Opinion ID: 186266
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Increase in Maximum Driving Time from Ten to Eleven Hours

Text: 38 Petitioners challenge the rationality of the agency's decision to increase the maximum permissible daily driving time from ten to eleven hours. This challenge illustrates the relatedness of the entire rulemaking to the statutorily mandated driver-health factor upon which we are turning our decision. While the challenge to the increase in driving time is distinct, and theoretically could be the basis of the granting of a petition for review by itself, it is also a factor that the agency may wish to consider anew in weighing the effects of the rulemaking on the physical condition of drivers. 39 In any event, petitioners' challenge raises very real concerns. The old HOS regulations, as we have discussed, had prohibited truckers from driving more than ten hours without taking eight hours off during the day and had limited truckers' driving-eligible time to fifteen hours on duty without taking eight hours of off-duty time. While the final rule increased the minimum amount of off-duty time from eight to ten hours, and decreased permissible driving-eligible on-duty time from fifteen to fourteen hours, it increased the maximum permissible daily driving time from ten to eleven hours. 40 The agency had essentially two justifications for increasing maximum daily driving time. It said that the increase was justified by the decrease in overall daily driving-eligible tour of duty from fifteen to fourteen hours. 68 Fed.Reg. at 22,473. It also said that the increase in mandatory off-duty time from eight to ten hours justified the increase in daily driving time in light of the cost-benefit analysis it had conducted. Id. at 22,471. 41 We have our doubts about whether these two justifications are legally sufficient. The agency freely concedes that studies show[] that performance begins to degrade after the 8th hour on duty and increases geometrically during the 10th and 11th hours on duty. Id. Despite this finding, the agency cited absolutely no studies in support of its notion that the decrease in daily driving-eligible tour of duty from fifteen to fourteen hours will compensate for these conceded and documented ill effects from the increase. 42 The agency did refer generally to studies, but that generalized reference is of doubtful legal sufficiency. The agency in particular stated that it relie[d] upon 12 studies to select a 10 consecutive houroff-duty [sic] period, a 14- hour tour of duty, and a maximum of 11 hours of driving and noted that an annotated literature review of those studies is in the rulemaking docket. Id. at 22,473. But the agency never stated which particular studies in fact justify the increase, much less how they do so. Unlike the discussion in the rule, the agency's brief before this court does cite several studies with particularity; but those citations cannot save the rule. The expertise of the agency, not its lawyers, must be brought to bear on this issue in the first instance. See SEC v. Chenery, 318 U.S. 80, 87-88, 63 S.Ct. 454, 458, 87 L.Ed. 626 (1943). 43 Moreover, although the agency is correct that it decreased the maximum daily driving-eligible on-duty time, the agency also, as discussed above, increased the maximum weekly on-duty time for those drivers maximizing weekly driving time and who take advantage of the thirty-four-hour restart provision. Even assuming that the agency had adequately documented the beneficial effects from the decreased daily driving-eligible tour of duty, the effects from the increased weekly driving hours may offset any decrease in fatigue flowing from the fact that drivers have shorter over-all tours of duty. For these two reasons, it is unlikely that we would find the agency's first explanation legally sufficient. 44 The agency's second justification is also dubious. That explanation relies on the cost-benefit analysis it conducted. The analysis purports to show that the benefits from the rule outweigh its costs, given that the agency increased (as compared to the old HOS regulations) mandatory daily off-duty time from eight to ten hours. But this analysis assumes, dubiously, that time spent driving is equally fatiguing as time spent resting — that is, that a driver who drives for ten hours has the same risk of crashing as a driver who has been resting for ten hours, then begins to drive. 68 Fed.Reg. at 22,497. In other words, the model disregarded the effects of time on task because, the agency said, it did not have sufficient data on the magnitude of such effects. Id. This assumption makes the cost-benefit analysis of questionable value in justifying the increase in daily driving time. The exponential increase in crash risk that comes with driving greater numbers of hours, presumably caused by time-on-task effects, raises eyebrows about the agency's increase of daily driving time. Yet the agency excluded time-on-task effects from the cost-benefit analysis. That analysis, then, assumes away the exact effect that the agency attempted to use it to justify. The agency's reliance on the cost-benefit analysis to justify this increase is therefore circular, and the rationality of that explanation is correspondingly doubtful. 45 Quite apart from the circularity of the agency's explanation, moreover, the model's assumption that time-on-task effects are nil is implausible. Again, the agency admits that studies show that crash risk increases, in the agency's words, geometrically, id. at 22,471, after the eighth hour on duty, and the agency does not deny that this geometric risk increase results at least in substantial part from time-on-task effects. The mere fact that the magnitude of time-on-task effects is uncertain is no justification for disregarding the effect entirely. The agency, for example, could have extrapolated the time-on-task effects of driving longer hours using crash-risk data derived from drivers who drove for shorter periods of time. In light of this dubious assumption, the agency's cost-benefit analysis is questionable, and, as a consequence, so is its justification for increasing maximum driving time from ten to eleven hours.