FMCSA Aims to Publish Revised HOS Rule, EOBR Mandate Before Jan. 1, Ferro Says

TRANSPORT TOPICS - December 6, 2010
By Sean McNally
Senior Reporter

WASHINGTON — The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration now aims to publish its revisions to the hours-of-service rule and a proposed expansion of its electronic data recorder requirement by the end of the year, the agency’s head said last week.

FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro said the HOS rule, which was expected to be published near the end of October but remains under review by the White House Office of Management and Budget, is one of several agenda items the agency plans to complete before the end of 2010.

“We have a lot of things that got pushed to the end of the year,” Ferro told a freight transportation forum at the Swedish Embassy here Dec. 1.

“We all know that rule is at OMB,” she said, “and that rule will be published as soon as OMB is finished with its review. We’re hoping, certainly by the end of this year, that’s our goal.”

Ferro said she couldn’t discuss what was in the rule, joking that the words “hours of service [are] about as much as I can say.”

In addition to the hours rule, Ferro said the agency would have its expanded electronic onboard recorder proposal “on the street at the end of this year.”

That rule, she said, “takes us beyond what we have today, which is a remedial EOBR rule that applies a requirement for EOBRs to carriers who have a higher violation rate in their hours-of-service noncompliance and driver-log noncompliance... Continue to read more... (subscription may required at TTnews.com)