-mile distance limit within which the driver can operate to 150 air miles. According to Gallagher’s article.

Under current regulations, short-haul drivers moving freight who qualify for the exception don’t have to prepare record of duty status documentation (known as RODS), use an electronic logging device or take a 30-minute break after eight hours of duty as long as they return to a work-reporting location that is within 100 miles and leaves work within 12 consecutive hours after their starting times.

Read the full story HERE

Source and credits: freightwaves.com / John Gallagher, Washington Correspondent  /  iTrucker  / Mario Pawlowski