More rules and regs? I think its time for a shut down strike.

Don't even have to strike.

All you'd need is to have a couple hundred trucks in one day, in every capital deliver a letter to their elected representatives. All at the same time.

Not doing anything illegal, they are just delivering a letter which is a totally legal activity.

 

If each of those letters had a $100 bill in it it might get some results . Otherwise you'd probably just have hundreds of trucks towed for parking violations .

 

Only one problem.... most of the folks who are always at home do not know who their elected representative is. The odds drop tremendously for those that are away from home most of the time. Just watch those "man on the street" things that folks show on TV. It is scary the number of people who do not know any elected person outside of Obama. And that is not 100% either.

 

I say lets Strike if we dont do something now within a few yrs we will be down to 40hr weeks to work then we definitely wont be making nothing it would only take a week to get our demands we want oike no more regulation keep the 14/70 no breaks and shut down those dam scales.

I make good money now but Im strictly a night driver these hours will affect my paycheck I will be forced to take a 58hr restart and have to take breaks its going to cost me $200a wk fr the extra day I will have to be off

If they really wanna fix the problem they need to eliminate paper logs those guys are the ones falling alseep at night they are the problem my friend runs paper, he has ran 20hrs of a 24hr period to get home faster and he constantly backs up his log and rarely takes 10hr breaks

I run for Walmart I have to be onduty at the stores I go in and pull stickers as they pull their pallets off this should be counted as a break I dont need another break im not driving and not really working while at stores and dont need someone to force me to take a break

The ATA is a joke they do nothing for us they are like congress useless and say yes to what ever there told they want us to do they do it its time to strike and say deliver your own crap we are done until we are left alone

This will cost me more time away from my family and many others and a great loss of $$$$$ be cause now I will have to stay out longer to make up for it I already stay out a month at a time and I make about $5000 the time im out

They should have just said all drivers must be home 2days a week but now I will be stuck in truck stops sitting even longer my ret periods of 1to5 are pm not am and the day driver will not even be affected by this change excempt the ones burning there 70 up before the week is up now we might start on a monday burn aour hrs up by Saturday and sit until monday and wont even be able to run til Tuesday or wedsday because the restart wont even start until monday thats just dumb politicians are ####### idots and need dragged out and

 

WHAT? Dont drivers know how to make these new HOS work in their favor? What a shame. The door is open...Take advantage of it. Everyone complains about the money they are making. Opportunity is knocking...Why not answer the door? At least many temp agencies are smart enough to start building up their staff of drivers. I guess THEY can see where the money is at, while others are too busy sitting in the corner WHINING about it. Guess now is the time to start a fleet again...lol. Sink or swim...

 

Well folks, here are couple articles on this matter:

http://www.examiner.com/article/talk-of-trucker-strike-increase-but-chances-improbable
http://askthetrucker.com/long-term-trucking-strike-would-devastate-u-s/

And remember - UNITED WE STAYED.

 

... I think some good ideas were introduced in this thread... Among them;

O/O driving thru capitol hill
Making something happen on DOT Blitz week
Asking to be compensated for hrs lost
Stop New Drivers from going to bottom feeders

I especially like that last one... It's real close to home for me.

The thing about organizing a strike is that first and foremost it has to be done for an across the board agreed to reason.. right now not even ppl who agree on a strike can agree on what terms...

The truth is truck drivers do get paid more than the average American, does that take away the sacrifices we make to get that money? Of course not ... But with that said, any chain is only as strong as the links that hold it together ...MANY drivers are happy with their current situation...

In my humble opinion, the reason isn't right to take action yet ....but let's keep bringing up new ideas to the table and get to the bottom of what is truly affecting this industry

 

Something we can all agree on; cheap freight is bad ...right?

 

Shut down the scales? When I come up on a open scale house I'm not thrilled to run through especially if I get inspected. But without the dot can you imagine how unsafe our roadways would be? We all don't need the dot to inspect our trucks to tell us whether or not there safe to go down the road but how many "drivers" do you see at the truck stop in the morning actually inspecting their trucks out? Most can't even get out and check their lights and kick their tires let alone open up the hood and do a complete inspection. Which brings me to my next point if you shut the dot down who is going to enforce whether or not someone is on paper logs or electronic logs or if you even have a log book at all! As far as the new hos change how exactly are you being forced to shut down every week to reset your hours? Do you not know how to run a recap from the prior week? There is nothing in the new regs that state you have to shut that truck down every single week and reset you hours. Look on the fmcsa's website and you will be able to find all this out and more. It is sad that in our industry the government has to step in and force us to take a 30 minute break within our first 8 hours of being on duty. Why is it in many of job fields the employees are given a break throughout the day without having to have enforcement of it? We are treated as if we are second class citizens out here. We are not even a skilled trade according to the government! That is why there is no federal minimum wage standard out here. I want fair pay for the work I put in throughout the day. And scarface2200 you want to take your break while you're on the dock taking stickers off of pallets? Since you have to do this at your employer and be on-duty why are you more worried about using it as your break instead of being compensated for it? I am fed up with not being paid for the time I put in and we have people out here trying to figure out how to shave hours here and there to have more hours to drive! When you work a "normal" job anything over 40 hours is time and a half! Why can we not have this!?!?! I do not want to shut down because I have to take 30 minutes off duty a day I want to shut down for fair and equal rights just as every other worker in this country! I'm going to say what most people won't. I'm willing to bet that 95% of drivers out there stop to pee and grab something to eat throughout the day that adds up to at least 30 mins off duty. Most of you can't sit in the seat 11 hours straight 7 days a week! You would have to run coast to coast every week and work at a company that never hauls anything less than 1500 miles a load. If you are one of the few drivers that sits in the seat this long and a half hour off each day will bankrupt you're family you are working for a slum carrier and need to re-evaluate your spending and career decision! With only taking 30 mins off a day you are only losing 3.5 hours of drive time a week. With most company trucks being governed at 65 mph or less you're only losing on average of roughly 180-200 miles a week. With trucking companies not paying you for all miles driving your looking at around 150 miles you're not being paid for and average company paying .35 cpm you're only losing $52.50 a week! If we were compensated for all time spent doing our jobs it would far exceed $52.50. I'm fed up with uninformed drivers who want to gripe and complain about this type of stuff and not look at the big picture of what the problem really is!!!!!