HOS Suspension

Uncle Sam keeps me in a glass box at the wall in the DOT downtown DC. If they truly need a hell on wheels HOS be ###### long hauler, they break the box and use the phone inside to call me.

 

They have suspended before in the USA. One time during the mid 90's when Kim Jung Un's Daddy was in charge of North Korea late spring we ran war material to the ports. For a few there was no logging to speak of, the artillery on the flatbed was it's own pass key straight south to the ports.

One day daddy dropped of a heartattack and that was the end of that adventure for some.

Another time in 1999 tornados did some damage after a outbreak, and local trucks were hauling under FEMA work. Cardboard signs over the doors saying "FEMA" covering the company stuff and presumed no limits on work hours in that emergency disposing of the town into a old landfill. Hundreds of homes got carted into it as did a few churches, schools and other buildings. Took a while.

The main take away is that you do what you can do living normally and take care of those you love. Never mind the alarms and emergencies or war or wahtever rumors sweeping the place. Those are more dangerous. Today I was in a store and there were 50 trying to get the last few cans. The volume level was not welcome and the inventory was cleaned out.

As I paid for unrelated items, a big rig rolled in with another trailer for the store. It would take about 6 pallets or so to refill just the toilet paper. Another 10 to restock all of the canned food and so on. That does not leave room for very much in a place like that on just one truck.

 

Emergency Declaration Under 49 CFR § 390.23 No. 2020-002 | FMCSA

Perhaps some of you experienced drivers could help clarify for us newbies. It seems this could be subjective but I may be wrong. Where it states “food for emergency restocking of stores”, does this apply to any of us reefer haulers delivering to grocery warehouses as that will be used to restock empty shelves, or just to the drivers taking loads directly to the stores? I don’t want to get in trouble, but I’m down to run hard for awhile and stack some chips away.

 

If it got really bad they can suspended HOS. I got to run like that for hurricane Katrina for about 2 weeks. . I think the food hording and toilet paper buying panic will end because they will restock the shelves ad people can only store so much TP. I'm driving empty pass a TP factory. Going to pickup another load. I could be wrong, if so then they can just remove the HOS rules and let truck run.

We got people buy all the TP because they see the store is empty but we still have to run HOS. So we can't keep up with the demand. People must have so much at home by now I think they will stop buying it.

 

When i did FEMA loads for hurricanes, we were given a sign to put in the window and papers to give the scale operators to verify that we were exempt from HOS. The shipper was the one that gave us the paperwork.
This is not a pass for everyone to " Run til you drop".

 

Don’t squeeze the Charmin!!

 

Meat going to City of Industry,CA