Federal rules about how many hours truck drivers should be allowed to work, how much rest should be required between shifts, and how to enforce the limits are back before federal judges, according to a status report published on Sept. 7, 2006, by the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (IIHS).
In the study, IIHS states that contention about the issue goes back years, with this round of litigation dating to 2003 when the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) revamped the work-hour rules. The effect, according to IIHS, was to increase — rather than decrease — truckers' daily and weekly driving limits.
Citing FMCSA's own estimate that fatigue is a factor in 15 percent of truck crashes involving deaths and injuries, the Institute told the court that the agency “has breached its duty to the public.” FMCSA “ignored competent research [on the hazards associated with driving while fatigued] and relied on its own unsound analysis” to justify increasing allowable driving hours by 28 percent in a trucker's work week.
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