Home > Practice Areas > Trucking Accidents > Court Voids Higher Limits on Truckers' Hours

Court Voids Higher Limits on Truckers' Hours

July 25, 2007
Stephen Labaton
www.thenewyorktimes.com

WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down a Bush administration rule that loosened limits on the work of truck drivers, concluding that officials had failed to offer adequate justification for the changes.

In a unanimous decision, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said the federal agency that oversees the trucking industry had not provided enough evidence to demonstrate the safety of its 2005 decision to increase the maximum driving hours of truck drivers. The hours were increased to 77 from 60 over 7 consecutive days, and 88 hours from 70 over 8 days.

The court found that the agency, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, had ignored the results of a study, which it had commissioned, involving a database of more than 50,000 truck accidents from 1991 to 2002. Using the data, the study extrapolated a substantially higher risk of fatigue-related accidents in the extra hours of service allowed by the new rules.

The agency, part of the Transportation Department, "failed to provide an adequate explanation for its decision to adopt the 11-hour daily driving limit," the court said.

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 analysts challenged the changes. They said longer driving hours had contributed to a high number of truck accidents. About 100 people die each week in truck-related accidents, making the industry America's most treacherous as measured by deaths and injuries to truckers, drivers of other vehicles and pedestrians.

Supporters of the loosened standards say they have made it faster and cheaper to move goods across the country. They say that the changes promoted safety and that shorter hours would force the industry to put more drivers with little experience behind the wheel. And they note that the fatality rate in truck-related accidents -- the number of deaths per miles traveled -- has continued a long decline.

Still, the rate remains nearly double that for accidents involving only cars, and the Bush administration has repeatedly missed its own targets for reducing truck-related fatalities.

The decision on Tuesday, in a case filed by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, was the third in three years bringing judicial criticism down on the motor carrier agency.

A different appeals panel criticized the agency in December 2005 for failing to issue adequate rules for the training of drivers, saying it had ignored its own studies on a need for more comprehensive training.

And in 2004, a third panel of the appeals court struck down new hours-of-service rules that were virtually identical to those at issue in Tuesday's decision, saying they had been "arbitrary and capricious."

After Congress, at the urging of the Bush administration and the trucking industry, intervened to block the enforcement of the 2004 court order, the motor carrier agency issued the 2005 rules. At the time, the agency said it had addressed the concerns raised by the appeals court's 2004 decision.

In a regulatory impact analysis accompanying the 2005 changes, the agency concluded that the economic costs to the industry of tightening the hours-of-service rules, as consumer groups had proposed, outweighed the safety benefits. But the court said Tuesday that the analysis was flawed. The opinion was written by Judge Merrick B. Garland and signed by Chief Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg and Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson.

Safety groups hailed the ruling.

"The court is saying once again, no," said Jacqueline S. Gillian, vice president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, an alliance of consumer, health and insurance organizations. "For three and a half years this agency has tried every which way to defend a rule that would result in longer consecutive driver hours and longer total work hours. This has a dramatic, dangerous impact on the lives of truck drivers and on the lives of everyone sharing the roads with trucks. And once again the court has said, "No, you cannot go ahead with a rule when it violates the law and you clearly have not justified it."

The agency would not say whether it would appeal the decision or seek a stay of the court's order, which is to take effect in September.

"We are analyzing the decision issued today to understand the court's findings as well as determine the agency's next steps to prevent driver fatigue, ensure safe and efficient motor carrier operations and save lives," a statement issued by the agency said.

The American Trucking Associations, which defended the changes to the rules in the proceeding, said it would ask the court to stay its ruling to give the agency time to provide a better justification of the changes.