The Bush administration should have listened to truck-safety advocates and opted against allowing truckers to drive for 11 consecutive hours.

Instead, the administration has allowed the 11-consecutive-hours-of-driving rule, which was implemented by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration on Jan. 1, 2004, to remain intact.

For 60 years, truckers could drive for only 10 consecutive hours.

"What reasonable person who has traveled our nation's roads and highways thinks that forcing tired truck drivers to stay behind the wheel even longer is good public policy?" asked James Hoffa, Teamsters Union president.

Annette Sandberg, chief of the truck-safety agency, says the latest version of the 11-hour rule is backed by more research and was designed to reduce the number of crashes caused by fatigued drivers.

She said the rule requires drivers to take at least 10 hours off between shifts, two more than before, and reduces the maximum workday to 14 hours from 15.

But 11 hours is still a long time to be staring at a highway; actually, 10 hours is also.

The decision against changing the 11-hour rule is even more troubling when stacked against a statistic on deaths resulting from large-truck crashes. The safety group Public Citizen has reported that deaths from such crashes increased 3.1 percent from 2003 to 2004.

That was before the 11-hour rule went into effect. No doubt safety advocates are awaiting completion of the 2004-05 death tally to seek if it is more alarming.