Teamsters Hail Court Decision on Hours of Service, Hoffa Calls Decision a Victory for Truck Drivers

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-24-2007/0004631803&EDATE=

Teamsters Hail Court Decision on Hours of Service

Hoffa Calls Decision a Victory for Truck Drivers, Highway Safety

WASHINGTON, July 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Teamsters Union
hailed as a victory today's federal appeals court decision striking down
the Bush administration's hours-of-service rules for truck drivers.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated the
Transportation Department's rule allowing drivers to spend 11 consecutive
hours behind the wheel, a one-hour increase over the previous maximum.

The court also vacated a provision allowing drivers to restart their
weekly on-duty clocks after they took 34 consecutive hours off. The court
said the rule allowed drivers to work as many as 17 more hours a week.

Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa called the decision a win for
American motorists and for truck drivers.

"We never thought it was a good idea to allow drivers 11 hours behind
the wheel of a heavy piece of machinery," Hoffa said. "I hope this ruling
forces the Bush administration to start paying attention to highway
safety."

In the 39-page opinion, Judge Merrick Garland called the rule
"arbitrary and capricious."

FULL story at link.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. this is both bad and good.

the HOS changes began after a number of sleep-related accidents around the country. The best sleep experts around the country, but mainly in california, looked at different shifts, break times, incidences and impacts of naps, etc.

Their findings were statistically significant. You could safely increase the amount driven in a day, so long as there was a strictly enforced time off, and sleep regime included.