Federal Appeals Court Rejects HOS Challenge

The U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has rejected a challenge to the FMCSA's Interim Final Rule on Hours of Service. The rule was printed in the Federal Register Vol. 72, No. 241, starting at p. 71247. For those of you who don't have that copy of the Federal Register laying around, you can look up the IFR at the FMCSA's web site.

The challenge was made by a coalition of forces including Public Citizen, and the Teamsters. I will be reviewing the court's ruling to determine why the court rejected the challenge.

The new HOS rules, which were adopted in 2005, thrown out by the court last year, and then re-adopted and now pending review, increase the consecutive hours a driver can drive to 11, and lower the restart (the minimum hours a driver can rest before starting the clock again) to 34. Public comments are open until February 15, 2008.

I will be reviewing the court's order rejecting the challenge, and will report on it in a future post.