Call to Action - Support The ELD Extension Act of 2017

You're using edge cases to try and prove your point. People break the law, the e-logs won't stop that, but it will make it more evident who the bad actors are.

 

Reminds me of chickens in a coupe. When they are young you keep them in the confines of the coupe. As they age, if you turn them into free range birds, you let them out during the day. The first few times they don't want to leave the security of the coupe. You have to almost push them out. Then they will stay very close any strange noise/sight they head straight back to the coupe. As they age and get more mature they venture farther and lose the fear.
Truck drivers are like chicks. The rules are your coupe. We are kept in captivity not knowing freedom and frankly are terrified of it. Some drivers find their way outside the coupe we slip in and out as we see fit. We don't cause harm but It makes the other birds envious. So the top birds (Big companies) cry fowl and want to put up an electric fence to keep all birds in the coupe. You know to be safe. The problem is we are never safe. Even in the confines of the coupe there are dangers. Disease is more prevalent, there are still dangers of predators and we're not as healthy as free range birds.
You say it's because the coupe is not big enough. That if we had more room within the coupe (hours of service) we would be satisfied and healthy flock of drivers. Maybe..... but we would still be in a coupe.
But you say there are dangers great and small. It's only an illusion that you're safer in the coupe.
When I read "you'll love it in side the confines of an electric coupe" what I hear is the sound a chicken makes after lays an egg. Cluck cluck cluckOOCK

 

Most of the people who support elogs are still wet behind the ears and have no idea about what freedom is.They've been brainwashed into believing elogs will make you safer.Its not just trucking it's in everyday life as slowly our freedoms are being stripped away and people continue to be sheep and just go with the flow.

 

You may want to get home sooner but you don't have the right to drive 85 MPH just because you want to get home sooner. Same with the HOS, your supposed to run the HOS because in general they help prevent accidents just like speeding. You cannot just do anything you want.

 

They make you safer because when they looked into what the Walmart drive actually did they found out he was not smart enough or did not care enough to make the right choice. He was just like you and thinking he could be up 24+ hours and still drive his truck safely.

That is the point you missed he could not tell he was to tired to drive, and because of that he killed a person. When you say your up 28 hours and think your a safe driver. You don't sound like a very good drive. The Walmart driver did almost the very same thing you did, and thought he was safe. I bet Tracy Morgan wishes that Walmart driver did not do that. That's basically the same thing you did. That's why you need ELD because drivers refuse to stop a lot of the time or they think they are safe when they are not.

 

I read what you're saying but this is all hear.

 

@Brandt
You are proving the point about safety and legal are *often* 2 different things
Not everyone is a company chicken in a cage and can just call dispatch and unload any problem onto them and be done with it
If you are an owner operator you will not have the customers for very long if you do that
This is going to result in a lot more of "the box says I am legal, I am going to drive" because of the inflexibility to sleep here and there when you actually need to, and given certain circumstances say if you happen to be even 1 minute late at a delivery you are rescheduled into the next quarter for delivery, I bet many people are going to do just as I said, says I'm legal I am going. It takes all common sense out of the whole idea of preventing tired driving.

 

Their is a big difference between say running say 5 minutes over vs a driver claiming he's up 28 hours. Even the D.O.T say 3 hours and up is serious violation of HOS. The problem is drivers in general make it a normal habit of going way over the HOS. If they claim they don't then the ELDs will have just as little impact.

I think we all know what drive used to do and I bet a good number still do it today. That's why they all take about the old HOS 8 and 10 and how much they like the old HOS

 

Oh man that is GOLD. Thank you so much. Couldn't agree more. I hate that feeling of the clock ticking and having to go go go all day to beat the 14.... Wish I more time to stop etc as I please... Then make up the lost time later.

 

As far as delivery times that one of the problems that needs to be fixed. If they can't load the truck on time we can't deliver on time. I'm not sitting at the dock because they don't care about my time.

Now they will care because I can't drive after 14 hours and the ELD so their load will be late. Not because of me, because of the shipper.