Bad Advice

And when some idiot decides to commit suicide by truck in front of your truck and their family's attorney deposes all your records in his discovery guess what happens to you . Same thing if any driver for your carrier screws up and FMCSA comes in and does an audit . I've posted several links showing prosecution and conviction of drivers and management by DOT OIG for document falsification .

 

Everything that is wrong with this country was caused by lawyers and insurance companies.

 

Why do yall feed on stuff like this?
An internet forum posting regurged regs' from retired sources assuming cyber superiority based on copy/paste support from the bible book. ?
Extremely isolated instances of "life gone bad" should in no way force any "mind" into a state of fear based on forum peer pressure.
Sure ,the Law is the Law,Sure negative things happen for breaking said laws.

BUT !! in the "real world" all the cyber BS is out the window and the micro percentage that actually make it to the "Google" data base are most definitely "RARE"

Take the posting efforts as warnings and knowledge,use them sparingly with a good measure of common sense and you'll be fine.

Take them as the "Gospel" and you'll run in unwarranted fear of something that will most likely never enter your world.

These Cyber "Joe Q Citizens" are just that and nothing more.

Let FEAR CONTROL YOU and it will,you can run in "relative" compliance and still make a living. But to think you must walk the razors edge is absolute BS !!
It is well proven IMPOSSIBLE to follow every letter of the Law.

Many before me as well as many beside me today have beat this ridiculous system for many years,and we will continue to do so as long as this world turns.

Yes you can in fact be as smart or smarter then what your working with.

Again,take these threads as knowledge and nothing more.It takes time in the seat to become proficient
and learning this trade can only come thru "Living The Trade"

Dont let The Golden Keyed Super Truckers Scare You !

 

Ow! Ow!! Ow!!!

You people are making my head hurt!

 

Only if you let them !
Dont buy into it,there is already enough of that crap being force fed to the public.
There is no viable reason to "FEAR" anything.
That includes "Everything"!!

 

Just be smart about it-fuel before your 34 hours-log it.Not worth the hassle to have it come into question if by chance you have an accident.Was in one 16 years ago that involved a fatality.The guy ran a stop sign in front of me-the dot checked everything they could to make sure I wasnt in violation as the driver of other vehicle was from foreign government.

 

Yes. So i keep hearing.

Nevermind the other 18 wheeler traveling directly next to him that was in fact running legal and would've still killed the idiot who was probably doing something stupid to begin with anyway.

Yeah, never mind that.

Like i said before, if they really want compliance they know how they can get it.. And it's not by shoving more regulations down our throat. The HOS was just fine the way that it was before, the biggest problem was not that people who were following the HOS were crashing and killing people, it was the same exact 'problem' we have now.. People who were ignoring it.. So what made you guys think that changing the rules for the worse was going to make people more compliant? It's idiocy. No offense. The "problem" people are still going to crash and kill people, doesn't matter what changes you make. But someone had a great idea.. Since too many drivers are 'ignoring' our rules, we'll just make them even less manageable, then at least we can count them as a revenue stream... By changing the laws in this way they have effectively given even more incentive to run illegal, which i think was part of the goal.

Go ahead and look up the military sleep studies. They successfully concluded that military personnel could function properly and without impairment on 4 hours of sleep. It takes 4 hours of sleep to complete 1 full "REM" (Rapid eye movement) cycle.. Which is the deepest, most restorative sleep. Not 10, in fact, if you sleep for 4.5, 2, anything that is not in 4 hour increments (4-8, and so on) you actually lose much of the restorative factor of that sleep.. Many here will attest to that, i sleep about 4 hours a night and I'm good for the day. Any more than that? i just feel like crap.

And if electronic recorders are put in place.. Oh, wow.. This country will be in for a very rude awakening!

Also the only time a personal vehicle is held liable for damages or faces jail time is when? *after the fact* by that time, it's too late. Unless you are a politician or someone rich.. Then everyone cares, but if it's one of us killed by a four wheeler? Eh, who cares.. It's just a truck driver. Personally when I'm in my car i would rather drive in a highway full of trucks than a bunch of idiot untrained amateurs in their cars.. Who believe they are all "good drivers" because they haven't ever had an accident.. When in fact the reality of it is that it's not them that avoids those accidents, it's the people around them.

Some money needs to be spent enforcing similar policies for non commercial vehicles, or at the very least giving them a real education on what it takes to drive properly.

As far as the log books go, i was always taught that if something takes you 7 minutes or less you did not have to change your duty status. Why would i screw myself out of 15 minutes for 3 minutes worth of work? That's insane, 3 minutes is hardly going to make or break a sleep cycle, it's unnecessary to sleep 10 hours, much less 34.

I am not debating what the law is, I'm simply pointing out why it needs to be reformed. But the government would rather spend trillions of dollars to fix a hundred dollar problem.. And nobody can figure out why we have a deficit, and our economy is shot.

 

Most of the motive to violate the HOS would be removed by simply paying drivers a good living salary... that's salary as in a certain amount of money per week, rather than a per-mile rate.

 

A bit late in the discussion, but I'd hazard a guess that a gated truckstop (yes, they're around), particularly if pay-to-park, is not a "highway" per the rulebook, as it cannot be construed as open to the public. Most of these also have signs to the effect of "commercial drivers/vehicles only beyond this point.

Access control, when in an area not defined as a federal, state, or local roadway, removes the public access and the classification as a highway.