Vox: How job surveillance is changing trucking in America

Not me in this old iron. Call you when empty on delivery day.

Gives dispatch more time to deal with problem people rather than follow dots all day on their screens.

 

Why must you continue to speak in the present tense?

 

Good article.

 

Nice!

HOS is the problem. ELDs just force folks to recognize that by making it impossible to avoid HOS shortcomings.

 

Got 47 seconds into it and it is a waste of time.

We are moving forward as an industry, a lot of things we have to do because of how the regulations are setup - like HOS.

If companies don't do something to stay ahead of the curve in competition by managing their capacity, then others will cause them to lose market share and more will go out of business.

Technology is not the problem, monitoring is not the problem but ...

The real problem is in these facts.

WE DON'T HAVE A COHERENT VOICE, NEVER HAD AND NEVER WILL.

WE DON'T HAVE THE ABILITY TO THINK LIKE A GROUP, IT IS ALL ABOUT ME AND NOT ABOUT US.

We have let this happen, we are our own worst enemy.

HOS has to be changed, it has to return to the flexibility that we used to have. Going right back the 1962 rules is what we need, no complicated exemptions, no special rules for circumstances, just plain old common sense limits that will protect drivers.

We are not airline pilots where we need a stringent physical to see if we are fit to fly, or to run specific schedules. This isn't rocket science where we need to work in complex regulations in order to get things done.

It starts with a voice, everything does and our opponents, those do gooder groups who bash us and those litigation firms who have those big bill boards up are the real enemy but to combat them we need a voice and we can't have one until we act like we deserve one.

 

Part of that is the Plantation attitude in some of the companies. If a driver piped up about this or that or something else... they usually lean on same to make him or her mind his place. Or out.

Trucking is chaos. Making organizing the problem of arriving to the minute 3000 miles across a Nation full of Chaos is a masterpiece. I can do it plus or minus 7 minutes which is really pushing it as far as precision.

Robot trucks will give that one collective national voice to junk all of them after the Interstates and everywhere else are royally effed with thousands of trucks in need of rebooting and god only knows what else.

 

If I took the time I guess I could think of and list maybe 25 to 30 different specific reasons for this heavy hand today. Honestly, though it comes down really to 2 basic reasons. The FMCSA and the States are regulating this industry and have a VERY heavy enforcement hand. I touched on this briefly the other day when I made a comment of FMCSA audits and how they are about carrier hires and the paperwork involved. The states are getting tough about IFTA and their tax revenue. Another thing though is more and more carriers are being proactive in regard to liability. Example? Anybody care to take a guess at what it cost my last carrier to pay for all the damage a guy did when he attempted to turn around in a small parking lot and failed to check his vertical clearance? Safety did not tell me the exact figure but they did say it was 6 figures. The guy pulled a 3 phase service off a commercial business and with it also did some damage to the building, plus the business was down for a while until that got fixed. He also broke a utility pole and that yanked almost 100 feet of both Electric, cable and phone cable out and on the ground. When I read about these things this is what I really want to do ----

 

Cameras everywhere, Driver facing cameras, Never thought I’d see the day. Freedom taken a little at a time, while history is forgotten. Apathy has set in on Society. Too busy with gadgets, Toys and Trinkets to think about much else. Working to pay for it all. While claiming freedom, Truckers have very little, and keep giving it away. It’s a bunch of BS. Never seen so much of a gap between perception and reality. I’m starting to think we’re all becoming part of cyber space, ourselves. Easily programmed and when no longer needed, easily deleted.