Opinion ID: 184778
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Treatment of Hours-of-Service Violations

Text: 36 In its final challenge ATA claims that the FHWA's treatment of violations of its hours-of-service regulations is unduly harsh. 37 Outside the hours-of-service area, a carrier is assessed one point for each violation of an acute regulation and one for each pattern of violations of a critical regulation. 3 49 CFR 385 App. B, II(g), 62 Fed.Reg. 60,035, 60,044 (1997). But for the regulations governing drivers' hours of service, 49 CFR 395, a pattern of noncompliance (located within the operational safety factor) costs the carrier two points. Id. Each point received with respect to a given factor reduces the rating in that factor by one level--from satisfactory to conditional or from conditional to unsatisfactory. 49 CFR 385 App. B, II.C(b), 62 Fed.Reg. at 60,045. 38 The ATA argues that this double assessment is irrational because it amounts to disparate treatment of functionally indistinguishable violations. Its best claim on this point is that the FHWA's explanation of the rule merely defends enforcement of the hours-of-service regulation--without explaining why patterns of violation of that rule deserve to be treated more harshly than violations of other critical regulations. 39 What the agency did say, however, was enough. We look at the decision to assign two points to patterns of violation of the hours-of-service regulations in the context of the agency's overall process for turning observed violations into a rating. First, the types of regulatory default that an inspection turns up are of widely varying seriousness. This variation is captured to some extent by the critical-acute distinction, but there is also a good deal of variation among the regulations designated critical. For instance, failing to maintain a medical examiner's certificate in a driver's qualification file is a critical violation. 49 CFR 385 App. B, VII, 62 Fed.Reg. at 60,046 (1997). ATA's theory that all the critical violations are functionally indistinguishable would require us to say that failing to maintain a medical examiner's certificate is no different from exceeding the maximum allowable daily driving time; this is transparently not the case. 40 Even after rejecting the ATA's argument that all critical violations are functionally indistinguishable and must be treated identically, we must consider whether the decision to assign two points for hours-of-service violations is rational in the context of the rating system as a whole. The core aspects of the context are the division of regulations as between acute and merely critical, the number of regulations governing any subject matter (such as hours of service), and the distribution of subject-matter regulations among the six safety factors. 41 To illustrate the effect of context, we compare the regulations governing fatigue with the regulations governing drug and alcohol use and testing. There are three substantive and four recordkeeping hours-of-service regulations that affect each carrier. The substantive ones are the daily driving rule, 49 CFR § 395.3(a)(1), the daily on-duty rule, id. § 395.3(a)(2), and the weekly on-duty rule, id. § 395.3(b). The recordkeeping rules require that records of duty status be created, id. § 395.8(a), forwarded to the carrier's home office, id. § 395.8(i), maintained there for six months along with supporting documents, id. § 395.8(k)(1), and not falsified, id. § 395.8(e). Even an unsatisfactory rating for the operational factor (where all these violations are located) would not in itself lower a carrier's rating below conditional; a carrier can earn a conditional overall rating even with an unsatisfactory rating on a single factor. See Motor Carrier Safety Rating Table, supra, at I.B. By contrast, drug and alcohol matters are the subject of no fewer than eight acute (and two critical) regulations in the driver factor, and three more acute regulations in the operational factor. Because two separate factors include drug-and-alcohol limits, failure to comply with them can in itself cause a carrier to receive an unsatisfactory rating, while failure to comply with hours-of-service regulations cannot. Furthermore, there are more than twice as many ways for failure to comply with drug rules to cause points to be assessed. Finally, because most of these drug and alcohol rules are designated acute, they have no 10 percent safe harbor. 42 Indeed, it would be plausible to argue that the SFRM treats fatigue too leniently. One study in the record indicates that fatigue was the probable primary cause of 41% of studied accidents, while alcohol impairment was involved in only 4% of studied accidents; drug use was apparently not a factor in any of the studied accidents. See Transportation Research and Marketing, A Report on the Determination and Evaluation of the Role of Fatigue in Heavy Truck Accidents 14 (1985). 43 The FHWA's decision, then, was not just to assess two points for patterns of violation of the hours-of-service regulations, but also to label none of those regulations acute and to confine all of them to the operational factor. In light of the conditions the FHWA faced in crafting this element of the SFRM--the importance of controlling fatigue, the fact that the hours-of-service regulations are the only ones dealing with fatigue--we find no irrationality. And the agency pointed to each of these factors in justifying its decision. See 62 Fed.Reg. 28,826, 28,829 (1997), 62 Fed.Reg. 60,035, 60,040 (1997). Although the agency's defense may be of less than ideal clarity, its path may be reasonably discerned. Bowman Transportation, Inc. v. Arkansas-Best Freight System, Inc., 419 U.S. 281, 286, 95 S.Ct. 438, 42 L.Ed.2d 447 (1974). Further, the agency's treatment of the issue constituted an adequate response to critical comments. 44 The ATA also argues that the FHWA should have considered the weakness of the relationship between hours-of-service violations and fatigue in determining how much weight to assign fatigue-related violations. The record indicates that the FHWA did consider this factor and recognized that the present rules may not target hours of service optimally. 62 Fed.Reg. 60,035, 60,040 (1997) ([U]ntil the ongoing rulemaking efforts to better regulate fatigue are concluded, the FHWA believes it is important to continue to assign two points for a pattern of violations of a Part 395 'critical' regulation.) That there are flaws in the current substantive regulations does not, given the evidence indicating that long periods of driving cause accidents, render the agency's treatment of the rules arbitrary and capricious. See Patrick Hamelin, Surveys about Professional Truck Drivers: Professional Characteristics of Truck Drivers: Situations, Conditions and Duration of Work: Road Safety Effects 4 (1990) (over-risk of involvement in accidents beyond ten and more hours of work span); NTSB, Safety Study: Fatigue, Alcohol, Other Drugs, and Medical Factors in Fatal-to-the-Driver Heavy Truck Crashes 78 (1990) (Research evidence indicates that accident rates for trucks tend to increase dramatically the longer the driver continues beyond 8 hours of continuous driving.).