DOT Report Showing No Safety Benefit to Restart Restrictions
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On March 6, news broke that the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Transportation has certified that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s study of the 2013 hours-of-service restart restrictions met the requirements set out by Congress and that the study "did not explicitly identify a net benefit from the use of the two suspended provisions on driver operations, safety, fatigue and health."
The impact of these findings, per the most recent Continuing Resolution, is that the two restrictions, which limited professional drivers to one restart period every 168 hours and required that period to contain two periods of between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m., are permanently suspended, marking a significant victory for ATA and the trucking industry.
In a press release, ATA President and CEO Chris Spear said the IG’s finding "closes what has been a long, and unnecessary, chapter in our industry’s drive to improve highway safety. We knew from the beginning that these Obama administration restrictions provided no benefit to safety, and in light of the DOT’s findings – corroborated by the DOT Inspector General – it is good for our industry and for the motoring public that they will be done away with permanently as specified by language ATA lead the charge on including in the most recently passed Continuing Resolution.
"Congress repeatedly told the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that rules of this nature must show a benefit to safety and this report clearly shows there was no benefit," Spear added. "This marks the end of a long struggle, but hopefully the beginning of a new era of inclusive and data-based regulation."
