Overwhelmingly, CCJ readers responding to the question of “What do you think Martinez’s top priority should be during his tenure as head of FMCSA and why?” pointed to hours of service reforms:
Gary McCarty of Bailey Trucking: “Safety is my first concern as a safety director. Racing a clock daily (14 hour clock) has nothing to do with safety. Things happen every day between points A and Points B that cause issues with time. Got to be able to stop the clock when need too!”
Yvonne Lander of Loose Change Express: “Getting rid of the 30 minute break after working 8 hours. This regulation in my opinion does nothing for drivers out here on the road. Most places you drive to are only about 10 hours away from the shipper. With the 14 hour clock you have to stop early anyway to get a decent parking spot.”
Fred Oller: “How soon we forget. The 14-hour rule used to be a 15-hour rule. That hour is not making a difference. The big difference is the split sleeper berth. If the industry can get the split sleeper berth at the driver discretion, it will remedy the lion’s share of driver complaints and logistic nightmares.”
Joe Bergen: “Eliminate the 14-hour rule. FMCSA has enough other HOS rules that the 14-hour is redundant — 11-hour drive time, 30-minute break, 10-hour rest = total 21.5 hours of the day accounted for. The other 2.5 hours do not need to be addressed since they will NOT be driving.
since companies are not regulated on the amount of time they have to get freight loaded this would eliminate some impact to drivers and companies.”
