Report: Service Hours Violations Up Since 2020 Revision

Hours-of-service (HOS) violations rose the year after the regulations were loosened, according to a recent federal report.

Driver inspections with one or more violations rose nearly 1 percent to 8.5, according to a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) report issued in May. Similarly, inspections with one or more violations requiring the driver to be placed out of service increased 0.6 percent to 3.2. Both were marked as being “statistically significant.”

The report compares the two years prior to the regulation changes, which took effect in September 2020, to the year after the changes. Those changes included expanding the short-haul exception and the adverse conditions driving window, while also allowing “non-driving, on-duty time” to count towards the 30-minute break requirement and modifying the sleeper berth exception.

The data did not “show a significant difference in crash or fatality rates,” according to the report, but a disclaimer notes that the COVID-19 pandemic could have played a role.

Overall, FMCSA concluded that “this comparison does not specifically identify the effect of the HOS rule changes on crash rates,” given that confounding factors may have been in play. The agency noted it will work on additional analyses to look at specific HOS violations compared to crash trends.