Friday, Feb. 15, 2008– The public now has until Monday, March 17, to comment on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s interim final rule on the hours-of-service regulations.

The deadline for comments was initially Feb. 15. But, a 30-day extension was granted after the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety petitioned the agency for a longer comment period.

The agency is soliciting comments on its interim final rule that allows truckers to continue using both the 11th hour of driving and the optional 34-hour restart provision. The interim rule went into effect Dec. 27.

According the interim final rule posted on the Federal Register Dec. 17, 2007, the agency is leaving the current hours-of-service regulations as is – with no changes to the sleeper-berth provision.

Agency officials decided to keep the current rules rather than create confusion within the trucking industry and the enforcement community by issuing revisions to the rule.

“This proposal keeps in place hours-of-service limits that improve highway safety by ensuring that drivers are rested and ready to work,” FMCSA Administrator John H. Hill said in a press release.

Those sentiments were echoed strongly in the interim final rule.

“Uncertainty is the enemy of enforcement and compliance; it can only impair highway safety,” FMCSA officials wrote in the interim final rule. “This (interim final rule) will ensure that a familiar, uniform set of national rules govern motor carrier transportation, while FMCSA gathers additional public comments on all aspects of this interim final rule.

“By re-adopting the 11-hour limit and the 34-hour restart, the agency’s intent is to allow motor carriers and drivers to combine work-rest schedules that follow the optimal 24-hour circadian cycle (10 hours off duty and 14 hours on duty) while maintaining highway safety with operational flexibility.”

The two provisions were tossed by the court on procedural grounds – not based on safety concerns.

FMCSA officials address this point in the interim rule by providing information on reviews of previous analysis of studies, submitting new analysis and even more statistical data that back up keeping both provisions in a final rule.

Comments on the interim final rule will be accepted through March 17. You will need the Docket ID, which is FMCSA-2004-19608. You must include it on any comments you submit by fax, mail or in person. To file comments electronically, click here . Just click on the comment balloon and follow the instructions on the comment page.

Of course, submitting comments electronically via the Internet isn't your only option. You can still:

• Fax comments with the Docket ID number to (202)-493-2251;
• Mail comments with the Docket ID number to:

Docket Management Facility
U.S. Department of Transportation
Room W-12-140, 1200 New Jersey Ave. SE
Washington, DC 20590-0001

• Or hand deliver comments between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday except on federal holidays to the ground floor of the U.S. Department of Transportation building, Room W-12-140, 1200 New Jersey Ave. SE , Washington , DC .
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– By Jami Jones, senior editor

jami_jones@landlinemag.com

February 14, 2008

The DOT was set up on the grass alongside four lanes of California’s Interstate 805 on Jan. 17.

One officer motioned for Joseph Gomes to pull his 2000 Kenworth over for a random check.

Gomes, an OOIDA member from Norfolk, VA, was preparing to head back east from San Diego on Jan. 17 when he was given a random inspection by DOT officers and enforcement officers from the California Air Resources Board.

Gomes and a buddy recently purchased the Kenworth at an auction. The truck looked good and had a good price, Gomes thought, but a CARB officer found one flaw that only recently became an offense in the Golden State: the lack of what CARB refers to as an Emission Compliance Label.

Since January 2007, CARB enforcement officers have issued 1,465 citations with $800 fines after inspecting 5,050 trucks for worn or missing Emission Compliance labels or engine data plates. Truck owners were given 45 days to obtain a new label, and the entire fine was dropped.

Beginning on Friday, Feb, 15, however, missing emission labels will require at least a $300 fine, even if truck owners replace the labels within 45 days.

Emission compliance labels typically are made of plastic or metal and are attached to the engine by the manufacturer at the time of production. Besides identifying the date and place the engines were built, the labels state that the engines met U.S. EPA and California emission requirements for the years they were manufactured.

Fines for missing labels can be as much as $800, although that may be dropped to $300 if the truck owner is able to obtain the missing label through the engine manufacturer within 45 days.

News of the label requirement surprised Gomes, who was making a rare trip to the West Coast.

“I’ve only been in this truck for a month,” Gomes told Land Line.

CARB officers had Gomes do a snap idle test and watched the smoke coming out of his stack. Another officer dipped a tube into his diesel tank. Finally, they had Gomes pop his hood.

The CARB officer pointed to a small spot near the water hose on the engine’s passenger side. The spot was worn, and the officer told Gomes it should have held an engine certification label verifying that the truck met U.S. EPA standards when it was manufactured.

Roy Lettieri, Gomes’ friend and the truck owner, received a letter in late January telling him he would be fined $800 if he didn’t obtain an Emission Control Label within 45 days.

The label requirement was adopted in early 2007, but California officials said they would allow a 1-year non-penalty phase, a CARB spokesman told Land Line.

Karen Caesar, a CARB spokeswoman, confirmed to Land Line that the agency is enforcing the regulation and has been inspecting trucks for the labels since early 2007. From January through September 2007, in fact, CARB conducted 5,005 such inspections and found 1,465 violations.

Those truck owners were given 45 days to correct the label issue.

Cummins diesel engines are affixed with a metal label not much larger than a business card that is stamped with emissions data, part information and the VIN-like engine serial number, said Christy Nycz, a Cummins spokeswoman.

Truck owners with worn or missing data plates can contact their local Cummins distributor, Nycz told Land Line. The company will then move through its engine verification process to ensure the label will include the correct information.

“We want to help out as much as we can,” Nycz said.

Nycz didn’t immediately know how quickly Cummins can replace an engine data plate, but said the price for obtaining engine data plates is set by individual distributors.

The engine company can provide truck owners with a letter showing the engine met EPA standards at the time of manufacture as well, Nycz said.

CARB’s engine label requirement has caused OEM dealerships to brace for service calls from truckers with missing or worn engine labels, said Joe Suchecki, a spokesman for Chicago-based Engine Manufacturer’s Association.

Truckers who need an emission label should call their local dealer, who will in turn verify through the engine manufacturer whether the truck met emission standards the year it was built. The sticker can only be applied by “authorized dealers,” according to CARB’s rule.

“It is fairly difficult because not only do they have to bring it in, but the dealers have to do an inspection to make sure the engine hasn’t been changed or tampered with,” Suchecki told Land Line.

Kenworth Truck Co., the manufacturer of the type of truck Gomes was driving, hasn’t received many calls about California’s engine label requirement, a company spokesman relayed to Land Line on Wednesday.

Truckers driving through southern California should be particularly aware of the new emission label requirement. The officer who stopped Gomes told him the new restriction was especially being enforced there because of the heavy volume of older trucks coming over the Mexican border.

Gomes isn’t likely to be making many return trips to California anytime soon, he told Land Line. A tightening trucking economy and the increased emission rules make it unlikely he’ll make many stops in the Golden State.

“I don’t think I will be going that way again anyway,” Gomes said. “The rates are too cheap to come back.”

– By Charlie Morasch, staff writer
charlie_morasch@landlinemag.com