FMCSA proposes limits on emergency declarations

December 7, 2022

Mark Schremmer

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The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration plans to place limits on the amount of regulatory relief that is granted when an emergency declaration is issued.

In a notice of proposed rulemaking that is scheduled to publish in the Federal Register on Thursday, Dec. 8, FMCSA proposed to “narrow the scope of regulations from which relief is provided automatically for motor carriers providing direct assistance when an emergency has been declared.”

FMCSA says the goal of the rulemaking would be to ensure that the relief granted through emergency declarations is appropriate and tailored to the specifics of the circumstances and the emergency being addressed. The agency also proposed revisions to how an emergency declaration is extended.

“Safety regulations ensure that companies, vehicles and drivers meet the minimum requirements to operate safely,” the agency wrote. “While the temporary relief from some regulations may be necessary during an emergency, waiving every regulation in parts 390-399 could negatively impact the safety of commercial motor vehicles operating on the roadways.”

FMCSA acknowledged, however, that the use of emergency declarations have not yielded negative safety results.

Truckers were allowed to operate under a federal emergency declaration from March 2020 until Oct. 15, 2022 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to data provided by FMCSA to Land Line, the waiver didn’t deter safety. In August, the agency told Land Line it was aware of only two crashes involving truck drivers operating under the waiver. Both were single-vehicle crashes. The first crash resulted in only minor injuries to the driver. The driver was uninjured in the second crash.

“The agency has no information that suggests that past or existing emergency exemptions have in fact negatively impacted road safety,” FMCSA wrote in the notice.

The proposal

FMCSA proposes to narrow the automatic applicability of an emergency declaration (390.23) to the hours-of-service limits in 395.3 and 395.5.

Some of the other proposed changes:

  • Modify the definition for emergency to clarify that emergency regulatory relief under 390.23 generally does not apply to economic conditions that are caused by market forces.
  • Remove the definition of emergency relief and amend the definition of direct assistance to incorporate the essential components of the former emergency relief definition.
  • Although presidential declarations of emergency would continue to trigger a 30-day exemption from all regulations in parts 390-399, the proposed rule would limit the duration and scope of the existing automatic relief when issued by a governor or a governor’s representative for the FMCSA. In these instances, the automatic regulatory relief would apply for only five days and would exempt drivers only from 395.3 and 395.5.
  • Simplify the language allowing FMCSA to extend and modify the regulatory relief outlined in 390.23.

The full notice of proposed rulemaking can be found here.

OOIDA’s take

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association said that FMCSA’s acknowledgment that emergency declarations haven’t negatively affected safety shows that the agency should do more to grant general hours-of-service flexibility to truck drivers.

“We don’t anticipate there will be any noticeable changes for drivers operating in emergency areas under these modifications and expect the agency would swiftly extend any exemption in scenarios requiring assistance after the initial five-day period,” said Jay Grimes, OOIDA’s director of federal affairs. “We also agree with FMCSA’s assessment that there is ‘no information that suggests that past or existing emergency exemptions have in fact negatively impacted road safety.’ Every emergency declaration, including the extended COVID-19 hours-of-service waiver that was in place for more than two-and-a-half years, has shown that drivers are not going to abuse HOS flexibility at the risk of highway safety. We urge FMCSA to take further action to promote practical HOS flexibility in all settings, not just emergency conditions.”

How to comment

Once the notice is published in the Federal Register, the public will have 60 days to comment on the proposal. To do so, go to Regulations.gov and enter Docket No. FMCSA-2022-0028. LL