In The News

HOS seminar attendance shows big drop off

DALLAS — Perhaps it’s the fact that diesel prices are above $4 a gallon, and despite dropping recently, are, in the opinion of many drivers, likely to rise again.

Maybe it has something to do with lack of freight.

Maybe there are other issues that bring about more violations.

Or maybe, they’ve just become tired of talking about them.

“Them” are those often confused, often cursed, often changed Hours of Service rules.

Whatever the reason, the attendance at the Hours of Service regulations seminar at the Great American Trucking Show here today gives credence to the fact that there’s not as much talk about HOS Thursday afternoon as there was one year ago when over 100 truckers packed the meeting room and fired question after question at the presenter.

Thursday, there were fewer than 15 and the questions came intermittently and quietly.

Leon Feazell, safety and DOT consultant with Tejas Safety Advantage of Plano, Texas, once again presented logbook examples that showed both compliant and non-compliant logs, including logs that stretched over two days.

About the most critical question raised was by one trucker who said his company safety director told him that he could drive no more than 11 hours in one day.

“It has nothing to do with a day, but a shift,” Feazell responded, noting that a trucker could easily drive more than 11 hours within the same calendar day depending on when the trucker took the required sleeper berth or sleeper berth/off-duty time.

As for the number of HOS violations law enforcement officers see, Feazell said drug and alcohol violations put more drivers out of service than HOS violations today.

He did note however, that “a lot of misinformation about HOS had been communicated.”

To view the logbook examples used in today’s presentation, click here.