Truckers to FMCSA: Detention time is a safety issue

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration plans to study detention time in the trucking industry and how it affects safety.

Some truck drivers have weighed in already, informing the agency that the practice of shippers and receivers forcing them to wait for hours without pay can lead to dangerous outcomes.

“This wait time is unpaid to the drivers when they are paid by the mile and they are sitting,” Ramsay Younger wrote in comments to FMCSA. “This creates dangerous driving … when the driver knows they will be late and do not want to sit unpaid. Regulated docks working a similar schedule as the drivers and offering windows of access instead of set appointments will stop the dangerous driving habits appointments create.”

Proposed study

In August, FMCSA published a notice in the Federal Register that asked the public to comment on a proposed study into the detention time issue. The deadline to comment is Monday, Oct. 23.

“This research study will collect data on commercial motor vehicle driver detention time representative of the major segments of the motor carrier industry, analyze that data to determine the frequency and severity of detention time and assess the utility of existing intelligent transportation systems solutions to measure detention time,” the agency wrote in the notice.

About 80 motor carriers and 2,500 commercial motor vehicle drivers are expected to provide data for the study.

However, some drivers are telling FMCSA that the time for studies has already passed.

“No more studies are needed,” Richard Davis wrote. “Stop trying to kick the problem down the road. This problem has been going on since 1938, when the government exempted truck drivers from the (Fair Labor Standards Act). The problem of waiting on places to do their job has steadily gotten worse over the years. The government already knows through studies that the longer a driver sits at a dock, the safety on the highways is likely to get worse.”

OIG report

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, which represents small-business truckers, has long contended that the detention problem leads to driver turnover in the industry and is a detriment to safety.

In 2018, DOT’s Office of Inspector General found detention time increased crash risks and costs but that the current data limited further analysis. The report recommended that FMCSA collaborate with industry stakeholders to develop and implement a plan to collect and analyze “reliable, accurate and representative data on the frequency and severity of driver detention.”

Some of the findings from OIG’s report included that a 15-minute increase in the time a truck spent at a facility increased the average expected crash rate by 6.2% and that detention time costs for-hire truck drivers between $1.1 and $1.3 billion each year.

“These findings from the OIG report echo what OOIDA members have been experiencing for years,” OOIDA President Todd Spencer wrote in a letter to Congress in 2021.

How to comment

FMCSA will accept comments on the proposed detention time study through Monday, Oct. 23. To file a comment, click here or go to the regulations.gov website and enter Docket No. FMCSA-2023-0172. LL