The Truckload Carriers Association (TCA) has joined the California and Ohio Trucking Associations and the Teamsters Union in filing a motion to intervene in the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) lawsuit involving new hours-of-service regulations.
The TCA motion, filed February 22, 2006, asks the court to allow arguments relative to the permissible on-duty and mandatory off-duty requirements for both single and team drivers using a vehicle equipped with a sleeper berth.
OOIDA filed the petition in December of 2006 in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. In August of 2005, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) denied OOIDA's request for two changes to the current hours-of-service regulations, prompting the lawsuit.
OOIDA is asking for involved split sleeper-berth provision for team drivers. Under the current HOS regulations, team drivers have to take a minimum of eight consecutive hours off in the sleeper berth. So one driver is virtually imprisoned in the sleeper berth, and the other driver is pressured to drive at least eight hours in one stretch while the other driver is off duty, OOIDA said.
OOIDA also is asking that those two hours would stop the clock and that the driver could take those off-duty and not count against his working time. The current regulations are set up in a way that if a trucker chooses to split up the required 10 hours of off-duty time, one of the two periods must be at least eight hours. That eight-hour rest period stops the 14-hour maximum on-duty clock. The other two off-duty hours can be taken at another time, either in the sleeper or out, to fulfill the 10-hour off-duty requirement, but they do not stop the 14-hour clock, OOIDA said.