Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/643476
THENEW HIGHEST PRICEOF OPERATING This month's topic is addressing costs from the ground up. Traditionally, spiking fuel costs have been the Achilles heel of truck transportation but with the decreasing cost of fuel for the foreseeable future, energy costs will not be the major limiting factor on the productivity of truck transportation. Some examples of regulations which have adverse productivity consequences include: • Hours of service restrictions • The imminent ELD rule • Speed limiters • State imposed workplace and environmental laws which further burden the free and unimpeded flow of interstate commerce. "...the increasing cost of regulatory compliance for some time has been and will continue to largely be responsible for the spike in costs." I believe the increasing cost of regulatory compliance for some time has been and will continue to largely be responsible for the spike in costs. Let me explain why. All too frequently, federal and state regulators "don blinders" when it comes to considering the indirect cost of safety, welfare and environmental regulations involving the trucking industry. ere are statutes on the books like the Paperwork Reduction Act and the Reg Flex Act which require the federal government to consider the economic impact of new regulations on the industry and small businesses in particular. As part of the new FAST Act, Congress expressly directed the FMCSA to do an in- depth preliminary study of the effect of any new major rule on all segments of the transportation industry in reaction, at least in part, to the agency's bureaucratic overreach in the past. Yet the agency's analysis in completed and pending rulemaking is largely superficial and confined to directly allocable costs of compliance which ignores the consequential cost of lost productivity. e hours of service regulations do not regulate or measure driver fatigue, as the Tracy Morgan accident poignantly shows. Wiring a computer up to a truck is no realistic measure of actual driver fatigue. It offers no flexibility to complete the task. Rigid enforcement of the hours of service and ELD rule denies drivers the discretion to rest when tired and the flexibility to plan their schedule to avoid traffic and congestion. Ironically, the industry was "asleep at the wheel" when they allowed the HOS rule to go in place over a decade ago. ey never really questioned the circadian sleep science or forced consideration of the nap studies which the agency's own experts suggested had a more efficacious effect on fatigue than the more rigid 11-14-10 schedule which the current rule imposes. BY HENRY E. SEATON 12 IT MAGAZINE Vo l . 1 0 , N o . 2