While most Americans sleep soundly at midnight, the nation's supply chain keeps moving—powered by truck drivers working around the clock. Yet a well-intentioned new rule aimed at improving their working conditions has unexpectedly sparked a fierce debate about safety, productivity, and economic consequences. Now, senior leaders of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (T&I) are taking action.
The committee's leadership has formally requested the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to evaluate two studies used by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to justify recent adjustments to trucking companies' Hours of Service (HOS) rules. These revised regulations, implemented last July, have drawn significant industry scrutiny.
Lawmakers Demand Scrutiny of Rulemaking Process
"Millions of American truck drivers are vital to our nation's commerce, and we must ensure any regulatory changes affecting their ability to work and provide for their families are well-founded," emphasized House T&I Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-PA) in a statement. He added, "Concerns have been raised that these regulatory changes may have been enacted without proper data or analysis. If the government is going to change the rules for truckers, we need confidence these changes were thoroughly vetted and actually improve safety."
Shuster joined Highway and Transit Subcommittee Chairman Tom Petri (R-WI) in a detailed letter to GAO Comptroller Gene Dodaro, outlining their request for an investigation into the studies that served as the basis for the HOS changes nearly nine months ago.
The lawmakers stressed that commercial vehicles must be operated by skilled, alert personnel, making safety paramount. They emphasized that federal regulations must be grounded in comprehensive, impartial scientific research, appropriate data analysis, and operational testing.
Key Questions About the HOS Restart Rule
Regarding the HOS restart provision study, the legislators asked Dodaro to examine whether FMCSA:
- Collected appropriate safety and operational data
- Included a representative sample of commercial drivers in the research
- Analyzed the safety impact of additional daytime truck traffic
- Used proper driver grouping methodologies
Additionally, they requested GAO assess the validity of key assumptions, data, and methods FMCSA used in its Regulatory Impact Analysis (RIA) for the rulemaking process. Specific concerns included:
- Whether RIA assumptions aligned with previous HOS rulemaking analyses
- The recency and appropriateness of crash data used
- Whether violation data came from industry-representative samples
- The reasonableness of health benefit assumptions
- Whether errors or inconsistencies affected FMCSA's conclusions about the rule's costs and benefits
Industry Pushback and Productivity Concerns
The most contentious component remains the 34-hour restart provision, which now limits drivers to resetting their workweek just once every seven days and mandates that rest periods include two spans between 1:00-5:00 AM.
Industry estimates suggest trucking productivity has declined 2-10% since the rules took effect. Many shippers and carriers argue the changes are unnecessary and unfounded, maintaining that the pre-2003 regulations functioned well without modification. Critics contend the new rules create operational inefficiencies, reduce supply chain flexibility, and compound existing challenges like driver shortages and tight highway capacity—potentially creating further difficulties for shippers seeking freight capacity.
Key Provisions of the New HOS Rules
- Maximum weekly driving time reduced from 82 to 70 hours (12-hour decrease)
- Mandatory 30-minute rest breaks after 8 hours of driving (flexible within an 8-hour window)
- Retention of the 11-hour daily driving limit (FMCSA had considered reducing it to 10 hours)
- The "34-hour restart" requirement now includes two overnight rest periods (1:00-5:00 AM) and may be used only once per week
- Carriers allowing drivers to exceed the 11-hour limit by 3+ hours face $11,000 fines per violation; drivers face penalties up to $2,750