As much as things change, they stay the same. The longstanding joke in our industry is that the issues we face now are basically the same as they were 20 years ago. If you left trucking at some point in the past two decades and just got back, you can pick up right where you left off.
You may have thought the California Meal and Rest Break rules for drivers were put to bed a couple of years ago. It was a significant industry win when the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration ruled that federal regulations pre-empted California’s rules and, therefore, were unenforceable under the Trump Administration. But just when you think that these contested rules are behind us, they continue to rear their ugly heads.
In August, FMCSA announced that it would begin accepting petitions for waivers from its decision to pre-empt state meal and rest break laws, specifically, the California and Washington break mandates. You could have timed this with an egg timer as both states submitted petitions for waivers to implement their meal above and rest break laws. We can add waiver petitions to death and taxes as the few guarantees in life and trucking regulations.
See also: 2024 Regulations Roadmap: Part 1
In the scope of our industry, this would be fine if the West Coast was an island. However, California and Washington are part of a broad network of interstate commerce.
The need to standardize trucking rules
The world has gotten smaller, and interstate freight differs from what it once was. Having a patchwork of state laws that would affect the daily movement of freight would be inefficient at best and chaos at worst. Time and time again, the supply chain has demonstrated that one singular standard of regulations is imperative to the practical and proficient means of delivering freight. Regulations for the federal hours of service already mandate the breaks that professional truck drivers must comply with and were developed based on safety and driver fatigue. By instituting state-by-state laws, efficiency, safety, and standardization would likely be dismissed for an industry that has demonstrated and thrived on knowing that one federal rule works best for all.
The states must demonstrate that their meal and rest break rules are “as safe or safer” than the federal standard, making this proposition difficult and one for which FMCSA’s pre-emption makes the most sense. Generally speaking, these rules would take on a life of their own once they become enforceable.
Consider a professional truck driver operating in interstate commerce and required to travel north from Washington, D.C., up the East Coast. The number of state border crossings makes one federal standard a necessity. Parking to accommodate these breaks would become even more of an endangered species than it already is, and the shoulders of highway on- and off-ramps would become even more populated with trucks and drivers taking mandated breaks in each state just by traveling through them.
Essentially, requiring more daily stops will force drivers to find parking in areas not traditionally made for commercial motor vehicles to take these breaks. Ultimately, these state meal and rest breaks would undermine safety by forcing drivers to stop driving at times when they do not need a break and park in locations that could be deemed unsafe.
See also: Feds to fund $300M in truck parking improvements
Limited schedules do not allow professional truck drivers to determine their break schedule. This could incentivize traveling at higher speeds to comply with a state-by-state rule that adds a ticking clock to an industry already complying with federal regulations.
Federal hours of service rules aim to ensure that professional truck drivers operate safely between states and to eliminate unnecessary confusion. Knowing that, it is clear that one federal standard overseeing how drivers operate demonstrates better safety benefits and improved efficiencies than a state-by-state approach.
We need to support the one approach that has served our industry well and eliminate any unnecessary ambiguities that could jeopardize the efficient movement of freight and the safe operation of our nation’s professional truck drivers.
