Five BAD trucking companies

On this issue, the biggest difference between you and Swift is they have the money and connections to fight this more effectively. If you could set aside your hatred long enough, maybe it would be a two-way fight for and against rather than a three way for, aganst with money and against but hates the other guy who's against so much there's no way to ever side with him on any issue regardless of passion and inportance.

If we don't hang together on this we will surely hang separately.

PHP:

 

The truck I had would go 68mph. I would go 704 miles in 11 hrs.

 

AMEN! Brother. We need to bring "Professional" back to professional truck driver.

 

While that might be true, if I was the DOT officer checking you out I would go back in your log as far as possible. Plus you would give your company a bad impression. Do you honestly believe that if you drove 800+ miles in a 24 hour period and heaven forbid you got into an accident and killed someone,the lawyers and most likely the polititions would have you in jail for life?

 

That's for one day though.....average it out for the week & you're looking at 650-700 a day, give or take. Not to mention, who sleeps like that.

 

You can't average 62 mph every day. That way of comic book logging driver's have done for years, is what is leading us to the EOBR's. I hate it, will never probably get used to it, but comic books have pushed us down this route.

 

Why would they? Do the math for yourself. He's following the law. 62 mph for 11 hours, starting at midnight after a 23:45 pretrip is 682 miles. It's 11:00 whn he stops for a fair 10. He gets up at 21:00, pretrips and fuels (15 minutes) and gets going again for 2 hrs, 45 minutes for 170 miles. That's 852 miles in a single 24 hour period, 100% legal and entirely possible on electronic logs. There's no way he could be put in jail for violating HOS. He is by-the-book legal. Heck, he could even stop for three 15-minute breaks throughout the day and still get in over 800 miles. Thing about e-logs is it doesn't force you to run everything in 15 minute increments. If you take an 8 minute pee break, it only logs 8 minutes.

I am still not a proponent of e-logs. When I was on them, I found myself driving faster, more aggressively and pushing harder in order to beat my logs to a truck stop I had planned for. It was hard on my equipment and hard on me. Legal does not always equal safe. I would get phone calls at odd hours telling me I had to run because I was legal to do so. I was physically sick when I left Prime because of the stress and lack of real rest. And it almost cost me everything within a few months of returning to Swift. I have a feeling there will be a huge number of drivers looking for something else if this gets passed. I very well may be among them. Life's too short to race a computer every day of it.

We already have EOBRs on these trucks. It's called an ECM and it records everything. Why not accept that and check it if something does happen? Well, I'll tell ya'...it's not about safety. It's about control.

Legal does not always equal safe.

 

The more I read about you and Prime, the more I'm convinced you had to have had one of the worst FM's in the company. The only phone calls I've ever received from dispatch about the hours I run was one last February asking me not to move the truck till midnight so my FM wouldn't get fined for me running over 4000 miles in 7 days solo.

 

I'm not the only person ever to complain about my FM. But it wasn't him calling. It was night dispatch.

 

I am new, recent grad, not working for a company yet. My last job a big company , a leader in industry , but in many ways they were a joke, still are and always will be, they complain about the govt but are welfare sluts, moving from 1 state to another getting tax breaks and training subsidies etc. Hint MEOW.
ok here are my observations, 1. i was an airfreight dispatcher many years ago and the few CDL Drivers we had always fudged their logs, or talked about how they use to. My intent when Hired is to get enough rest to drive safely, I am a slow driver anyway, I realize based on what some of you say I may be let go if and when Hired. 2. Some of you complain of big companies, and I want to believe you , after all my last company is a joke, and only survive because of their dealer network, but which 1 of you or your smaller companies want to train a recent grad? None of you I bet. exactly 3. 1 man operation would have his logs in a drawer at home or in office, that would be sufficient. Also while in class a graduate working for Werner came by and we asked about the electronic log and he was already telling us of a small way to cheat it some.( go figure) 4. Congress and the govt are a joke, but it seems like technology options have allowed companies big and small ( wives , husbands) to record, in many ways, activity of work force, nannys, husbands, wives, employees, subcontractors , pets - what they do is recorded in some way- good or bad. Out comes are often both good and bad depending on your intent Hey it can make companies have to pay you more too or give you bonuses too, or overtime in some situations. 5. I have been trying to get local work of any kind since I passed my road test at school. August 12 2010, I got hazmat and twic card, I have applied probably to 100 jobs at least, I will hear if hired or 2nd interview this week about 4 jobs or so, but I am not waiting anymore, I am calling maverick later today and scheduling/confirming my training/ orientation. I have monitored many threads here about maverick, and other big companies, i just dont understand how some of the grizzled veterans can complain about us Newbies when in their own words they offer us no alternatives or know of no alternatives, or if they do they are such independent that they will not tell us. Maverick has very good overall info from truckers on this forumn from what I could research.
6 I am older man but a newbie to CDL A , things change, industries dry up, I am in NC cause when growing up in PGH the steel industry collapsed and went elsewhere, the unions blamed the labor and the labor blamed the management, but I clearly saw them both equally to blame, as well as the govt not providing incentive for updated technolgy in the industry, ( which labor and management we both opposed too, ironic huh) Its like this i have 3 cars, 1 for college student, 1 for my wife and 1 for me, In my county in nc they have exaust emmissions blah blah blah, guess what, only 1 of them has to go by the strict rules because of its age its a pain in the ### and way more expensive, my point is technology and laws makes industries and costs passed down to us the ultimate consumers. there is some intended benefit that is realized ( even if unproven yet, environmental stuff will take many years to actually prove effectiveness of some mandates ) and there is unintended reverse of the original intent also realized, things are worse . But the change comes none the less. 7. If i do not fail mavericks tests and orientation or training etc, I am going to be happy to learn their system with its strengths and weaknesses. At meow, I had jobs that I was actually paid to documented what all of the educated morons could not do correctly or together, I would say I do not feel good about the fact that an uneducated laborer is the only 1 concerned about this that or the other, ( often I had to create training materials or supplier communications because they either did not have them or they were a joke, or would not do anything) so I will be happy that they have a system and some training etc. And I will do my best, they will love me or send me home, or anything in between, but I tell you this I will not do anything that I feel is unsafe, and I will always deal with my dispatchers that way. I was a dispatcher in airfreight and I fought for the drivers and never asked them to do anything unsafe. DOnt bother telling me that I am a fool cause truly I will make what ever I make and if I get fired over something like that, I wont care , at the end of the day I can live with that hopefully.
Anyway I appreciate all that is being said and realize also I am new and will begin to feel the frustrations of this industry first hand soon, so these observations are not intended to slight any of you experienced truckers, I can tell that by what you say and by what I have seen in other industries and certain companies that I have direct experience with, that there are real concerns. and real consequences that will probe bad and good over time, and it could be a long long time.


We take less pains to be happy than to appear so. La Rochefoucauld