The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has come out with some new hour of service (“HOS”) rules. These changes will allow drivers to take breaks when needed and reduce safety and health risks associated with long hours. Specifically, the new rules are:
Limit drivers to either 10 or 11 hours of driving time following an period of at least 10 consecutive hours off duty.
Limit the standard “driving window” to 14 hours while allowing that number to be extended to 16 hours twice a week.
Limit actual duty time within the driving window of 13 hours.
These new rules are a continuation of a trend that started about 10 years ago that are aimed at making the roads safer. This all started after a couple of high profile accidents occurred that involved commercial truckers and were, in large part, attributed to their working unreasonably long hours and the accompanying fatigue.
While we don’t want to see anyone’s ability to make a living jeopardized, we do need to keep our highways safe. Let’s hope we can strike a balance between a healthy trucking industry and road safety.
We here at North Buckhead Driving and DUI School are trying to make the roads a little safer. We have weekly DUI / Risk Reduction Classes as well as Defensive Driving Classes. You can sign up by calling our office at (678) 510-2099 or by visiting our website at http://www.northbuckheaddrivingandduischool.com/ and using our secure registration system
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