Bush Administration Weakens Truck Safety

Teamsters Say Regulators Co-Opted by Industry

The Teamsters union regrets the Bush administration’s decision Tuesday to side with the trucking industry rather than the driving public by reinstating a rule that undermines highway safety.

The hours-of-service rule, which allows truck drivers to work as many as 17 more hours a week, was twice thrown out by the court.

“The Bush administration is recklessly endangering the lives of all Americans driving on our highways,” said Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa. “Longer hours for truck drivers behind the wheel and unsafe Mexican trucks on our highways will jeopardize public safety.”

“It’s clear the Bush administration has more loyalty to its corporate supporters than to the men and women who actually drive on our roads,” Hoffa said. “The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in particular is showing that it is held captive by the trucking industry.”

On July 24, the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for the second time threw out the rule that increased driving time to 11 hours from 10 hours and required drivers to be off duty for only 34 hours before going back to work.

In the 39-page opinion, Judge Merrick Garland called the rule “arbitrary and capricious.”

Hoffa said the Teamsters do not believe there is evidence that the new rule is safer, and plenty of evidence to show that it is not.

“There has been no peer-reviewed study published that shows this rule is safer than the previous rule,” Hoffa said.

“Further, Congress ordered that the health of the driver be taken into consideration, which FMCSA has once again ignored,” Hoffa said.

In the first court decision, FMCSA was cited for failing to take into account the health of the driver.

Background

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) first promulgated the hours-of-service regulation increasing the number of hours truckers can drive in 2003. The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down the rule in 2004, but Congress reinstated it as part of the Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2004.

FMCSA issued a new Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in January 2005, proposing a rule that was little changed from the 2003 rule that had been struck down.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters was a plaintiff in the case, joining Public Citizen and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association.

The legal deadline for the court’s July decision to go into effect was Sept. 14. But legal challenges pushed that deadline back.