SHOULD I ASK FOR A DOT INSPECTION?

There are however three inspectors I have met in my lifetime inside the realm of DOT. They were very, very, very scary good. Im pretty #### good myself, a little bit TOO good as long I don't make the mistake of blowing smoke or BS. Not with these three. They KNEW that I was violating something, but because of the letter of the rules they cannot enforce it just yet. But it was enough that they KNEW. And that I knew they knew.

Proof? The last one stood on my fuel tank and said this after eyeballing me.

"You do not come this way today after you deliver. Not in my state anywhere I will fine you and put you OOS so badly..."

Trust me when I stayed on THAT side of the state line for two days for recap hours. How did he know? That big overstuffed smelly bag of laundry in the passenger seat plus my over worn down run hard appearance and big baggy eyes etc. The tractor was not in order. Paperwork everywhere and so on.

Oh yea. He knew. But you cannot OOS a driver on a knowing. You need hard evidence. That's in the logbook against the miles you ran in where you been since.

If he tested that paper log against GPS actual miles rather than HHG miles which was 20% off in my favor... it would have been OOS.

 

I had a chatty chatty inspector in Utah once who told me his department had ordered all inspectors not to take anymore voluntary inspection requests. He said that when small companies would get written up for something their insurance would go through the roof. So they would clean up their act and start sending their trucks to request inspections, trying to improve their score. He said Utah shut that down.

 

The catch to the whole thing is a "clean" inspection. DOT's are trained to find things wrong. If I had made it that long without an inspection I'd count my blessings and pray for my luck to continue. Of course to be fair I am an owner operator lol

 

One reason why I do not offer a clean inspection prize is what happened to another owner who paid his drivers $250 each time they got inspected, and he depleted his drivers' funds quickly with that idea.

 

One of my companies was a family man who owned like 8 trucks and maybe 12 trailers, a range of different kinds for all freight possibilities from hopper dump through stone dump to reefer and van and even a flat.

Every time I hit a inspection, he would age 50 years in a hour hoping DOT does not find something. Because it WILL COST HIM MONEY.

Im just a driver handing him a 1000 dollar ticket and a couple of fix it orders that will cost a further 600 plus.

And you wonder sometimes why he gets sad on days like that. A whole week of work. "Poof no profit"

Once in a while I dared DOT to find something wrong and trust me they did. Such hubris I had back then.

"We are going to inspect you"

Bring it. You aint finding *&^% (Spaceballs desert scene)

guess what they find a few things, but it's a show of skill on their part to accept such a challenge from me.

 

Lasr job I had had a clean inspection bonus. One driver got like 15 in one month.
The next month a new policy was put out. "We only pay two bonuses a month."

Do have a question for fleet owmers though. Isn't even $250 cheap to lower the CSA score? Or is it not enough of a drop to really matter?

 

WI will not grant inspection requests. Between drivers trying to score inspection bonuses and companies trying to game CSA theu put a hard stop to it.

As to the second question - it depends on how they set up the "fine". If its a "bonus" payout, then yes. They cannot, in most cases dock wages. Even when they can it cannot drop a person below minimum wage.

 

Minimum wage does not exist in trucking.

I have had countless weeks in my life time where 70 hours worked out to say 250 or so net. That's about 3.60 a hour. A little above the 3.35 minimum wage I started in school during the mid 80's

We got a 11.00 per hour minimum wage on our Ballot officially. Once approved during the midterms we are going to go from 8.25 minimum wage to 11.00

it will finally be worth going to adesa to crewboss again for a few hours with the gas expense and so on daily.

 

Worked for a Place called Wills Trucking based out of Richfield.Oh
We operated in the Pittsburgh Metro as sub contractor for Waste Management doing Walking Floor.

$100 for clean Inspections. Several times a month inspected. All Clean. Weigh stations was always open North and south on I-79
Several Months go by and they eliminate the bonus.
I way over did it and seen the short term easy money.

It was very frustrating showing and proving to ABF Freight over dozens of inspections was clean. The HR Lady wanted details. Wasn't worth the quick cash. Still hired on. but was delayed a bit

 

So pretty much if I get pulled over by a DOT officer I should get on my hands and knees and beg them for an inspection? Sounds pretty much like I'd walk away scott free if I did.