Originally Posted by Suicide-Jocky

I bet it is tough for new drivers to find jobs right now. With freight down about 40% of normal..making the availability of more experienced drivers in the job pool.
There well be a shift back to new drivers I believe, one the freight will get better with time, but more so because starting next year in 2010 the safety ratings for carriers will be based on the driving records of the drivers. Meaning it will put more pressure on drivers to maintain a good driving record to be hire able. Carriers will more likely take the easy route and seek eager newer drivers with clean records, verses experienced drivers with bad records. Especially the Carries that are on the fence with iffy safety records to start with.
This will effect all the drivers those that have experience and a clean MVR well have a pick of jobs, and those that have not so clean records well be pushed out.
I guess it was expected that sooner or later the companies would put the burden of safety ratings on the drivers, so the next time your dispatcher tells you to run your log book into the dirt....tell him where to stick it. Running legal will be in your best interest. Wow I am surprised I actually wrote that... I have been an "outlaw" for so long. running 2 log books was a normal thing for me years ago...I guess I have been brought over to the dark side..hehe. But seriously the new rules for drivers well more likely shake up the way carriers hire drivers. If we are really lucky maybe some of these sorry companies with terrible safety ratings will go by by too!

A couple of paragraphs from the CSA 2010 website:

In the past it was a pass/fail audit that very few failed. If an auditor found critical safety problems it triggered a formal Safety Compliance Review. A carrier could still pass, for example, even if it did not have a drug and alcohol testing program or had not implemented random testing.
Under the new rules a carrier automatically fails if an auditor finds a single occurrence of these violations. FMCSA looked back at audits conducted in a recent five year period and estimated that 47.9% would have been failures under the new rules. Since about 40,000 audits are done each year, that means more than 19,000 Motor Carriers could now fail annually.

Under CSA 2010, all carriers--and eventually all drivers--with sufficient safety data available will receive a safety rating that is periodically updated. Currently, FMCSA is able to provide safety ratings for relatively few carriers and for no drivers. As described earlier, CSA 2010 will employ a progressive array of interventions that can be tailored to match the severity of the safety problems they are intended to correct.
CSA 2010 intends to use new data--such as information from police accident reports about driver-related factors contributing to a crash--and improve existing data sources--by, for example, using its database of licensed commercial drivers to identify all drivers with convictions for unsafe driving practices, as well as the carriers they work for--to enable a more precise assessment of safety problems.


So basically it is going to come down to our driving records, that will make up a good portien of a Carriers safty rating.....get ready to bend over Driv-ahh!

Originally Posted by majraz

My husband has always wanted to truck and needs a change from his current career. He thinks that he is too old to start anything new. He is currently in a career that he walks alot so he is in pretty good shape for 51. Any advice is appreciated!