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We’ve seen quite a few changes in trucking regulations already this year. Some rules have been postponed, others removed, a couple added, and a big one is still on the way. Below is a look at the 5 regulations that could affect your trucking business the most.
1. ELD Mandate
Of course, Electronic Logging Devices are what’s on most people’s minds. Come Dec. 18, every carrier will be required to have ELDs in their trucks, which the driver will use for their hours-of-service (HOS) logs. Some drivers think it’s an overreach by Big Brother, while other owner-operators see it as an added expense and obstacle that could put them out of business. Most hope that the Trump administration will do away with it.
So far, we haven’t seen anything to suggest that it’s going anywhere. President Trump’s executive order to freeze new regulations applied to proposed rules like speed limiters, but the ELD mandate is already law. Most of the big carriers have been using ELDs for years – organizations like the ATA support the ELD mandate – so it’s small carriers and owner-operators who will be most affected by the law.
Back in Novemeber, Todd Spencer, executive vice president of OOIDA, pointed out to Overdrive Magazine that the political climate hasn’t changed so much since the ELD mandate was first introduced.
“We’ve had Republican control of both the Senate and the House for quite a while,” he explained. “Unfortunately, the ELD rule was pushed through by Republicans in Congress, even some Tea Party Republicans.”
That said, OOIDA recently filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court to try to stop the rule.
2. Carrier Safety Fitness Determination
The FMCSA announced that they’re postponing the new rules that would measure a carrier’s Safety Fitness Determination. Most carrier associations opposed the SFD because the guidelines were based on safety data they considered to be flawed.
3. New Food Safety Rules
New standards for transporting food went into effect in April. For now, the new rules only apply to large companies, and everyone else has until April 2018 to comply. You can click here to see if your company is exempt.
4. HOS: 34-Hour Restart
The 2013 version of the 34-hour restart rule required that drivers be off duty for two periods from 1:00 to 5:00 AM in order to reset their hours of service. You could also only use the restart once per week. A recent study of the rules determined that they weren’t any safer, so those are now gone for good.
5. Final Stage of MC Numbers Rule Suspended
The Unified Registration System will eliminate docket numbers (MC numbers) for carriers and brokers (FF numbers, etc), identifying them solely by their DOT number. While NEW carriers and brokers are now required to use the URS, the final phase will apply to EXISTING carriers and brokers. That final stage is on hold for now.
A lot of jobs that were pretty common 40 years ago aren’t so common anymore. There aren’t as many farmers as there used to be. The same thing is true for jobs like secretary and machine operator. But one job has been a mainstay in American life for four decades: Truck driver.
NPR recently ran a story where they listed the most common job for every state for each year, from 1978 to 2014. Truck drivers are everywhere.
Source: IPUMS-CPS/ University Of Minnesota
Credit: Quoctrung Bui/NPR
Not all of those truck driver jobs are over-the-road, though. The story was based on census information, and the government categorizes delivery people as truck drivers, too.
Still, trucking has had more staying power than a lot of jobs. NPR noted a few of the reasons:
“Driving a truck has been immune to two of the biggest trends affecting U.S. jobs: globalization and automation. A worker in China can’t drive a truck in Ohio, and machines can’t drive cars (yet).”
In 2014, truck driver was the most common job in 28 states. At its peak in 2004, truck driving was the most common job in a whopping 36 states.
In North Carolina, it’s been the most common job every year since 1986, the longest current streak. Not too surprising, since Charlotte is one of the most popular cities for load posts on DAT TruckersEdge.
Carriers Hire the Most Truck Drivers in 5 Years
While the map above is for 2014, it seems safe to say that a 2017 map would still look pretty similar. In February, trucking fleets added 10,600 jobs, the biggest increase in five years, according to the Wall Street Journal. This comes a month after fleets cut their payrolls by 5,100 jobs, so part of that increase was because fleets were adding back the jobs that went away in January.
Still, it’s a strong sign of growth for the trucking industry, so driving a truck is going to stay a popular job for a while yet.
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