In America, the roads are essentially the veins and arteries of our economy. Every day, massive trucks are transporting everything from your morning cup of coffee to the supplies that built your house.
Big trucks are everywhere and sharing the road with something that weighs 80,000 lbs while you are cruising around in a 3,000 lb vehicle can be intimidating.This is why federal trucking regulations exist – to ensure these rolling giants don’t turn into rolling disasters!
State trucking regulations certainly complicate the matter a little bit and have their own set of requirements that are not in the federal regulations, but the federal regulations establish the minimum safety measures that all states want to see observed.
These federal laws encompass anything and everything imaginable about trucking; they include how long truck drivers can drive before they are required to take a break, the amount of weight truck drivers can carry, and what happens if a truck driver is transporting a hazardous shipper such as chemicals or explosives.
Understanding these laws is not only important to truck drivers and trucking companies, but it is useful for anyone who wants to be safer on the roads.
Hours of Service Rules
Let’s face it: no one should be driving an 80,000-pound vehicle when fatigued. That’s exactly what occurred prior to the seriousness of the hours of service regulations. The hours of service regulations are focused on fatigue prevention which is a major contributing factor to truck accidents.
Truck drivers are allowed to drive for 11 hours only within a 14-hour work period. After that, they must take at least 10 consecutive hours off duty. Furthermore, truck drivers can only work for 60 hours in a seven-day period, or 70 hours in an eight-day period depending on the driver.
In addition to all this, truck drivers must also take a 30-minute break within the first eight hours of driving. While a 30-minute break, may not seem like much, it is particularly important when you are responsible for something that large and dangerous, and every bit of rest helps keep everyone safer.
The best part is that with Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs), this information gets tracked automatically. Drivers do not have paper logbooks to manipulate – the computer knows whether they are driving, resting, or on duty without driving.
Weight and Size Limits
You cannot just load a truck with whatever you want and drive off into the sunset. Federal law says that the maximum gross vehicle weight is 80,000 pounds, and there are axle weight limits as well.
The reason for axle weight limits is not just about the truck but to preserve the roads and bridges we all use. Too much weight concentrated on individual axles can damage the infrastructure of the roads. Also, overloaded trucks are much more difficult to stop and control.
If you need to haul something larger or heavier than the allowable limits, you typically need special permits and to follow specified routes. You’ve probably noticed those “OVERSIZED LOAD” trucks with escort vehicles – that’s just part of the permit process.
Going over weight limits doesn’t just mean it’s illegal – it is downright dangerous. Higher than the weight limits make for bigger stopping distances, increase a truck’s chance to roll over in turns, and places greater strain on brakes and tires, both of whose failure can be catastrophic.
Drug and Alcohol Testing
This is pretty simple, but very important. The drug and alcohol testing protocol isn’t just strict; it’s stricter than normal drivers – and rightly so when you consider the potential disaster that could happen if an impaired truck driver is behind a wheel.
Before you can even get hired as a truck driver, you have to pass a drug test. Then, during your career, you can expect random drug tests and drug tests will be required after every accident. Random testing has a minimum Federal Law requirement – Currently 50% of drivers are randomly tested for drugs annually and 10% for alcohol.
The zero tolerance policy means no detectable amount of certain substances will not only get you fired; it will also get you banned from ever driving a truck commercially again. There is no, “I just had a couple beers”, to fall back on or hope, if you’re behind the wheel of a commercial vehicle.
Post-accident testing occurs following serious accidents and if you refuse testing, you would be subject to the same penalties as someone who failed the testing. All of this is to keep impaired drivers off our roads before they have an opportunity to hurt someone.
Keeping Each Other Safe
These federal trucking regulations may come off as unwarranted bureaucracy to an outside angry driver, but they do help provide an essential service, and that is ensuring all of us and certainly themselves, are safer when sharing the road with these massive vehicles.
Most importantly, all driving populations should benefit knowing that there are consistent standards implemented across the nation regarding driver fatigue, educational and training requirements, maintenance of vehicles, driver vehicle inspections, and transporting of hazardous material.
Even if every state has their own additional trucking regulations as local laws dictate, the federal laws are a uniform template of law and obligations that cater and apply towards everyone, whether they drive a big rig or just trying to make it to work in their Honda Civic.
If the populations understand the various rules of the road for truck drivers, and how the laws and rules were formed to protect everyone who uses the Federal highways in the United States, we all can help keep each other accountable and safe on the roads.
