The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is in the process of reviewing what is called the personal conveyance (PC) rule, which is part of the truck driver hours-of-service regulations.
Last year, FMCSA had offered several examples explaining how the rule is applied in different situations, but the agency is continuing to review and refine the standard.
The interntion of the PC provision is to allow truckers to drive their trucks, loaded or unloaded, from a shipper or a receiver to a safe parking place, even when the drivers are out of hours.
FMCSA issued a clarification statement last May, but truckers’ questions kept coming. In November, it also issued a list of answers to frequently asked questions to clarify the PC standard.
The agency also proposed a draft regulatory guidance statement regarding the issue and sought public comment on what it should contain. No date has been set for guidance’s official publication.
The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance criticized the agency for continuing the review, along with what it believes are excess grants of electronic logging device exemptions (AA, 1-15-19, P. 2).
“Under the revised guidance, a driver could, in theory, drive hundreds of miles over the course of several hours all under the designation of personal conveyance,” CVSA said.
“This presents the opportunity for increased driver fatigue and risk on our roadways, as drivers may decide to travel hundreds of miles in order to strategically relocate to an alternate location after driving a full day.”
Instead, it says the U.S. should adopt the simple Canadian rule that limits drivers for a maximum of 46 miles per day for PC purposes.