{"id":2304,"date":"2015-08-24T05:58:23","date_gmt":"2015-08-24T12:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveviewgps.com\/blog\/?p=2304"},"modified":"2025-09-16T15:50:49","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T22:50:49","slug":"combating-driver-fatigue-gps-fleet-tracking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liveviewgps.com\/blog\/combating-driver-fatigue-gps-fleet-tracking\/","title":{"rendered":"Combating Driver Fatigue with GPS Fleet Tracking"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is made to regulate the amount of hours that truck drivers are allowed to operate to keep them from driving fatigued and improve highway safety. The US Department of Transportation<\/a> is duty-bound and required to use the best science available when developing these regulations.<\/p>\n

The Hours of Service<\/a> regulation was published in December 2011 in the Federal Register for the Drivers Final Rule was effective in February 2012 and the remaining provisions compliance date was July 1, 2013.<\/p>\n

Basically, although the rule was complicated, it came down to a couple of updated requirements. The first was that drivers were required to take a 30 minute break to rest within their first eight hours of their shift. This is to keep them alert while driving on the road. The second was for them to take a ‘restart’ which is a 34-hour rest period once every 7 days.<\/p>\n

Also required was that at least two periods of resting should be between the hours of 1am and 5am. This would allow the drivers to get a very real rest allowing them to catch up on their sleep before they began another long work week. This would reduce the drivers\u2019 hours from 82 hours to 70 hours.<\/p>\n

Quite frequently, it’s not known how often drivers take on long commutes to get back to their workplace. Because of this, legislation introduced by Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) would require a study of extreme commuting so they could properly analyze how much risk the drivers were facing when arriving and departing from their workplace after a full day. Drivers’ exhaustion has led to serious and sometimes fatal accidents.<\/p>\n

A crash can represent a substantial cost to your business and fleet, particularly when there is injury or death involved. These costs include:<\/p>\n