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June 2, 2000 11:25 AM, EDT

WASHINGTON — Critics far outweighed supporters at the first official sound-off over the Department of Transportation’s proposed hours-of-service rules for truck drivers last week in Washington.

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DOT scheduled eight public hearings on its plan to revise the 61-year-old rules governing the amount of time drivers of trucks and buses are allowed to work in a given period. The first airing was held at the agency’s headquarters May 31 and June 1.

Trucking officials warned that the rules would cause more problems than they solved for the nation’s 480,000 truck drivers, end up costing truck fleets more than DOT has estimated, depress driver wages and increase the number of trucks on the road.

Transportation officials said the proposed rules would prevent approximately 2,600 crashes and 2,995 serious injuries annually and 115 fatalities. Trucking companies will save as much as $475 million a year if the rules are adopted since the regulations would eliminate handwritten logbooks for long-haul drivers and record-filing by company clerks, said DOT.

For the full story, see the June 5 print edition of Transport Topics. .