Spencer Nicol of Hino Trucks takes the wheel of a Hino 33 chassis equipped with a Knapheide service body on display at the 2018 Work Truck Show in Indianapolis.Photo: Keith Norbury
Equipment service technicians shouldn’t be subject to proposed federal hours of service rules for commercial vehicle drivers, says a recent news release from Associated Equipment Distributors.
AED, an international trade association representing about 800 member companies, argues that “driving is ancillary” to the job functions of equipment service technicians.
In October, the association submitted comments supporting modifications to the proposed rules in response to a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration notice of proposed rule making.
Daniel B. Fisher, AED’s vice-president of government affairs, outlined the association’s position in a five-page letter to FMCSA administrator Raymond P. Martinez.
“These drivers do not face the same demands or fatigue concerns as long-haul truck drivers,” Fisher wrote. “Although the drivers may work long hours, they are servicing equipment used on projects and job sites within a local area. For these drivers, operating a commercial motor vehicle is incidental to their primary job responsibilities.”
Fisher also noted that the industry is facing a shortage of diesel technicians to service heavy equipment and that inflexibility in hours of service requirements are “a deterrent for qualified individuals to pursue careers as equipment service technicians.”
Most of the modifications the AED is seeking were contained in the FMCSA’s notice, the AED news release noted.
Specifically, the AED is seeking modifications to four parts of the proposed hours of service rules as follows:
• providing one set of rules for short-haul operations, wherein the holder of a commercial driver’s licence would be exempt from the requirements if the driver operates within 150 air-miles of the work reporting location and completes the work day within 14 hours;
• eliminating the short-haul rule’s return-to-work reporting location requirement to allow the driver to establish the origin point for that duty period, as opposed to returning back to the normal work reporting location;
• granting drivers the flexibility to extend the 14-hour daily duty window by up to three hours in a single off-duty break; and
• allowing two hours of additional driving beyond the 14-hour driving window during adverse conditions, such as inclement weather.
AED has also filed comments as part of a “Construction Coalition” of trade organizations whose members operate commercial vehicles in construction and related industries.
Headquartered in Washington, D.C., AED has about 500 distributor members which employ 120,000 workers in Canada and the U.S. The AED also has about 300 non-distributor members, such as equipment manufacturers.
For more information, visit http://aednet.org.