More rest, less driving time for truckers, and a better way to monitor both : all three are needed but new federal rules come up short.

Although new federal rules are lengthening the rest time for commercial truck drivers, they have also added an extra hour of driving time per stretch. Many concerned about highway safety are uneasy because these new rules lack provisions for monitoring driving hours. Although the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) had considered mandating tamper resistant onboard recorders to enforce work hour rules, this provision had been dropped from the new rules, which begin on January 1, 2004. The revised week "Restart" provision, a loophole, allows the driver to increase the legal driving hours by up to 30% per week. Although there are differing opinions as to whether recorders should be placed in commercial trucks, it seems as though it would help with the falsification of paper logbooks. This article includes a table of Current and future work-hour rules for truckers, as well as a graph representing the possibilities of the "Restart" provision.