New Safety Rules May Raise Trucking Costs

The first major changes in truck driver work hours since 1939 are expected to reduce highway fatalities, but also contribute to the biggest increase in trucking rates in two decades, according to the Nov. 12 issue of The Wall Street Journal.r

The little-noticed changes, mandated under new federal safety rules that take effect in January, are designed to reduce fatigue among truck drivers, a major cause of accidents. The new rules increase the time that truck drivers must set aside to rest in each 24-hour period to 10 hours from eight hours, and the total time a driver can be on duty will fall to 14 hours from 15 hours.r

The biggest impact on safety will result from drivers being required to include as work hours time spent waiting at loading docks or fueling their rigs. But in a concession to the trucking industry, the rules will actually allow drivers to spend one more hour a day behind the wheel than they can now. The government estimates the new rules could cost trucking companies about $1.3 billion a year.r

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which unsuccessfully opposed the new rules, believes the more stringent 14-hour rule will reduce its drivers’ daily work time by 6 percent on average and cause it to add 275 new drivers and 300 new trucks to handle the same amount of cargo. The world’s largest retailer expects the changes to cost it $24 million just for the additional trucks. “The rule will impose serious costs on society, not only on motor carriers but on shippers and receivers as well,” the company said in a regulatory filing.r

Because trucks haul so much commerce, accounting for more than 81 percent of the nation’s $571 billion freight-transportation bill last year, the effects could be far-reaching. Some users of truck transportation say higher trucking rates could lead to a broad-based increase in prices of goods from paper to chemicals, diapers to trash cans. r