Coronavirus causes changes in Missouri trucking regulations

Private and for-hire motor carriers whose loads carry essential equipment and supplies to fight the coronavirus are getting a temporary reprieve from the State of Missouri.

The Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) has increased the weight allowance for tractor-trailers at least 53 feet in length from the usual 80,000-pound limit to 100,000 pounds through April 30.

In a parallel move, Gov. Mike Parson is suspending the cap on the number of hours a trucker may spend behind the wheel through May 15.

These initiatives to allow heavier-than-normal truckloads and to relax driver hours are a “direct effort to prevent, contain, mitigate and treat the efforts of COVID-19,” according to a MoDOT news release.

“Overall, this is a good thing to get necessary goods where they need to be,” said Robert Cheney of Jackson, an over-the-road Schneider trucker for 16 years.

“I’m sure the (relaxed hours) will be abused by some (drivers),” Cheney added.

Until Parson’s order, truckers were limited to a 14-hour limit after which a 10-hour break from any driving is mandated.

Cheney agreed with another trucker who declined to be identified that drivers tend to dislike the 14-hour standard because often they have to shut down their rigs just short of home or the intended destination of their cargo.

Additionally, drivers are often at the mercy of their customers, said Cheney, who sometimes take as many as six hours to unload cargo.

Those six hours are counted against the 14, he said.

“We’ve been having a harder time making money,” Cheney said, citing the strict regulation of driver hours.

“In the old days, drivers could skirt the regs by using multiple doctored logbooks kept by hand,” said Cheney, 54, a former clergyman turned OTR trucker.

Cheney’s routes for Schneider take him through Southeast Missouri, northeast Arkansas, Mississippi and a small part of Tennessee. A weekly trip to Springfield, Missouri, is also part of his schedule.

“It was the honor system before 2018,” Cheney said, “but now you can’t cheat because of (government-mandated) electronic time monitoring.”

The on-board monitor, or electronic logging device, which Cheney said is referred to by the acronym ELD, ensures compliance with regulations.

The coronavirus, at least for the next month-and-a-half, has set aside penalties, which can run into the thousands of dollars, for extra driving time.

MoDOT officials are not overly worried about trucker safety, Rickabaugh said, due to the immediacy of the health crisis.

“Drivers are aware of their own limits,” said DeAnne Rickabaugh, project manager for MoDOT’s Motor Carrier Services in Jefferson City.

“We’re confident (drivers) will get the rest they feel they need.

“The most precious cargo on a truck is the person behind the wheel,” Rickabaugh said.

MoDOT’s order lifting the weight limit to 100,000 pounds does not apply to every big truck.

Supplies and equipment directly related to COVID-19 are covered.

Included in the weight suspension waiver are livestock and poultry.

The rapid spread of the virus in the Show Me State has caused the state agency to amend the first directive it issued earlier this month.

Heavier truckloads originally were not to be allowed on any federally controlled interstate highways such as Interstate 55.

“(But) the need is such that interstates may now take the higher weight limit,” Rickabaugh said. “All that is needed is for a carrier or its driver to file for a free special permit.”