Truckers continue to protest the ELD mandate shut down highway in Florida.

I told my shippers and customers about it, and they said “what is that”?
So the average Joe has no clue of what goes on in our industry.

 

Idk, that's a good observation. I would like to think that trump understands macro economics within our own country- but then again trump has, many, many industries going through similar things I'm sure....

 

maybe they can go for a rate hike in that swamp while there at it

 

They don't. And what's more, if they were to have the anti-eld side explained to them for 30 minutes, they still would not care, or [and this is more likely], they would wish the mandate would go ahead and go through, the sooner the better. This technology age we live in today? The argument the truckers are trying to use is just lame and misguided spoken to a public surrounded by technology 24/7. And the average citizen TODAY doesn't give a crap about "privacy rights" in such a context.

They're fighting a losing battle at this time in our society where every day they see or hear on the news about a serious crash involving a truck and multiple fatalities. The facts are irrelevant to consumer of this news, all that matters is that it was a truck involved and they were probably tired or driving too fast and should not have a CDL, regardless "they deserve anything that makes them uncomfortable" - said John Q Public

I think an aggressive "public awareness campaign" (such as these misguided "strikes") would be the WORST thing anti-eld groups could do. They are shining a light on something best left in the dark.

 

I had this very conversation with a head honcho from landstar a few years ago , I went to lunch with a couple agent friends and my original orientation guy and this hot shot was going , they were all scared I would say something out of line knowing me , but I just kept quiet and listened , when they all started talking about ELDs , he asked me my opinion ,
I put it this way , would you rather have a driver that sets his cruise at 60 mph and is relaxed and careful , but drives and extra hour a day , but his logs are never off more then 15 minutes .
Or would you like a driver who speeds through construction zones , parking lots and drives as fast as he can , he didn't know what to say , I told him I'm the driver that does 60 saves fuel is safer but fudges his log to make it work .
He agreed with me but said he would never admit to it .
I used to log fast and drive slow , did it for years .
Now I won't speed through construction zones but I see it every day more and more .
But I'm cruising much faster then I would like to because the egg timer is forcing me .

 

Yeah ... I suppose- a friend and I were talking about new drivers, the kid drivers- age 15/16

And how they need half a study book on driving around/with trucks alone. Theeeen, if they pass, they have to watch a 30 minute video about fatality car and truck accidents/ all the pictures and films. Graphic stuff. All the sad stories and etc* now that's technology in use

Then this video would have to be watched every time a license is renewed

 

No one ever wants to encourage us , we have enormous power if we felt the right encouragement ( courage ) to use it .

 

I do remember reading somewhere, that Trump said his trucking friend said the roads are so bad in America that he doesn't even want new trucks, "just give me the old trucks with the best tires on them" because the roads will tear the trucks up in no time.

But yeah, idk- trump taking pictures in a big truck, having rigs on the lawn of the White House, that's more than I've seen in my time. So we know he does have SOME awareness, but how much? Idk

 

Yep i remember the days that unless you were several days behind on behind logbook the officer would hand it back to you and say fix this. Making it look legal was all that mattered. Didnt matter that you hadn't slept more than 3 hours at a time in the last month. Just make it look legal. Well that industry wide culture of blatantly ignoring hos is what led us to the by the letter of the law enforcement that we have now.

It was something like 2001 that law enforcement made an about face and it went from we know you are lying just don't make it obvious to we will dig deep to catch the lies and bust your ### for it. That was the warning to the industry to get our act together and take hos seriously. We ignored that warning and continued the status quo of just make it look legal. That was all the ammunition the highway safety groups needed to push elogs through. "See they had their chance to clean their act up and didn't, now we got to force them." We did this to ourselves and got no one to blame but our fellow drivers.