Livestock haulers request for hours of service change denied: FMCSA

The Federal Motor Service Security Administration has denied a request from a number of agricultural teams looking for an exemption from sure hours of service provisions. The requested exemption was made on behalf of drivers who transport livestock, bugs, and aquatic animals.

The request would have allowed drivers, after 10 consecutive hours off responsibility, to be on responsibility for 16 hours after approaching responsibility, and to drive a complete of 15 hours throughout that 16-hour interval.

Teams looking for the waiver included the Nationwide Cattlemen’s Beef Affiliation, Livestock Advertising and marketing Affiliation, American Farm Bureau Federation, American Beekeeping Federation, American Honey Producers Affiliation and Nationwide Aquaculture Affiliation.

The teams filed the exemption request in February 2019. On the time, laws allowed livestock haulers to function inside a 150-air-mile radius of the supply of the agricultural commodity, and time spent working inside that radius didn’t depend in opposition to a driver’s each day and weekly hours limits.

The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Regulation added to that to additionally embody a 150-air-mile radius of the load’s vacation spot. Livestock haulers additionally stay exempt from the digital logging gadget mandate, FMCSA stated.

“If the company have been to grant the exemption, drivers transporting agricultural commodities can be allowed six or extra hours of driving time inside the 150-air-mile exempt zones for the transportation of agricultural commodities, along with the 15 hours of driving time exterior the zone,” FMCSA stated in its denial. “The company finds that permitting 21 or extra hours of driving throughout a piece shift would unlikely obtain a stage of security that’s equal to, or larger than, the extent that might be achieved absent the exemption.”