Teamsters Hail Court Decision on Hours of Service

WASHINGTON, July 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Teamsters Union hailed as a victory today's federal appeals court decision striking down the Bush administration's hours-of-service rules for truck drivers.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated the Transportation Department's rule allowing drivers to spend 11 consecutive hours behind the wheel, a one-hour increase over the previous maximum.

The court also vacated a provision allowing drivers to restart their weekly on-duty clocks after they took 34 consecutive hours off. The court said the rule allowed drivers to work as many as 17 more hours a week.

Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa called the decision a win for American motorists and for truck drivers.

"We never thought it was a good idea to allow drivers 11 hours behind the wheel of a heavy piece of machinery," Hoffa said. "I hope this ruling forces the Bush administration to start paying attention to highway safety."

In the 39-page opinion, Judge Merrick Garland called the rule "arbitrary and capricious."

Hoffa said he was disappointed the court upheld an exception allowing drivers to split their daily off-duty requirement into two periods as long as one period is two hours long and the other is eight hours long.

Background

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) first promulgated the hours-of-service regulation increasing the number of hours truckers can drive in 2003. The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit struck down the rule in 2004, but Congress reinstated it as part of the Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2004.

FMCSA issued a new Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in January 2005, proposing a rule that was little changed from the 2003 rule that had been struck down.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters was a plaintiff in the case, joining Public Citizen and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association.

Founded in 1903, the Teamsters Union represents more than 1.4 million hardworking men and women in the United States and Canada.