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Congress has stopped the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration from
implementing their proposed hours-of-service regulation, at least for this fiscal year.
The first battle has been won on this issue but the war is far from over.
It is SafeTrac Solutions belief that the proposed regulations would have
negatively impacted commercial vehicle safety rather than improving it. We
submitted our comments to the proposed regulations in September.
See
SafeTrac Solutions comments
Additionally, the regulation would have severely impacted the national economy
as a whole. This entire Hours-of-Service process has highlighted the flawed
process of government regulators rushing to put regulations into effect before
they have sufficient information as to whether the regulations are needed,
whether they are based on sound science and how they will impact the nation's
business. Interestingly enough, FMCSA has recently announced they will be
studying the regulation proposal offered by the American Trucking Associations.
The ATA proposal, which was offered to the FMCSA almost a year ago, would
address the concerns of fatigue while at the same time addressing the needs of
the trucking industry and the nation. A year ago the FMCSA rejected ATA's
proposal outright. It is encouraging that they are now coming back to take an
objective look at it.
There is no question that new Hours-of-service regulations need to be
promulgated. However, they must be revised using sound safety science and good common sense.
We need to bring these 60 year old regulations into the 21st century. Not take
them back to the 18th century.
If you're concerned how these regulations will affect your company, contact your
Congressional representatives and let them know how you feel. This regulation will have a huge
impact on the United States....
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