Trump administration eases trucking rules

The Trump administration eased rules Thursday that limit working hours for truck drivers, and the changes brought immediate protests from labour and safety groups.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration extended the maximum working day for short-haul drivers from 12 hours to 14 hours and expanded how far they can drive in a day. The agency said this will let truckers make more deliveries.

For long-haul drivers, the regulator will let work other than driving — such as loading or unloading, filling out paperwork, or communicating with an employer or customer — count toward a mandatory 30minute break after eight hours of driving. Currently drivers must go off-duty during breaks.

The current limit of 11 hours of driving time in a work day was unchanged.

The agency said the new rules will save trucking companies more than $2.8 billion over 10 years. The agency’s acting administrator, Jim Mullen, said the changes

“will improve safety on America’s roadways and strengthen the nation’s motor carrier industry.”

Labour leaders and safety advocates argued that a longer working day will lead to more fatigued drivers and more crashes even if the number of hours spent behind the wheel remains the same.

“Truck crash deaths are on the rise. We already know that truck driving is one of the most dangerous jobs and that fatigue is a known problem within the industry,” said Cathy Chase, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety. She said the motor carrier agency’s changes “significantly eroded the minimum protections that existed for truck drivers.”

According to government figures released in March, 4,951 people were killed in crashes involving large trucks in 2018, up nearly one per cent over 2017. Nearly threefourths of those killed were in other vehicles.

Teamsters President James P. Hoffa called the regulator’s actions a giveaway to trucking companies that will force some of his union’s drivers to work 14 hours a day without a federally guaranteed break.