DOT now checking Qualcomm?

Yeah they do have serial ##s

 

this isnt relevent to the post but is anyone else having probs sendings PM's?

 

i havent tried but site been real slow this morning

 

I have a friend who does criminal defense and he told me that a universal rule for defense attorneys is to always try to get truck drivers on the jury. This is the perfect example why. Truckers are always guilty until proven innocent.

I have to disagree with those who say that the answer is to always run legal. Yes, you should always run legal, but it is not always that simple. If you drive for long enough you will run into tough decisions and gray areas. Also, the DOT regs are always changing and are filled with legal speak that we non-lawyers can't understand. I remember when the HOS rules were in almost constant change a few years back, even the DOT officers were having a hard time keeping them straight. I would bet that we all break some obscure DOT equipment regulation every day that we drive. Obviously, we all know the cardinal sins and most of us do our best not to break them.

Checking the Qualcomm is just the next logical step for the DOT. When the technology advances, the DOT will have access to that too. I am sure that the DOT or a smart lawyer will eventually get around to checking this site too.

Lawyers always sue the deepest pockets. That means they go after the trucking companies in the car/truck accidents. You are never going to get a professional truck driver on a truck/car injury/death case jury pool. You will get a jury made up of 4-wheelers, full of prejudices against our industry and profession. Right or wrong, fair or not, that's just reality.

 

thanks so much. i thought it was me for a minute, i know that cant be since i'm perfect...
happy valetines day, all!

 

I remember a case when I was still working. It was about 8 to 12-years ago (late 1990's, early 2000's). It was a dirtbag company somewhere on the East coast, New Jersey or Eastern Pennsylvania memory serve. My brethren wanted their satellite data for supporting documents (memory serve this company was using Rockwell equipment B-4 Qualcom became the big player). The company refused & it ended up in federal court. The FMCSA won. When we finally received the data we, the FMCSA, discovered after a lengthy investigation, that the senior managers were falsifying/changing the drivers logs after the drivers offered them to the carrier. It turned out this carrier was forcing drivers to drive extremely excessive hours to get the freight there because they couldn't keep drivers around (drivers were quitting left and right) so as the drivers quit, the carrier used the drivers that quit as ghost drivers.

The end result is we, the FMCSA, contacted the U.S. Attorney for the district & he/she filed criminal charges against the major players changing/forcing others to change the drivers RDS's. Memory serve there were 3 or 4 of them that went to federal prison for it. I am told we called in handwriting experts from the FBI to verify the RDS's.

But the bottom line is that FMCSA has been using the satellite information for many years since the courts ruled we had the right to use it as supporting documentation provided the motor carrier and/or satellite carrier kept the data that long. When I worked there though, we only used it against the dirtbag companies such as this one to further our case against the company for federal prosecution. Apparently Washington, DC has determined, at least from your statement Re. Landline, that the satellite records are now standard operating procedure used for supporting documentation.

 

Wow, that's amazing... I'll bet you have a lot of stories...

 

As I was told several years ago, companies are required by law to keep copies (scanned is OK) of drivers logs for 10 years. Also, any entry into a QC either from the truck or at the terminal is kept for 15 years by QualCom in San Diego, they are constantly being warrented to supply data documents to courts, also any company who is a member of their sustem can (at a cost) access any time frame data for their records.

 

As long as they don't start mailing you tickets because of some infraction they saw on the Qualcomm. As is, I got a ticket for just hitting the red light at 11:30pm on empty streets on a sunday night. The redlight camera got me, I was mailed an $80.00 ticket.
From what I read, Qualcomm isn't always very accurate.