Small truckers say US regulator abuses science to cut work hours

THE American Trucking Associations (ATA) is attacking federal regulators who they say misapplied science on sleep deprivation to formulate new regulations to restrict the hours they can work.


In many North American and European jurisdictions, independent owner operator truckers are being driven out of business, as regulators deploy health and safety as well as environmental rules to close them down. Typical allies are the Teamsters union, big trucking companies, environmental and social action groups.


But the ATA commissioned Edgeworth Economics to review the science used by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to restrict their competitiveness, and in that study found "questionable logic, inadequate data and sloppy math" used to justify shortening hours, reports Newark's Journal of Commerce.


Even the authors of the first study with which the federal agency justified restrictions, object. Shortening truck driver work hours won't lead to more sleep, said Franco Cappuccio, a professor at England's Warwick Medical School, who with Jane Ferrie published a 2007 study on sleep upon which the agency restrictions are based.


"Current evidence does not support the FMCSA that a small increase in sleep is likely to decrease the mortality of individual or groups," said Dr Cappuccio. "It is premature to use the mortality outcome to support policy changes in occupational groups."


This may well be the basis of a legal challenge against final rule later this year, said the JoC report, noting that the agency released its proposed hours of service rule December 29 allowing until the end of this week to hear challenges.


Under a legal settlement with the Teamsters union and Public Citizen (a group which says of itself that it "advocates a healthier more equitable world by defending democracy from corporate greed"), the agency is obligated to issue a final rule by July 26.
(Source:http://www.schednet.com)