The U.S. Department of Transportation has proposed limiting truck drivers to 12 hours a day behind the wheel and requiring that long-haul rigs carry electronic recorders to monitor their schedules. The proposed regulations are part of a broader government effort to address long-standing safety problems from a growing number of bigger, faster trucks on the highways. Responding to public concern, Congress last year created a truck safety agency to improve the industry’s record. Large trucks accounted for 3 percent of vehicles, but crashes involving them represent 13 percent of traffic deaths, 5,203 in 1999. Drowsy truck drivers are estimated to cause more than 750 fatalities annually. The contentious issues could take a year or more to resolve, but the government finally seems on its way to modernizing 60-year-old safety rules written when trucks averaged 25 mph. The use of on-board recorders quickly emerged as one of the most controversial parts of the proposal. The recorders would replace paper logbooks, which are easy to falsify, on which drivers now notes their hours. National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Jim Hall has long urged the use of recorders on trucks and buses. Only long-haul trucks would be required to carry the devices, which would automatically register start and stop times. Studies show that the average driver now works 65 to 70 hours a week, above the legal limit of 60 hours. In another change, drivers could spend no more than 12 hours behind the wheel in a 24-hour period. This is controversial with safety groups, though all sides expect the hour rules to be somewhat negotiable. Current rules require drivers to rest after 10 hours behind the wheel. However, in practice, schedules can be drawn up so a driver legally spends as much as 16 hours behind the wheel in a 24-hour period. The Department of Transportation said its proposed 12-hour-a-day limit will help establish a more natural balance between work and rest. But safety groups say 12 hours is too much. The trucking industry feels that 12 hours of rest is excessive. The American Trucking Associations predicted such a requirement would dramatically worsen the current shortage of drivers and create economic bottlenecks and more traffic. “This would force today’s sophisticated e-commerce, point-and-click, just-in-time delivery systems into old economy inefficiencies,” said Walter McCormick, president of the American Trucking Associations in Alexandria, VA. “Warehouses would bulge with goods as the freight backlog ballooned due to the massive shortage of trucks and drivers.” McCormick also said the proposal would result in a 50 percent increase in the number of trucks on the highways. “That translates into as many as 180,000 additional drivers and trucks on the road just to keep the current economy moving,” he said.