Analysis of Risk as a Function of Driving-Hour: Assessment of Driving-Hours 1 Through 11

Crashes involving large trucks constitute a significant risk to the driving public and an occupational risk to truck drivers. In 2005, some 442,000 large trucks (weighing over 10,000 lbs each) were involved in vehicle crashes; 4,951 of these large-truck crashes resulted in fatalities. Driver impairment due to drowsiness is a known contributing factor in many crashes involving commercial motor vehicle (CMV) drivers (Maycock, 1997). The Large Truck Crash Causation Studies found that 13 percent of truck drivers were coded as having been fatigued at the time of the crash (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), 2006). On April 28, 2003, FMCSA published a revised set of regulations concerning the Hours-of- Service (HOS) of CMV drivers. These published regulations were amended on September 30, 2003 and implemented on January 4, 2004. One central component of the revisions was a two hour extension of off-duty time from eight to 10 hours. One rationale given in an FMCSA posting in the Federal Register (2005) was that the additional two hours of off-duty time would provide drivers with substantially more opportunity to obtain restorative sleep (p. 3342). The results from Hanowski, Dingus, Sudweeks, Olson, and Fumero (2005) indicated that this indeed may be the case; their research found that drivers may be getting more sleep under the revised 2003 HOS regulation (6.28 h per day) as compared to the old regulations (5.18 h per day; Mitler et al., 1997).

• 
• Record URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/68
• Corporate Authors:

  Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg

  Virginia Tech Transportation Institute
  3500 Transportation Research Plaza
  Blacksburg, VA  United States  24061

  Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Authors:
  • Hanowski, Richard J
  • Olsen, R L
  • Bocanegra, Joseph L
  • Hickman, Jeffrey S
• Publication Date: 2008-1

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Edition: Final Report
• Pagination: 98p

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Fatigue (Physiological condition); Hours of labor; Motor carriers; Regulations; Risk assessment; Traffic safety; Truck crashes; Truck drivers
• Identifier Terms: Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations
• Subject Areas: Highways; Motor Carriers; Safety and Human Factors; I83: Accidents and the Human Factor;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01138306
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: FMCSA-RRR-08-002
• Contract Numbers: DTMC75-07-D-00006
• Files: NTL, TRIS, USDOT
• Created Date: Aug 12 2009 12:47PM