I've read several comments that imply log books are related to safety.

Log books were implemented due to pressure by railroad owners who wanted to limit competition posed by trucks.

Unions also support restricting drivers' working time. Less hours worked, more workers needed. More workers, more dues.

And, states collect millions of dollars in taxes by claiming drivers are unsafe based on nothing more than a bunch of arbitrary regulations (HOS) that do nothing to improve safety.

So long as you attempt to connect log books and the HOS regulations with safety, you will be confused.

Log book regulations only have one intent and that is to enrich someone else at a driver's expense. HOS regulations do nothing to improve safety.

This post is completely bogus.

The HOS were absolutely created to keep drivers safe and to keep greedy dispatchers and companies from firing drivers for refusing to haul a load due to being tired.

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History


























In 1938, the now-abolished [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link. (ICC) enforced the first HOS rules.[LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link. Drivers were limited to 12 hours of work within a 15 hour period. Work was defined as ‘‘loading, unloading, driving, handling freight, preparing reports, preparing vehicles for service, or performing any other duty pertaining to the transportation of passengers or property.’’[LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link. The ICC intended the 3-hour difference between 15 hours on duty and 12 hours of work to be used for meals and rest breaks. The weekly maximum was limited to 60 hours over 7 days (non-daily drivers), or 70 hours over 8 days (daily drivers). These rules allowed for a 12 hours of work within a 15 hour period, 9 hours of rest, with 3 hours for breaks within a 24-hour day.
Within a short time, however, representatives of organized labor (including the American Federation of Labor, the Teamsters, and the Machinists) petitioned for a stay of the original regulations. A few motor carriers made a similar request. The ICC agreed, and oral arguments were heard again. Labor wanted HOS limits of 8 hours per day and 48 hours per week. The ICC commented that there was no statistical or other information which would enable them to say definitely how long a driver can safely work. According to the ICC: "The evidence before us clearly does not suffice to enable us to conclude that a duty period as low as 8 hours in 24 is required in the interest of safety. We may call attention, as did the division, to the contrast between factory operations, generally sustained in character, and the operation of busses and trucks, generally characterized by frequent stops ... because of conditions encountered in highway and street traffic. The monotony or nervous and physical strain of driving such vehicles is alleviated by these breaks in the periods devoted to driving, and the period of actual work is considerably below the period on duty."[LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link.
Within 6 months of the original ruling, the ICC ultimately decided to change the 12-hour work limit in 24 hours to a 10-hour driving limit in 24 hours, and the 15-hour on duty limit was rescinded. Motor carriers were required to give drivers 8, rather than 9, consecutive hours off duty each day. Later, an added exception for trucks equipped with sleeper berths meant drivers were allowed to "split" their 8 hour off-duty time into two parts, allowing a driver (for example) to take two 4 hour periods of rest. Using one of these short rest periods would effectively "stop the on-duty clock," allowing the driver to split the 15 hour on-duty time limit into two parts as well. These rules allowed for 10 hours of work within a 15 hour time limit, and 8 hours of rest within a 24-hour day.[LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link.
In 1962, for reasons it never clearly explained, the ICC eliminated the 24-hour cycle rule,[LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link. and reinstated the 15-hour on duty limit.[LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link. With 10 hours of driving and 8 hours of sleep, drivers were allowed to maintain an 18-hour cycle, disrupting the driver's natural 24-hour circadian rhythm. This change also allowed up to 16 hours of driving per day, allowing the driver to exhaust their weekly limits in as little as 5 days.
Between 1962 and 2003, there were numerous proposals to change the HOS again, but none were ever finalized. By this time, the ICC had been abolished, and regulations were now issued by the FMCSA. The 2003 changes applied only to property-carrying drivers (i.e., truck drivers). These rules allowed 11 hours of driving within a 14 hour period, and required 10 hours of rest.[LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link. These changes would allow drivers (using the entire 14 hour duty period) to maintain a natural 24-hour cycle, with a bare minimum 21-hour cycle (11 hours driving, 10 hours rest). However, the retention of the split sleeper berth provision would allow drivers to maintain irregular, short-burst sleeping schedules.
The most notable change of 2003 was the introduction of the "34-hour restart." Before the change, drivers could only gain more weekly driving hours with the passing of each day (which reduced their 70-hour total by the number of hours driven on the earliest day of the weekly cycle). After the change, drivers were allowed to "reset" their weekly 70-hour limit to zero, by taking 34 consecutive hours off duty.
In 2005, the FMCSA changed the rules again, practically eliminating the split sleeper berth provision.[LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link. Drivers are now required to take a full 8 hours of rest, with 2 hours allowed for off duty periods, for a total of 10 hours off duty. This provision forced drivers to take one longer uninterrupted period of rest, but also eliminated the flexibility of allowing drivers to take naps during the day without jeopardizing their driving time. Today's rule still allows them to "split" the sleeper berth period, but one of the splits must be 8 hours long and the remaining 2 hours do not stop the 14-hour "clock". Only the 8 hours stops the clock but the 2 hours must be used for it to qualify. The rule is very confusing for most drivers, resulting in the majority of drivers taking the full 10-hour break.[LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link. [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link.
In the years since 2005, groups such as Public Citizen Litigation Group, Parents Against Tired Truckers (PATT), Owner Operator and Independent Driver Association (OOIDA), Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways (CRASH), and the American Trucking Association (ATA), have been working to change the HOS again.[LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link. [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link. [LINK POSTED BY MEMBER] Only Members Can View This Truck Forum Link. Each group has their own ideas about what should be changed, and different agendas on why the rules should be changed.

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Keep that diesel burnin' and those tires turnin', but get there safe to keep on earnin'!!

It's too bad that we all (myself included) can't remember our own short comings at the exact moment a fellow man or woman is having one of their own.

Really?

The HOS regulations were created due to the railroads wanting to reduce the competition posed by trucking companies; to enhance the power of unions; and, to give the feds & states an excuse to gouge truckers.

The HOS regulations have nothing to do with safety. Never have and never will.

By the way, did you bother reading your own link?

"Within a short time, however, representatives of organized labor (including the American Federation of Labor, the Teamsters, and the Machinists) petitioned for a stay of the original regulations."

The AF of L merged with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and became the AFL-CIO, the largest labor union in the world.

Unions may be concerned with safety, but they are more concerned with increasing their membership.

The HOS regulations do nothing to improve safety. But they do limit competition to railroads, enhance the power of unions (less so today than in years past) and provide an excuse for states & feds to gouge drivers (and companies).

Of course I read what I quoted.

And you've not shown one stitch of evidence that your statements aren't anything more than one man's wacked out opinion.

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Keep that diesel burnin' and those tires turnin', but get there safe to keep on earnin'!!

It's too bad that we all (myself included) can't remember our own short comings at the exact moment a fellow man or woman is having one of their own.

Laws are passed on behalf of powerful people or groups.

If we believe your claims, truck drivers in 1938 were so powerful they forced Congress to not only enact brand new laws that had never been on the books before, but a brand new agency to administer them.

That is so far beyond the realm of probability that we could call it impossible. Which would be accurate because that is not what happened.

Congress did NOT act on behalf of a bunch of tired truck drivers, they acted on behalf or railroad barons, union leaders and gov't agencies anxious to begin imposing taxes on truck drivers via fines for HOS violations.

Safety was the excuse, it was not the reason.

Amazing how those wandering cowboys with no cb's, no tv, no I'net, no interstate highways and not much of anything else other than rutted roads, many of which were unpaved, had so much political clout and today's truckers have so little.

Truly amazing (if you actually believe what you posted).

tucker - if you want to work 14 + hours a day- be my guest! I just hope I'm OFF the road by the time you're rolling around, nodding off and swerving all over the place in your 40 ton death machine.

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"that truck driver tried to kill me!"

BTW, my daddy & his brothers were in the trucking business when the ICC was created. And, my version is their first hand version of what happened.

Have you met Tip? I think you two would get along great. Perhaps you can get together and have a pow-wow and compare the best tin foil hat designs.

To say that this had NOTHING to do with safety is completely ignoring the simple, basic fact that a tired driver is an unsafe driver. It's basic common sense, which it seems you have replaced with conspiracy theories.

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Keep that diesel burnin' and those tires turnin', but get there safe to keep on earnin'!!

It's too bad that we all (myself included) can't remember our own short comings at the exact moment a fellow man or woman is having one of their own.

I have over 2,000,000 miles without a chargeable accident.

I've driven far longer than 14 hours on more than one occasion.

I've driven 24 straight hours on more than one occasion, only taking restroom & meal breaks.

I am not compelled to ask Uncle Sam to tell me if I'm tired or sleepy.

It's actually very troubling that we have an entire generation of people who need the gov't to tell them when to sleep or when they are tired.

Seems to me someone who is too irresponsible to know when he needs to rest shouldn't be operating any kind of vehicle or potentially dangerous machinery.

I love driving and it invigorates me. I rarely get tired after only 10 or 11 hours of driving. I could drive at least 16 hours a day, day in and day out, for the rest of my life (barring illness).

But, then again, I love driving. That's why I do it.

When I say driving, I mean driving. I don't mean sitting around waiting for loads, lumping, or anything other than driving.

The HOS regulations do not improve safety regardless why they were invented. If a driver is too stupid to know he is tired, he shouldn't be driving.

Safety is the excuse it is not the reason.

The HOS regulations do not improve safety.