September 13, 2007
This summer the Court issued a decision that overturned the existing Hours of Service rules. This decision has created significant confusion in the marketplace and carriers are left wondering how many hours can a driver legally be behind the wheel. Under the existing rules, the driver can rack up 11 hours; in light of the court's decision, 10 hours is the legal limit. Additionally, the court has eliminated the 34-hour restart provision. This is an extremely important issue. Aside from reducing a carrier's time by 9%, the elimination of the restart provision will likely impact a carrier's ability to position their drivers.
In order to help you understand what is occurring, we've asked our friend Tim Lynch who is an Executive Vice President with the American Trucking Association to help our listeners understand this issue and what is at stake. Additionally, this On the Record session will give our listeners some ideas about what they can do to voice their concerns.
Let me close by encouraging you to take the time to understand the impact of this issue. Right now shippers are benefiting from a soft market. However, if the economy rebounds and capacity tightens, this court decision could cause a significant increase in your transportation costs. And for those of you who have taken our advice and send a monthly or quarterly transportation and logistics newsletter to your senior executives, we encourage you to pass this information along to them.
Mike Regan
TranzAct Technologies
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