New Rules on Trucking Hours Struck Down by Appeals Court

Jenny Albano

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A federal appeals court voided a new rule that increased limits on the amount of hours truck drivers could drive in a week. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration increased the maximum driving hours for truck drivers to 77 hours from 60 over 7 days, and 88 hours from 70 over 8 days, in 2005.

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said that there was not enough evidence provided to justify and support the safety of the increase in driving hours for truck drivers. The court found that the agency ignored that results of a study that showed 50,000 trucking accidents from 1991 to 2002. The study found that there is a substantially higher risk of fatigue-related accidents since the new rules were put into action.

The new rules had been adopted after heavy lobbying by politically influential leaders of the trucking industry. They were part of a broader strategy by the Bush administration to reduce regulations on businesses.

Safety experts and insurance companies stated that longer hours on the road contributed to more truck accidents. But supporters of the new law said that adding time to the maximum driving hours made moving goods across the country cheaper and faster to move.

The agency tried to defend the law by claiming that the economic costs to the industry outweighed the safety benefits, but the court said that the analysis was flawed.

The case, filed by a consumer advocacy group called Public Citizen, is the third in three years brought against the motor carrier agency.