Iowa dot plans to help truckers find parking

I can only imagine what 70 and 40 are like. I was talking to my dispatcher last night, and told him I had to pay $12 to park in a truck stop I am very familiar with that normally is near empty on a Friday night. This is not going to be pretty out here. And the stress, you feeling it from the trucks, boy you nailed that one. I can feel it too, and watch these guys like a hawk. I refuse to run in a pack, I will either slow it down or speed it up to stay away from these guys. Quite honestly, the truckers scare me more than the four wheelers out here anymore. I see more stupid moves than I can keep track of and find myself calling the state cops at least once a month on one of these lunatics in the 18 wheeler playing beat the clock. And I know that is what many of them are doing. I run around Michigan, maybe venture down to Fort Wayne every few months or out towards Youngstown for GM a few times a year. I know most of these outfits up here, and when the egg timers started going in, that is when the insanity started, along with the accidents and the close calls. Time to retire.

 

Careful on those ramps. I was talking to a Canadian driver, he runs Saginaw MI to Laredo TX. He told me a few weeks ago he jumped off at an exit with a truck stop in TN, and there were five or six trucks on the get off ramp shoulder... Everyone of those trucks had had their mirrors clipped, they were all hanging off the sides of the trucks by their wiring. Oh, he couldn't even get into the truck stop, he had to keep going.

 

Well. If indeed the recent influx of eLog trucks is making noticeable impacts on parking, then this begs the question -

Where were all these trucks not that long ago before they got eLogs?

Surely they weren't driving in egregious violation of HOS rules. Because I've not ever heard a current driver admit running in egregious violation of hours. Everybody is just fudging a few minutes here and there on paper (according on the eLog opponents)

 

90% of trucks on the road are small trucking outfits under 10 trucks. Mega carriers are only 10% of the truck market. I pray this never changes.

 

I really don't believe those numbers but that really doesn't address the question I posed.

 

Up here, you just went back to the yard, now many of these guys cannot, even though most are within safe driving distance. Now I am seeing trucks shutting down while in the docks up here at the Big 3. They have to call in, and deliver drivers to these trucks to move them. These guys will not even pull them out of the dock until another driver signs in on the egg timer. Most all of us run the same JIT freight, and we all have our areas/lanes, and all are within an hour or two of the yard, in some cases, right around the corner, literally. Most all of us are local guys, we live here in Michigan. I am normally never farther out than one to two hours from the house, if not closer.

 

If that was true, why are all the small fleet operators and owner-ops blaming all of current trucking problems on the large and mega fleets? Why can't the small guys band together for the change they want if they are so unified and control 90% of the freight?

Maybe the small guys are the problem if they control 90% of truckload trucking.