Yellowknife (Feb 26/03) - Transport Canada has put the brake on the amount of time truck drivers can spend behind the wheel.

The new rules restrict drivers to a maximum 13 hours driving time a day, down from 16 hours.

The minimum time truckers must take off has been increased from eight to 10 hours a day, with at least eight hours taken consecutively.

New work cycle regulations restrict drivers to 60 hours over seven days, 70 hours over eight days, and 120 hours over 14 days.

The regulations were tightened to reduce the risk of fatigue-related commercial vehicle accidents.

The changes will not affect an existing North of 60 exemption that allows truckers an extra two hours a day behind the wheel, said the GNWT's Gary Walsh.

"The north of 60 provision will continue to apply," said Walsh, director of road licensing and safety in the Department of Transportation.

"The exemption allows a maximum of 15 hours of driving a day followed by at least eight consecutive hours of off duty time."

Walsh is also president of the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators, which served as Transport Canada's main consultative body in redrafting the federal regulations.

The North of 60 provision recognizes safety issues while addressing the distances between communities and services in NWT, he said.

It does not apply to carriers hauling into NWT from the South.

"Carriers hauling from southern Canada are operating extra-provincial and are under the jurisdiction of federal hours of service regulations," said Walsh.

"That now means a maximum 13-hour day. When carriers operate internally within NWT, the North of 60 provision is in force and they can operate 15 hours a day."

An additional Northern proviso allows carriers on winter re-supply runs to operate 105 hours within a seven-day period.

The round trip between Yellowknife and the Lupin mine on the winter ice road requires 48 hours, due mainly to strictly enforced speed limits, said Donnie Robinson, general manager of RTL Robinson Trucking.

"We apply for extended hours on the ice roads and in the past we have always been granted that," said Robinson.

"The drivers work a maximum 15 hours a day followed by eight hours off."

NWT Motor Transport Association president John Johansen (Grimshaw Trucking) said the group fully supports the new regulations.

There are more than 200 `National Safety Code' carriers registered in NWT, said Walsh.