Comments of the Virginia Trucking Association re: Heat Illness Standard

Thank you for the opportunity to file these comments on the Notice of Intended Regulatory Action (“NOIRA”) concerning the proposed Heat Illness Prevention Standard, 16VAC25-210 on behalf of the Virginia Trucking Association (VTA).

As background, the VTA is the statewide association of trucking companies, private fleet operators, industry suppliers, and other firms that support safe and successful trucking operations.  Our membership includes family-owned and corporate trucking businesses of all sizes engaged in the transport of goods and services throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia and the United States.   The VTA membership includes companies that are headquartered in Virginia as well as companies headquartered in other states that have locations in Virginia and/or operate commercial vehicle in and through the Commonwealth.

VTA members support reasonable and effective measures to prevent heat-related illness and recognize that high temperatures can present serious risks to employees working outdoors, in loading areas, in maintenance settings, and during other physically demanding activities. The industry already employs a range of common-sense measures—including access to potable water, vehicle air conditioning where available, adjusted work practices, employee training, supervisor awareness, and emergency-response protocols—to protect drivers and other employees.

As the Department develops the proposed standard, it is essential that the resulting regulations be tailored to the operational realities of trucking and logistics. Unlike fixed-site employers, motor carriers frequently operate across multiple locations, work at customer-controlled facilities, serve emergency and time-sensitive needs, and employ professional drivers whose work is governed by extensive federal and state safety requirements, including federal hours-of-service rules. A one-size-fits-all heat standard designed primarily for stationary worksites could create unintended safety, compliance, and operational problems without meaningfully improving worker protection.

Accordingly, the VTA respectfully recommends that DOLI and the Board adopt a flexible, performance-based, and risk-based standard that recognizes the varied circumstances of transportation work.

Recommended Principles

We recommend consideration and inclusion of the following principles in the proposed standard.

1. Use a risk-based standard

The regulation should focus on actual heat-illness risk—not temperature alone. Heat-related risk is affected by multiple factors, including:

• Ambient temperature and humidity
• Direct sun exposure and radiant heat
• Air movement
• Physical exertion and workload
• Clothing and personal protective equipment
• Duration of exposure
• Access to air-conditioned vehicles or buildings
• Individual acclimatization and health-related factors
• Whether the employee may take water, rest, or cooling breaks as needed

The Board should avoid a rigid approach in which a single outdoor temperature or heat-index reading automatically triggers the same obligations for every workplace and job function. A local delivery driver stepping from an air-conditioned cab to make a brief delivery or an over the road truck driver stepping from an air-conditioned cab to drop or hook up a trailer does not face the same exposure profile as an employee performing continuous manual labor outdoors at a fixed site.

The regulation should expressly allow employers to evaluate heat conditions and protective measures using reasonable, site-specific methods, including local weather data, heat-index information, wet-bulb globe temperature where appropriate, work intensity, exposure duration, and available engineering or administrative controls.

2. Recognize mobile workforces

The final regulation should clearly account for motor-carrier operations in which the worksite changes throughout the day. A commercial motor vehicle should qualify as a “climate-controlled environment” when its cab has operational air conditioning or other effective cooling capability.

For professional drivers, an air-conditioned truck cab often provides the most immediate and practical cooling option available during breaks, route stops, fueling, loading, unloading, inspections, and other work activities. The regulation should not require a carrier to provide a separate shaded structure or fixed cooling area when an employee has reasonable access to an air-conditioned vehicle or another climate-controlled location.

Suggested regulatory concept: 

For employees engaged in mobile operations, including commercial motor vehicle operators, an employer-provided or employer-authorized vehicle cab with functioning air conditioning, or another available climate-controlled environment, satisfies any requirement to provide access to a climate-controlled environment, provided the employee may reasonably access the location for cooling and recovery.

The regulation should also recognize that a motor carrier may not own, lease, operate, or control the customer location where a driver loads, unloads, delivers, picks up freight, fuels, stages equipment, or waits for an appointment. Carriers should be required to take reasonable steps within their control but should not be held responsible for the physical conditions, facilities, or policies of a consignee, shipper, warehouse, construction site, port, rail yard, or other third-party premises.

3. Preserve operational flexibility

The Board should not impose inflexible, prescriptive rest schedules that could conflict with trucking operations, customer appointments, loading and unloading procedures, traffic conditions, roadway safety, or federally regulated hours-of-service compliance.

A mandatory, fixed break schedule may be counterproductive in transportation operations. For example, it may require a driver to stop in a location that is not safe or lawful for commercial vehicle parking, delay the driver’s ability to depart a congested customer facility, or interfere with an employee’s use of an available air-conditioned cab between work tasks.

Instead, the regulation should require employers to provide employees with the opportunity to take cool-down rest periods when needed and should permit the employer to determine how those opportunities are provided based on the nature of the work, the employee’s exposure, available facilities, and operational conditions.

Suggested regulatory concept:

Employers shall provide employees a reasonable opportunity to take cool-down rest periods as needed to prevent heat illness. The frequency, duration, and manner of providing such opportunities may be adapted to the employee’s work activity, heat exposure, available controls, and operational circumstances, provided that employees are not discouraged from reporting symptoms or taking needed cool-down periods.

This approach protects employees while preserving the ability of carriers and drivers to make safe, real-time decisions.

4. Address water access realistically

Motor carriers support ready access to potable drinking water. The standard should permit employers to meet this obligation through bottled water, water coolers, customer-site water sources when available, water carried in the vehicle, reimbursements, vendor arrangements, or other effective means.

The regulation should not require a fixed quantity of water to be staged at every location or require a particular placement standard that is impractical for drivers who change worksites repeatedly throughout the day. For mobile employees, water available in the cab, at a terminal, at a customer facility, or through commercially available sources along the route should be acceptable where the employee has reasonable and timely access.

The rule also should make clear that employee access to water need not mean that an employer must provide water at a location beyond its possession or control.

Suggested regulatory concept:

For mobile employees, drinking-water requirements may be met through water carried in or available to the employee through a commercial motor vehicle, employer facility, customer location, retail location, or other reasonably accessible source.

5. Establish workable acclimatization provisions

Acclimatization is an important safety concept, but the standard should not impose a rigid, administratively burdensome schedule that fails to account for individual experience, work history, existing conditioning, prior heat exposure, or intermittent outdoor work.

A flexible acclimatization provision should apply to:

• New employees who will perform substantial work in high-heat conditions
• Employees returning after a meaningful absence from heat exposure
• Employees assigned to unusually strenuous work or materially higher heat exposure than their normal duties

The regulation should allow employers to use supervisor judgment and existing safety-management practices to phase in exposure, adjust work intensity, increase observation, provide additional breaks, or take other protective measures based on the employee’s circumstances.

Importantly, a driver or technician who routinely works in outdoor conditions should not be treated as unacclimatized merely because the temperature changes from day to day or because the employee has moved between routes or customer locations.

6. Coordinate with federal requirements

The Board should ensure that the Virginia standard is compatible with federal motor-carrier safety regulations and does not create conflicting obligations for interstate carriers.

Commercial drivers are subject to federal hours-of-service rules, electronic logging device requirements, roadside safety obligations, requirements to attend to hazardous materials loads (cargo tanks and placarded vehicles) during loading, unloading, or when parked on public roadways, and other federal standards designed to promote public safety.

The final standard should expressly provide that compliance measures may be adapted as necessary to preserve compliance with applicable federal transportation-safety laws and regulations. It also should avoid requiring a driver to interrupt operation or stop at an unsafe or unauthorized location solely to satisfy a prescriptive break, shade, or cooling requirement.

Suggested regulatory concept:

Nothing in this standard shall be construed to require an employee operating a commercial motor vehicle to stop, park, or take a rest period in a manner that would violate applicable federal or state transportation-safety requirements or create an unsafe condition. Employers shall provide heat-illness prevention measures in a manner consistent with safe vehicle operation and applicable hours-of-service requirements.

7. Define key terms precisely

Clear definitions will be essential to avoid inconsistent enforcement. The final regulation should define, at a minimum:

• Climate-controlled environment: An indoor or enclosed location, including a commercial motor vehicle cab, maintained at a temperature that effectively reduces heat exposure and permits recovery from heat stress.
• Shade: A location that blocks direct sunlight and is sufficient to permit an employee to sit or otherwise rest comfortably. The definition should not require a fixed structure where portable, vehicle-based, temporary, or naturally shaded alternatives are effective.
• Mobile employee: An employee who performs work at changing or multiple locations during a shift and whose worksite is not a fixed employer-controlled location.
• High heat: A threshold based on a recognized heat metric, with sufficient flexibility for the Board to consider humidity, work intensity, direct sun, clothing, duration of exposure, and other relevant factors.
• Rest period or cool-down period: A break from heat exposure during which an employee may access water and an appropriate cooling environment.
• Emergency situation: Circumstances involving an immediate threat to life, health, public safety, property, critical infrastructure, or the uninterrupted movement of essential goods and services.

Definitions should be written so that an employer can understand its obligations before an inspection occurs, and so that compliance does not depend on subjective or inconsistent interpretation by different enforcement personnel.

8. Maintain meaningful exemptions

The NOIRA indicates that the regulation will include exemptions for heat exposure during certain emergency situations and exposure lasting no longer than 15 consecutive minutes. Those exemptions are appropriate but may not be sufficient for the transportation industry.

The final regulation should include clear exemptions or modified compliance options for:

• Employees whose heat exposure is brief, intermittent, or incidental
• Drivers who primarily work in climate-controlled vehicle cabs and only periodically exit the vehicle
• Emergency-response, disaster-recovery, utility-restoration, and public-safety support operations
• Activities necessary to protect life, public safety, cargo security, or the integrity of time-sensitive shipments
• Work performed at locations not controlled by the employer, where the employer has made reasonable efforts to provide or identify available protective measures
• Employees covered by an equally effective employer heat-illness prevention program

For drivers, the rule should measure exposure based on actual time performing work in heat, rather than total shift duration. Time spent operating or resting in an air-conditioned cab should not be treated as equivalent to outdoor heat exposure.

9. Allow equivalent compliance methods

Because employers and job settings differ, the standard should expressly permit alternative methods that provide equal or greater protection. For example, a carrier may protect a driver through a combination of air-conditioned cabs, dispatch communication, route planning, water carried in the vehicle, customer-facility protocols, flexible cool-down breaks, supervisor training, and emergency procedures.

An equivalent-compliance provision would encourage innovation and allow employers to tailor protections to actual workplace hazards rather than directing resources toward measures that are impractical or duplicative.

Suggested regulatory concept:

An employer may use alternative means of compliance where the employer demonstrates that the alternative method provides protection at least as effective as the protection required by the applicable provision of this chapter.

10. Focus training on actionable prevention

Training requirements should be clear, practical, and scalable for employers of different sizes. Training should be permitted through in-person, virtual, video-based, written, mobile-device, or other effective formats, and should be available in a language and vocabulary employees can understand.

At a minimum, training should address:

• Heat-illness signs, symptoms, and first-aid response
• The importance of hydration and prompt reporting of symptoms
• How to obtain water, cooling, shade, or climate-controlled recovery areas
• The employee’s ability to take a needed cool-down break without retaliation
• Emergency communications and procedures
• The heightened risks associated with new or returning employees
• The role of supervisors, dispatch personnel, and managers in responding to heat concerns

The rule should require refresher training at reasonable intervals and when conditions or job duties materially change, rather than imposing repetitive training obligations with limited safety value.

11. Provide phased implementation and compliance assistance

The Board should provide employers adequate time to revise safety programs, train employees and supervisors, evaluate fleet and terminal practices, coordinate with customer facilities, and implement operational changes. A phased effective date is particularly important for small carriers, independent contractors, and businesses with multiple terminals or dispersed operations.

DOLI also should publish industry-specific compliance guidance before enforcement begins. The trucking industry would benefit from examples addressing:

• Local and long-haul drivers
• Warehouse and terminal employees
• Fleet-maintenance personnel
• Roadside-assistance and towing personnel
• Fuel-delivery and bulk-haul employees
• Construction-material and aggregate carriers
• Employees who load or unload at third-party facilities
• Emergency and disaster-response transportation operations

DOLI should prioritize education, outreach, consultation, and good-faith compliance assistance during the initial implementation period. Enforcement personnel should receive training regarding transportation operations, the role of customer-controlled sites, hours-of-service constraints, and the practical use of air-conditioned vehicle cabs as cooling locations.

Conclusion

The trucking industry shares the Commonwealth’s goal of preventing heat-related illness and injury. An effective Virginia standard should protect employees while recognizing that motor carriers operate in a mobile, highly regulated environment in which employers often do not control the physical worksite.

We appreciate the opportunity to provide these comments and welcome the opportunity to participate in future stakeholder discussions or advisory processes as DOLI develops the proposed regulation.

Respectfully submitted,

P. Dale Bennett

President & CEO