The Federal Motor Carrier Safety administration has announced denial of the application from the American Trucking Associations for an exemption from the 14-hour provision of FMCSA’s hours-of-service regulations to enable certain drivers to exclude waiting time from their calculations of on-duty time. FMCSA denied the application for exemption by letter dated February 4.
Currently, only specially trained drivers of commercial motor vehicles (CMVs) that are specially constructed to service oil and natural gas extraction sites may employ this provision.
ATA proposed that FMCSA issue a limited two-year exemption to permit exclusion of such waiting time by drivers of commercial motor vehicles who are exclusively engaged in servicing oil and natural gas extraction sites and have the opportunity to obtain rest while waiting at such sites.
FMCSA officials say they concluded that ATA did not demonstrate how the CMV operations under such an exemption would achieve a level of safety equivalent to or greater than the level of safety obtained in the absence of the exemption.