Car transporters conducting car shipping duties for auto transport firms around the United States that have been hoping for a change to the Hours-Of-Service regulations can stop hoping. A recent lawsuit brought against the current Hours-Of-Service regulations currently implemented by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration might see some changes made to the Hours-Of-Service rules and regulations by the time we reach July 2012, according to sources close to this affair. The process to actually change the Hours-Of-Service rules and regulations is actually a very involved process according to sources and we should expect it to go through a number of different stages, before we see any changes made implemented.
Reports indicate that the FMCSA’s first draft of a new Hours-of-Service rule has been sent to the Office of the Secretary of Transportation and is currently going through what is called the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking stage, one month earlier than required by the settlement of the lawsuit brought against the current Hours-Of-Service rules by the Safety Coalition and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Present plans apparently call for the rule changes to be reviewed by the Department of Transportation and the Office of Management and Budget, before being published in the Federal Register and subject to comment from Americans.
Sources around this affair also indicate that things are looking pretty good for car transport professionals that wanted to see a few changes made in the Hours-Of-Service rules and although the changes are by no means set-in-stone, we can probably expect that the final road taken by the new rules will be in the direction desired by auto shipping professionals in the United States?