Trucking Industry Calls for Adoption of New ...

November 29, 2004

29 November 2004

Trucking Industry Calls for Adoption of New Driver Hours of Service Rules and ‘Black Boxes’

The following article is extracted from the Ontario Trucking Association web site; the article was published there on 26 November 2004.

The Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) says that a new trucking industry is emerging from the battleground of economic deregulation and announced today that it is calling for the immediate adoption of the draft regulations for a new federal regulation and national standard governing truck driver hours of service which was approved last year by the Council of Ministers Responsible for Transportation & Highway Safety. And, in a landmark decision, the trucking alliance… is calling for the mandatory use of electronic on-board recording technology (generically but inaccurately called ‘black boxes’) to ensure compliance with the new rules.

… CTA’s CEO, David Bradley, states that CTA has no quarrel with proposed new restrictions on daily/weekly driving times and a 24% increase in daily rest time as compared to the existing rules. He says CTA “is not, as has been incorrectly reported by some in the media, seeking longer driving times. CTA has always worked towards hours of service regulations that are consistent with the science of alertness and fatigue management.” CTA is also dropping its pursuit of a controversial and widely misunderstood proposal it says was designed to address truck driver concerns over time available to cope with delays beyond their control but which has failed to garner sufficient support.

CTA’s call for the mandatory use – for all trucks governed by the National Safety Code and where a commercial drivers licence is required -- of electronic on-board monitoring technologies may come as a surprise to some, but Bradley says it is “imperative from a safety point of view, which of course is paramount, but also in terms of providing responsible carriers with a level playing field with competitors who might otherwise choose to bend or break the rules to increase driving time.”

“The days of the paper log book should be numbered,” he says. CTA is urging the federal and provincial governments to commence negotiations with CTA to enter into a joint government-industry memorandum of understanding on how best to make this a reality.

Bradley says by agreeing to the new hours of service regulations, the industry will be giving up some of its flexibility and its productivity for certain shipments, especially long hauls and multi-stop deliveries.

So, he is also calling on the industry’s customers, the shippers and consignees, to work with the trucking companies and their drivers to make the supply chain more efficient by reducing the time drivers are forced to wait to be loaded or unloaded. “Carriers and drivers will be even less tolerant of delays,” he says. …

According to Bradley, the trucking industry is at a watershed. He said CTA does “not seek to turn the clock back to the days before deregulation. … The industry can no longer sustain increases in costs, and resolve the shortage of truck drivers, and meet society’s demand for safer, more environmentally-friendly transportation, let alone earn a decent return on investment, without a widespread overhaul of current rate structures.”

He said “the trucking industry will continue to set the standard in terms of service to the Canadian businesses that need to get their goods to market, both domestically and internationally. We will continue to be the workhorse of the Canadian economy. But, we are no longer able or willing – either by putting our companies at risk or on the backs of our drivers – to subsidize the shipping community.”


Topic(s): 
Canadian Economy & Politics
Information Source: 
Canadian News Channel
Document Type: 
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