| How
Are The Limitations on a Driver's Hours of Service Enforced?
In
2003, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA)
revised the federal laws governing the hours of service (HOS)
that a truck driver may operate his commercial vehicle. Those
rules, which had not previously been substantially modified
since 1939 place specific restrictions on the maximum hours
that a driver is allowed to operate his vehicle.
According to the FMCSA the new rule will save up to 75 lives
and prevent as many as 1,326 fatigue-related crashes annually.
The FMCSA reports that ther were an estimated 4,902 truck
related fatalities in traffic crashes in the year 2002.
Although the implementation of these rules in theory will
save lives, how will they be enforced to actually save lives?
Since the very first HOS regulations in 1939, drivers of commercial
motor vehicles have been required to maintain a driver's log
book.
The accepted form of the driver's log book requires entries
for the following information:
- Month,
day, and year
- odometer
reading at beginning of trip
- total
number of miles driven for logged date
- vehicle
class
- total
hours of time for off duty, sleeper berth, driving, and
on duty time
- tire
pressure
- driver's
signature
Since each state requires that drivers stop at weigh stations
to make sure that the vehicle is compliant with gross weight
laws, the driver's log book is usually checked during those
weigh station stops. Also, Department of Transportation officers
and state and local police officers may make routine and random
stops of commercial vehicles to check the driver's log book.
Experienced truck drivers know how to manipulate and/or change
log book entries to appear legal. For instance, at the beginning
of the trip a truck driver may accurately fill out information
about his mileage and hours in a particular state.
When he enters a state far away from the statein which his
trip originated, he can remove the original log book entry
and make a new entry to change the mileage between cities.
(log book pages are in a 3 ring binder) Since most enforcement
officers do not know the correct mileage between a given city
in a state far away, they may not catch the inaccuracy which
would allow the driver to subvert the HOS rules.
Some states now allow drivers to pay for and carry a "free
pass". This program, which is not implemented in all
states, utilizes weighing scales which are placed under the
cement on the interstate which allows a truck to be weighed
while it is moving. The truck has a transmitter in it to transmit
company information to the weigh station without the need
to stop. Although this greatly decreases a driver's down time
at weigh stations, it also decrease the available opportunity
to check the driver's log book.
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