The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a decision that threw out the new hours-of-service (HOS) regulations put into place in January 2004 by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).
Trucking companies need to know that the court's decision does not take effect immediately. This means that the new HOS rules are still in effect while the appeals process is still taking place. They will remain in place for at least 45 days, as that is how long FMCSA has to decide whether to appeal.
The first major change in the regulations governing truckers’ hours since 1939, the new rules did not go as far as the proposed rule published in 2000. The reason that the court reached the decision to throw out the new HOS was their belief that FMCSA had not fulfilled a statuary mandate to consider "the impact of the rule on the health of the drivers." Other areas of concern to the Court included: the increase in the maximum driving time from ten to eleven hours; the sleeper berth exception that "permits solo and team drivers to obtain the necessary ten hours of off-duty time by splitting their rest in two periods of time spent in sleeper berths;" the thirty-four hour restart; and the FMCSA's justification for not requiring electronic onboard recorders (EOBR).
