Top 10 Challenges In & Out of the Truck

Pickering agrees and believes the sheer number of regulations and mandates make it increasingly difficult for small companies and owner-operators to make a living. “I’m surprised they haven’t all gone out of business,” she says.

#2 Hours of Service
Hours of service (HOS) have long been a bone of contention for truckers, as evidenced by their perennial appearance on the ATRI list of critical issues. In a major change, Congress passed a bill in late 2014 rolling back FMCSA’s 2013 version of the 34-hour restart rule. Under that regulation, truckers had to include two full nights—defined as between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m.—in their 34 hours off between driving shifts. With the rollback, drivers can now take any period of 34 consecutive hours off. According to FMCSA, truckers can drive for 11 hours during a 14-hour shift.

There are no immediate plans to change the HOS regulations again, although trucking advocates seek more flexibility while public safety activists want stricter rules. “My problem is the hours of service were written more for local drivers, and are not written well for cross-country drivers,” asserts Kenny Lund, vice president of Allen Lund Company in La Canada, CA. “It’s different when you’re on a four-day trip from California to New York than if you’re doing local deliveries, loading and unloading. They treat those the same and they shouldn’t.”

The old 34-hour reset including two nights “was a great example of using science in a bad way,” Lund continues. “Some people like to drive at night,” he notes and says many truckers prefer night driving due to better visibility and less traffic. And with so many trucks hitting the road at 5 a.m., it increases the possibility of reaching a busy city right at rush hour. While he concedes government regulators “were trying to make it more safe,” he says, “they actually made it less safe.”

Pickering puts it this way: “The government tells drivers when they’re supposed to be awake and when they’re supposed to sleep,” she notes. “Then if they can’t sleep when they’re supposed to—the government wants them tested for sleep apnea.” Even worse, she contends, “who can sleep with a camera pointing in your face to see if you are, in fact, sleeping?”

Another facet of the HOS debate is the future use of autonomous and assisted driving hours. Lund points out regulations will have to be adjusted to account for the inclusion of such high-tech innovations and how drivers will “count the hours not actually spent driving.”

#3 Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs)
For better or worse, electronic logging devices (ELD) may become mandatory at the end of 2017. Produce trucking executives are hoping for the best, but bracing for the worst.

The much-discussed and often derided ELDs automatically record driving time and monitor engine hours, vehicle movement, miles driven, and location. The cost ranges from $165 to $832 on an annualized basis, with popular models costing $495 per truck. According to FMCSA estimates, the total annual cost of ELD adoption will be almost $1 billion, but will result in paperwork savings of more than $1.6 billion.