What the ELD mandate has taught me so far

Yeah, it is a deep seated cultural thing that has been promoted since HOS came about in 1939. Play fast and loose. And renegade trucking movies helped glamorize that. I have been at this since '82. There has always been that mindset that the weak willed individuals fall for that you are not a real trucker unless you do things outside of the regulations. As if someone has to prove themselves to others by how far they can paint outside the lines to prove their manhood. it is truly sad to see folks have such low self esteem that they feel they have to prove their manhood to others in such manner. And then they lash out at others who don't have any problem staying within the lines in an effort to justify what they do. I had several psychology courses in college, but figuring out this kind of mindset is way outside my pay grade.

 

It's simply a matter of making more money.
Safety is in the hands of the driver, there are no regulations that will make you a safer driver. It is truly a shame that lobbyists run this country, because that leaves no room for professional judgement, much less sanity in enforcement.

 

You probably know as well as anyone here that every day you see a myriad of examples of how many truck drivers are not professionals. For me, I can barely start my day before I see some yahoo who thinks he is a truck driver pulling some stupid stunt out on the road. If they are lousy on the road, they are generally lousy at everything else, including following sound, professional judgement. Your beef is not with the lobbyists or politicians, the weasels that they are, but with many of the truck drivers that you see every day. The lobbyists and politicians just are taking advantage of the situation.

It is no different that when a shipper or receiver comes up with some goofy new rule they have for drivers on their property. Usually some idiot screwed up everything for the rest of us.

 

No, my beef is with the lobbyist and politicians. They suck golf balls through garden hoses while arguing if the dimples on the golf ball will tickle their throat if they accidentally swallow one, instead of the fact that they SUCK hard period.

The ELD 'mandate' is as big a load of BS as the HOS 'rules' themselves. And don't even get me started on the dumba ss DOT idiot(not all) who is going to interpret the rules the way he see fit whether it's right or not. Thereby, forcing me to get a lawyer to make him humble like he should have been to start with.

 

In a perfect world there would be a graduated system that would allow more and more flexibility depending on a driver's seat time and safety record. That would be a true incentive to promote safety. Seems much safer than constantly hiring new drivers and putting a stopwatch on them. It's no wonder guys are driving 30 mph in truck stop parking lots. Have 2 million safe, accident free, and a clean record? You could drive 16 hours straight and smoke reefer on the weekends for all I care.

 

Sorry, lots of stuff that doesn't belong here.

 

And what's worse is drivers that feel they need that control looming over them.

 

I blame the companies and the government.The new generation of drivers would be lost if they had to think for themselves.