Troopers cracking down on too-tired truckers

I believe this to be incorrect, its a old wives tale. I used to belive the same thing. How do I know ...... I work in an office with a "LOG" Guy for an Oregon Trucking company. Every week he gets a print out from the Oregon DOT. The print out is for company trucks passing a Oregon DOT "CAMERA" station. Not prepass/norpass. All scale crossing have the camera and your picture is taken regardless of weather the coop was open or closed.

The system uses Optical Charactier Recgonigition to Read the Plate, Identify the truck and company based on the plate and then log the camera crossing into a data base. So..... even trucks w/o prepass/norpass are not imune. Please note that all of the lower 48 states share this data with each other.

 

HOS doesn't dictate your level of fatigue. Your stamina does. You simply cannot tell if a trucker is fatigued by looking at the interior of his/her truck, and you can't tell how fatigued they are by looking at their logbook either. Some of us (like me) have the stamina to go for hours and hours without stopping, and still be wide awake when we get to where we're going. However, others don't have that stamina and need to stop every 30 minutes. As long as I have everything I need (cigarettes, sodas and snacks), I can regularly go a full drive shift without needing to stop and still itching to do more driving.

Case in point: I drove a 4 wheeler from Orlando to Gary only stopping for gas, restroom breaks and food. No sleep and no rotating drivers and I made the trip in 18 hours. Then I had a class that day for 12 hours. Slept like a log that night though.

 

Very true and it does even more!
When you are approaching the pole and the arm over the roadway there are also weight sensors like at most new scales or the ones using PrePass that weigh each axle AND notes your speed, the length of the distance between the drives and the trailer tandems. And as male noted it takes your picture, the trucks and the tag and the ICC/DOT numbers and then looks it up on line and by the time you get to the building if not flagged to pass everything he needs to know about that truck is on his screen. If you are noted as an inspect then he is notified by a sound or flashing screen and the computer flags you in not the officer unless he overrides it. If you get pulled around and go in look at the monitors he's watching. Heck, ask him how it works and he'll be happy to show you!

As for Pre Pass not keeping a record how do you think they charge the company for pass or pull in? They keep a record that if the DOT Highway Patrol or a lawyer needs they get the silly thing! With the money made from trucks what state would not use OCR if trying to use safety as a money maker? They will pay the price!

 

Something that many of you don't do is show sleeper time. OK the FMCSA has NO rule that you MUST use the sleeper. Unless it has just been written in lately because I haven't updated lately.

BUT not showing any time in the sleeper when you did but trying to bull an officer that you stayed in the motel but are to lazy to do the math for fear that you'll screw up the log but can't show a receipt for it are looking at maybe a fasleifying a log or just made to take a 10 hour OOS because you just look tired and didn't get any sleep.

Yeah that sneaking it in BUT look at what MN did and then think they can't try it again with different stupid guide lines.

Just show 8 hours in the sleeper! How hard is it to add two lines up to come out with 10 off duty total hours?

Stop being truck stop lawyers and think you'll out argue a DOT officer on the side of the road! You are NOT getting paid by the hour so why push the man with not a gun but an INK PEN and a ticket book? You WILL lose that fight every time standing on the road but unless you are making money arguing in front of the judge what is the use in trying?

I have for 32 years shown sleeper time! I was taught that by my first boss with the reason that "ya gotta sleep sometime so show it every night!" And because it was HIS rule for driving his trucks! When we were on the old HOS I showed at least 6 in the sleeper and sometimes the full 8 but until 2008 I always showed at least 7 with 3 hours off duty for those laundry nights and ME time and then 8+ to keep things from looking like a carbon copy book!
It's not hard and if you use a calculator you can't screw up adding the hours on 2 lines!

So what if it doesn't say you HAVE to show sleeper. The FMCSA doesn't say you MUST drive all 11 in those 14 either but you all do that don't you? It's a time limit on how long you CAN work not what you MUST work! The sleeper is a MUST TO CYA thing not that you have to!

Just do it! How hard is it to cover your arse?? And how hard is it to keep that DOT officer out of your arse?