The future for trucking is sad

Thats easy, look around you at what passes for truck drivers these days.

You're a day late and a dollar short. MN. stopped doing the check list last year. The ATA isn't sueing them OOIDA is.

Did you actually see the citation? Or did he just tell you he got a citation. If he did he should go to court and fight it.

 

Expound, please.

 

Sorry But I have to agree with the statement of who passes as a truck driver being some of what has brought all this about.

On any given day at any truck stop, shipper, receiver anywhere USA. They don't look like someone who has any professionalism about themselves at all. Sloppy looking, looking like their going to the beach, unshaven, un-bathed. Get the picture. Sure sometimes someone is on a tight run and they believe they just don't have the time.
HUH ? No time to wash, comb your hair, take a shave ? I could go on and on about this. But...

If a person looks like crap, it's not a far leap to believe that they don't take much care in their equipment either. I've gone by trucks that haven't EVER been washed. I can understand that if it's a company truck and they don't allow ( pay) for it. But when it's obvious the windows haven't EVER been washed I don't understand it.

So now we find ourselves with csa 2010 breathing down our necks. It for sure will be another tool we as drivers will be beat over the head with.Since through all the years there has been a steady decline in the drivers even giving lip service to the "I Care" attitude our fine government is going to force drivers to care.

Do I like it ? HECK NO. Can I work with-in it. Probably. Will I use it as much as I can to make sure I and the equipment I drive are up to PAR. You-bet-ya. NO more letting the company tell me, run it, we'll fix it next time you get in the yard. NOPE, fix it now. No Not now, NOW NOW. If a company says, BE LEGAL with your book. I CAN DO THAT ! Can I still make a buck with all of this going on. YEPPERS, always have, always will.

Be safe, have fun.

 

The ATA has been pushing for the CSA 2010. I believe that they think that the expected loss of as many as 275,000 drivers will create a shortage of capacity and that will push rates up.

For years drivers have been able to avoid responsibility for not doing their job when it comes to pre trips and keeping an eye on their equipment. It has been their carrier's who have borne the brunt of the costs and responsibility. If there was a problem then it was the carrier that had to pay and their safety score suffered. That will no longer be the case. Drivers will now be held as accountable as the carrier for whom they work. Those who continue to slack off will find their career cut short as carriers rid themselves of problem drivers.

I don't like some of what I have seen of CSA 2010, either. The choice is simple. You either learn how to deal with it or find another career. You can expect some states to be much more aggressive in checking drivers and equipment as they now have the blessings and encouragement of the federal government. Many have received money to buy SUV's for use in roadside inspections. States are starved for cash. You can expect to see things get much worse at least until the economy turns around.

The up side is that hopefully we will rid this industry of a lot of bad drivers. The down side is that many of the good ones are also leaving.

 

If you are a good driver and do not get nailed all the time, the trucking future is very bright!

 

I am really looking forward to it. I don't particularly like sharing the road and even my profession with miscreants , drug addicts and outlaws. I see drivers who look like zombies and I see Drivers obviously tweaked out on meth. I see drivers who cant walk across a parking lot or carry their own weight. It is far too crowded out on the road and I am game to thin the herd. If I don't cut it , oh well that is a shame , but I bet that I will.

I have a friend at a place I once worked that is made to drive 28 hours straight every week to deliver and then load ALL Day with a dozen pick ups and then race back to make a dozen deleiveries and then do it again the next week. He is payed cash and has a loose leaf log book. So do the 50 other trucks at this "company". They are very well "known" and get checked constantly at nearly every scale they pass. They NEVER get caught and laugh at the DOT. They all love their jobs and the owner is a foreign national who is a millionaire and has a Castle back in his homeland. They break so many laws that they even break some they dont need to because they can. This is a true story and not an isolated affair either. Giving the DOT more reason to get these people off the road and out of the business is fine by me if I get swept up in it too that will be fine by me as long as for once the DOT can do their jobs and get rid of outlaws.

Like the line from a great movie.
"Out here you keep your #### wired tight at all times or you end up like this lump of ####, and get a one way ticket back home , In a BODY BAG".

 

A bit of perspective is in order.
CSA 2010 is a nightmare?
1. The CSA 2010 initiative does not create a single new requirement for drivers or carriers. The safety regulations remain what they were.

CSA 2010 will cause 175,000/275,000 to leave the industry in the first year
1. As written, CSA 2010 does not assign safety fitness ratings to individual drivers. A driver will not be declared "Unfit" and as a result have their CDL suspended. CDL's are issued by states not by the federal government. The FMCSA has established CDL standards in Part 383, and the states are required to abide by those standards. Yes, these standards do include disqualifications for specified offenses but they have been in federal regulation since around 2002 and were written into the statutes of the states by 2005. They are not new and they are not a result of CSA 2010.
2. Assigning safety fitness ratings to individual drivers would require separate federal rule-making, which to date has not even been proposed.

But won't the driver point system pressure carriers to fire more drivers?
If I were to venture an educated guess I'd say yes...absolutely.
1. The Driver Safety Measurement System (DSMS) scores will be used by FMCSA investigators to target drivers who have a poor score in any given BASIC when conducting an audit of the company. Because those drivers will be selectively included in the carrier's audit the investigator will be zeroing in on the problem areas and the carrier will not fare as well as they may have if drivers records had been selected randomly. So, do the drivers with the worst DSMS scores become a liability to the carrier? Yup.
2. So what if the 175,000 number was a reality? Since there are approx. 3.5 million commercial drivers in the united states, 175,000 would represent 5% of them. That would mean that of every 100 commercial drivers 5 of them would be identified as those who were either incapable or unwilling to operate at a level of compliance that was being achieved by 95% of their coworkers. From what I'm reading from forum members like Truckerx1 and j3411 (working in their 3rd and 4th decades respectfully), 5 of 100 doesn't sound like an unreasonable number to receive some focused attention from either their employers or the authorities.

Are you saying that we should not be concerned about CSA 2010 at all? Just ignore it?
Nooooooooooooo!
The provisions of the CSA 2010 initiative will without question result in an increase in the number of enforcement opportunities (what they now call interventions) by FMCSA. More carriers will receive warning letters, targeted roadside inspections and both off-site and on-site investigations.
FMCSA's enforcement of the FMCSR's has always been all about putting the grease on the squeakiest wheels. CSA 2010 is an enhanced squeak detector.

 

Well said!