HOS regs limit restart provision; mandate breaks

Throwing on more regulations helps to justify some of these bureaucrat's jobs. It also gives some politicians a platform to tell voters that they are working to make them safer. Special interest groups often have a single incident that happened to someone in their family and they now have a vendetta against the entire industry. Some of what they do actually can make roads less safe. Other professions have the flexibility and freedom to work the way they see fit. In this industry some want to dictate how and when we sleep, drive and take a break. Regulations are profitable for local, state and federal government agencies. Much of this is more about money and revenue generation than safety. If it were about safety then drivers would be free to drive as their body dictates. With regulations more brochures, booklets and electronic gadgets must be printed or manufactured. That generates revenue for those companies involved as well as the government. Take away the profit and you take away the incentive to have most of these regulations. They get away with too much scrutiny by calling it a safety issue. If you argue against the mandates or regulations then you are accused of being against safety. It is like the EPA. If you are for getting rid of the agency then you are for dirty air and water. They try to shut the opposition down by attacking them. One way to help reduce some of these regulations is to get to know your elected representatives. I make a point to stay in touch with mine on a regular basis and make my views known on issues of importance to me.

 

Road Safe America was founded by a couple who claimed a truck rearended their son's car while it was stopped in traffic and killed him . Eleven ATA companies joined with them to petition NHTSA to mandate speed limiters .
The whole thing was a farce . Their son was NOT rearended while stopped . I saw a picture of the wreck on Good Morning America . Their son THOUGHT the truck was going to hit them . He looked in the mirror , panicked , and swerved to the left just as the driver turned to the left to come around him . The car was hit in the driver's door , not the rear .
ATA keeps this organization funded . The father , Steve Owings continues to make a fool of himself making ridiculous published statements like stating truck driving is the most dangerous job in the country .
The Road Safe America website is now pushing for use of EOBR's .

 

The ATA and some of the major carriers are pushing for EOBR's and speed limiters to limit competition. I would wager that some of the owners and executives of these carriers are heavily invested in stocks of those manufacturing these devices. I would not join the ATA due to their anti competition and anti American stance on some issues. There focus is for their members to be able to control the 90% who are not members.

The Teamsters are also pushing for these electronic gadgets in hope that they can use the issue to recruit more members and fatten their pocketbook. Fewer hours of work for more money. It is the socialist way of doing business. It is interesting what you can find out when you "follow the money."

 

Soon it will be out of the FMCSA's hands. Congress has a bill before it to make EOBR's a law of the land. This would make it a law, not a regulation. This is coming folks, resistance is futile. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Don't be the last driver without an EOBR when the shick hits the fan.

 

The EOBR bill was killed. It was written by Maverick and endorsed by USA Trucking, JB Hunt, Covenant and US Xpress and presented by Senator Pryor of Arkansas and Senator Alexander of Tennessee. At this time it is dead in the water. I would not be surprised if they tried to resurrect it. I don't mind being the last to line the pockets of my competition.

 

I see your point,but explain to the masses of non drivers how you would ensure every "professional" driver would get the rest their body "dictates",,,seems under the old rules that was pretty much the rule of thumb,,correct? and what was it like back then??

From our point of view(the drivers,kewl) but everytime their was a horrific accident and lives lost,you could almost with out fail be sure to find out the driver was "non-compliant" even with those lax rules,

Oh dont get me wrong back then it was pretty much as good as it gets to run how you felt,,the problem then as it is NOW is that the few that cant run within the scope of the mandates get the rest of us thrown in with them(just look at the OOS rate for this years "RoadCheck 2011" 5% OOS logs(Yikes) 5% mechanical(yikes),

Now if all of us "Walk the Walk" as good as we "Talk the Talk" then we would be all "Kum-bay-Yah" out here and little problems

But you do bring up a very good point,that side of the issue has its negative points also,,they safety side(PATT &CRASH,etc..) do have an agenda,,and a very strong lobby,,we sadly if anything have OOIDA,and ATA(Sheep)

 

There have always been those who have not run compliant. There are those who don't run compliant using EOBR's. Just because you run compliant doesn't mean that you are running safely. Just because the hos says that we need 10 hours off duty or in the sleeper doesn't insure that we are rested, but we will be compliant. If we run over the 11 hours driving we won't be compliant, but could be driving safely.

Under the old rules where we could stop the clock and rest, I believe drivers were better rested and safer than today. It would require more data than is reported to the fmcsa to prove it one way or another. The thing about statistical data is that you can manipulate them to say pretty much anything you want. That is what PATT and some of the other special interest groups do to support their position.

In order to get have a better representation of the numbers you would need to look at other factors such as roads and equipment. Both are better today than 30 years ago.

I was a little surprised that there would be so many OOS and maintence issues during Roadcheck. I believe the numbers were down from last year. Still, it is a little surprising since we knew that it was coming. Not all states ran their roadcheck at the same time. Many states are doing more roadside checks. In order to understand the OOS or maintenance problems, you would need to look more deeply at the inspections. Those who were put OOS may have been due to errors in addition on logs or not having their logs up to date. They could even have been put out of service from not having their previous 8 days after being off for a few days. Maintenance issues could come from serious brake issues, a small air leak, or having a tire that was too worn. The numbers may not be as serious as they first appear. And the ATA is not a friend of smaller carriers, owner operators or drivers. OOIDA is in the position of doing more to help, and they have done well on a few issues. but lot more than they should. At this point, smaller carriers, fleet owners and drivers only have OOIDA to look out for our rights or issues important to us. The ATA is in bed with some of these special interest groups even though they want to present a public profile that shows something different.

 

Is OOIDA or some other entity going to challenge this stuff in court? This is the big question.

What makes me so frick'n angry is that they are say'n that the nanny is going to make sure that we are not going to be on a "sleep days-work nights" schedule. They state that it's b/c we have families that we have to hang with that are on day schedules.

otherwise they would have minimal time to spend with their (day-oriented) families.
( http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/rules-regulations/topics/hos-final/qanda.aspx#q6 )

Good grief!!!!!!!! They sure know a hellava lot about my interpersonal situation huh?? They not only know that I HAVE a family relationship but they also know their life schedule is different from mine, and that I want to sync with it.

So in all of the nanny's great wisdom, she see's that I need to take two days and NOT sleep days. (As far as I can tell, that is what and why she regulated.) Now doesn't that sound like a great answer to a non problem?? But this is the govt's answer on how to stay well rested.

“Despite the fact that trucking has never been safer, federal regulators and big businesses continue to push for mandates that hurt small-business truckers,” said Spencer. “According to the latest data, fatigue is a factor in only 1.4 percent of all fatal wrecks involving truckers.”
( http://ooida.com/MediaCenter/Press_Releases/2011/122211.shtml )
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“The most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”

 

If I drive predominantly at night, taking 2 nights off to sleep during that time will make it more difficult and unsafe for me to drive that first night back out of the 34. So what happens is I'd have to sit up all night for 2 nights twiddling my thumbs so my body clock is tuned to being awake all night.

I worked 8 months straight all graveyard shift once. You get used to it after a while and don't make the mistake of sleeping at night at the weekend, it will throw your whole body clock off again.

 

I think that most are not seeing the entire picture.

This is only for the TAKING OF THE 34 HOUR RESET.

You should be able to log the hours as regular days and not get a restart and do logs under the way it was done prior to the 34 hour rule.