Georgia Truck Accident Lawyers Blog

Truck drivers operating on the roads of Georgia and across the nation are subject to hours of service restrictions. These restrict the number of hours a driver may operate a truck in a certain time frame. It has been shown that fatigued drivers are a major contributing factor to truck crashes.

Legislation enacted in the last Congress and pushed by the Bush administration granted certain carriers exemptions from the restrictions. Now, a recent study by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Volpe National Transportation Systems Center found trucking carriers that received hours of service regulations exemptions reported higher crash rates than those that didn't obtain waivers from the rules.

The legislation exempted agricultural carriers from the hours of service regulations if they operated only within a 100-mile radius from their central base of operation. It also exempted utility service vehicle drivers from all hours-of-service regulations.

The Volpe study found that agricultural carrier operating exclusively within a 100-mile radius had a 19% higher crash rate than agricultural carriers operating outside a 100-mile radius between 2005 and 2007, while utility service motor carrier crash rates jumped by 40% during the same period.

These results show that safety is clearly compromised by these exemptions. Safety groups have called for their repeal in the upcoming Transportation Reauthorization Act.

The study also showed that in 2007 agricultural carriers as a whole had higher violation and out of service rates than the rest of the trucking industry in the categories of unsafe driver, driver fitness, vehicle maintenance, and improper loading - with a 32% overall average increase.

Agricultural carriers operating solely within a 100-mile radius had higher violations and out of service rates than those operating outside of a 100-mile radius in the categories of unsafe driving, driver fitness, vehicle maintenance, and improper loading, the Volpe study reported, with the overall average increase in the case at 24 percent