Government Study Says No Benefit To HOS Restart Restrictions
If the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration had listened to trucker feedback, it might have come to the same conclusion as the Office of Inspector General.
A recently completed study, signed off on by the Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General, concludes the changes to the 34-hour restart, which are two mandatory overnight periods and limiting its use to once every seven days, did not benefit driver safety, fatigue or health.
The study was mandated by Congress and the changes suspended until it could be completed. The publicly released results state that there is no safety benefit in the two currently suspended provisions of the restart rule.
โCongress and the motor carrier industry raised concerns about its unintended consequences, such as increased congestion during daytime traffic hours. In the act, Congress suspended FMCSAโs enforcement of the two aforementioned provisions of the 34-hour restart rule and required the Agency to conduct a study of the operational, safety, health, and fatigue impacts of the rule.โ the OIG notice says.
โWe found that DOTโs study met the actโs requirements. We also concur with the Departmentโs conclusion 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
