You may want to keep a close eye on the driver as you pass that big rig on the interstate. If he looks drowsy, stay out of the way. The federal government recently made permanent a rule that allows truckers to drive 11 hours without a break.
The previous limit was 10 hours. Safety advocates claim the change is a bad one, while officials argue the whole package of new rules should make trucking safer.
The new regulations, effective Oct. 1, shorten individual workdays from 15 hours to 14 but allow truckers to drive up to 77 hours a week, up from 60. That’s a lot of hours, and we wonder if it isn’t too many.
Truckers with sleeper cabs are required to take longer breaks, but the rules pretty much deregulate short-haul truckers. (The new highway bill also had some little-reported good news for some businesses by exempting many kinds of specialized truck drivers from the law.)
Many of the rules, like the 11-hour limit, were issued in 2003 but were struck down by a federal appeals court. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration say the new set avoids the court’s objections.
The pro-and-con lineup on the new rules is pretty predictable. The trucking industry and businesses that run their own fleets support them. The Teamsters union, safety groups and, significantly, the insurance industry oppose them.
Partisans provide a variety of statistics to bolster their case. For instance, an advocacy group backed by the insurance industry says truck-related fatalities increased from 5,036 in 2003 to 5,190 in 2004, after the earlier version of the rules kicked in.
The Transportation Department says trucker fatigue is a factor in only 5.5 percent of all fatal crashes involving trucks. (Oh, sure.) And studies of whether an 11th hour of driving is more dangerous than the 10th are said to be inconclusive.
In any event, federal officials need to closely monitor the effects of these new trucking regulations. They also should move ahead with proposals to require black-box data recorders on more trucks.
Other drivers have no choice but to be as careful as they can. Even in the biggest SUV, you’re no match for an 18-wheeler.
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the majority of people killed in truck accidents were in other vehicles, not in trucks. And trucks are involved in 11 percent of all crash deaths even though they account for only 7 percent of vehicle miles traveled.
As if we needed another reason to be alert on the highway.
