Strong public opposition to longer truck driver working hours

Every year in the US on average 4,000 people die in truck crashes and about 100,000 more are injured, a large number of them due to driver fatigue. The hours a truck driver may spend behind the wheel per day or work per week are a basic building block of any supply chain, and lengthening those hours can inevitably increase the tiredness of a driver and therefore affect his safety, and many industry groups have in the past tried to decrease the hours a driver can work in a typical week.

However, not everyone has expressed positivity surrounding decreasing the Hours of Service (HOS), and the loss of money and increase of shipment times are factors that would be potentially inevitable. In July 2013, the US Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) proposed new rules to reduce the number of hours that a commercial driver can work per week, mandate breaks, and introduce fines for non-compliance, meaning that truck drivers were now limited to working on average 70 hours during a seven-day period, compared to 82 hours under earlier regulations.

However, more recent  legislation approved by a senate committee will  change current federal law to increase truck drivers' work week from 70 back to 82 hours and take away the two-day weekend.