The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has officially renewed an hours-of-service exemption to a trucking company for five years.
In a notice that was published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, Oct. 22, FMCSA announced its decision to grant an exemption to WestRock that allows its drivers to transport paper mill products a short distance without complying with hours-of-service limits.
FMCSA previously announced provisional approval in January.
The exemption was granted to drivers for the Chattanooga, Tenn.-based company who operates a 275-foot route across a public road.
WestRock operates a paper mill in Chattanooga. The company’s shipping and receiving departments are located on opposite sides of the mill.
According to the notice, the company’s drivers travel the public road 40 times per day on average between WestRock’s manufacturing facility and the shipping and receiving docks. That route is about 275 feet in one direction. Only one tractor is used to perform this task. Drivers do not drive a truck continuously during a shift.
The exemption allows WestRock’s shipping department employees and substitute CDL holders who transport paper mill products between the limited route to work up to 16 consecutive hours in a duty period. The drivers also can return to work with a minimum of eight hours off duty.
WestRock has been operating under this exemption since 2012.
“Since 2012, FMCSA has determined that the operations of WestRock’s drivers … would likely achieve a level of safety equivalent to, or greater than, the level of safety achieved without the exemption,” the agency wrote in the notice. “FMCSA is unaware of any evidence of a degradation of safety attributable to the prior exemptions for WestRock’s drivers. Further, WestRock asserted that, since the initial approval of its waiver, it has operated safely without incident. There is no indication of an adverse impact on safety while WestRock drivers have operated under the terms and conditions specified in the initial exemption or the renewals.”
The exemption is set to expire on April 16, 2029. LL
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