Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

These were the semi versions... very long sleepers... towing 53’ trailers...

I see them with moving companies... I wonder why moving companies... I mean they must not be using those trucks to pull into neighborhoods to do the loading and unloading... just towing the trailers cross country?

These were not movers...
not sure what they were.

 

Ya, the thought of running “homeless” has crossed my mind lately too. I could see benefits to not messing with a “home” since we are OTR for 26 out of every 30 days... just bounce from town to town visiting family and friends wherever they may be located.

Has potential.

 

Ok... MacDaddy’s Rant... HOS!!!

I get the “Rules”... and I think 11 hours over 14 is plenty time to drive, normally... and if we didn’t have HOS there are companies that would be pushing drivers to be on the roads when it’s unsafe for them to be driving, drivers taking stimulants to drive 48 hours straight, etc.

But... here was my impact with HOS the last two days... got a nice Reno load... left Friday night due Tuesday 7am.

I hit my 70 yesterday... now I was only 10 hours from Reno... refreshed and well rested... ready to cruise into Reno and take a 10... easy.

But instead, I drive for 3 hours, stopped at Area 51 for breakfast and take another 10 waiting for my recap hours to come around... I took a nap to be ready to drive into the night... and rolled out about 10:30.

I drive 4 hours and hit a wall... pull off, and sleep for three hours... up and drive the last three hours... bump the dock and roll to Petro... now I’m sitting around with today all F’d up.

So HOS caused a fresh ready to roll driver to push it into the evening, drive unsafe, pull over for 3 hours of sleep... finish after only 3 hours of sleep... and jacked up my next day....

Instead of an easy 10 hour daylight drive....

I think recap hours should come around at NOON instead of midnight... ugh... why have recap come back in the middle of the freaking night?

But anyway... my 70 was up... I recapped to finish the load on time... and taking a “day off” and will be ready to roll out in the morning... but I could have driven here... then taken a 34... enjoyed a day off instead of being wiped out from lack of sleep... shrug.

Oh well... them be the rules...

{end of rant}

 

And speaking of HOS... anyone else see the “new rules” that might be coming?

30 minute break can be “on duty”

7/3 split instead of 8/2

Pause the 14 for up to 3 hours?
Not sure if that is the same as the 7/3

Ya... I really need to learn to use that split clock option... I’m sure it comes in handy from time to time...

But ya, new rules similar to the old rules.

 

The consolidation continues...
soon we will be a handful of big companies...

Like Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Spring
Like Ford, GM, Chrysler
Like the coming Single Payer Health System.

I’m very Pro Capitalism... but ya, market based capitalism, fewer, bigger companies aren’t always the most economically health option...

At some point they become “too big to fail” and when they do fail, Uncle Sam pays the tab via bailouts...

Hopefully, like Budweiser, Miller, Coors... which had a healthy “small craft brewery” uprising ... maybe smaller family owned trucking companies will make a revival...

Change is the only Constant

 

“Truckers to FMCSA: Brief move leads to ELD dilemma
AUGUST 27, 2019

Mark Schremmer
Since the electronic logging mandate went into effect in December 2017, a frequent complaint from truck drivers has been that they can be flagged for violating the hours of service if a law enforcement officer or a shipper or receiver requires them to move their truck a short distance.

Larry Minor, FMCSA’s associate administrator for policy, told a room full of truckers last week that those kind of instances shouldn’t warrant a violation.

Minor’s comments came during FMCSA’s public listening session on hours of service on Friday, Aug. 23, at the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas.


“We’ve published regulatory guidance in the past about brief interruptions of the off-duty periods or the sleeper berth periods,” Minor said. “So if it’s truly just a brief interruption where for whatever reason the shipper or receiver needs you to reposition your tractor-trailer for five minutes or so, then those brief interruptions do not mess up your off-duty period.

“I think you would just take the opportunity to make an annotation or note to the record that, yes, the vehicle did start up and, yes, you did move it a short distance from one part of the yard to the other part of the yard,” Minor said. “So just make the notation as to that’s what happened.”

Several truck drivers responded that making an annotation may sound good in theory but not work in reality. Regardless of the note, the ELD will still be flashing that the driver is in violation. Drivers also remarked that if they are stopped, it’s still up to an individual law enforcement officer as to whether the annotation is accepted.

“My ELD is going to read on-duty, so am I free to take off even though my ELD says I still have to sit 3 hours and five minutes to take my 10-hour break,” asked Jessica Graham, a company driver from Illinois. “Because there is no way in my ELD if it goes on-duty that I can tell my ELD that it was just a quick move. It’s always going to tell me that I’m supposed to sit. So I leave, and my ELD is still telling me that I’m illegal, but you’re saying just to explain it to the officer that the note is in there.”

Minor said the agency is working with ELD manufacturers to make it easier for drivers to adapt to these kinds of situations.

“That’s one of the things that we’re continuing to work with the ELD vendors on,” Minor said. “That is that we don’t require the ELDs to designate whether something is or is not a violation, rather than just capturing what actually happened. So as long as it’s just capturing the record of what actually happened and you have the annotation, then that should leave some room for dialogue. But if it’s actually showing up violation, violation, violation, red flags, then that would be a problem. That’s an area where we are continuing the dialogue with the ELD vendors.”

Perhaps not coincidentally, FMCSA announced on Tuesday, Aug. 27 that it is hosting a public meeting on ELD technical specifications in September.

The meeting is scheduled from 9:30 a.m. until 1 p.m. Eastern time on Friday, Sept. 6, at the U.S. DOT Headquarters Building, 1200 New Jersey Ave. SE; Washington, D.C. 20590.

“This public meeting will be a forum for discussion of the minimum requirements for ELDs and is being held to help manufacturers produce ELDs that comply with the ELD rule,” FMCSA wrote in the meeting announcement. “This meeting is intended for representatives of ELD vendors to present questions and discuss issues related to the transition from automatic on-board recording devices to ELDS, to discuss the data transfer process and related technical questions, and present other issues unique to the ELD vendor community.”

When the ELD mandate went into effect, FMCSA allowed ELD vendors to self-certify.”

And once again the people who know the least about how things work out here in the real world put the cart before the horse. From Landline magazine.

 

Is interesting how things have changed and will continue to change.
We now have cameras that capture your every move and sound.
And we have Elds that also capture your every move.
I remember year's ago companies looking for driver's would published articles saying.... "Become a truck driver....be your on Boss... Free without having any body watching over you". LOL!

 

They can if you run a noon to noon logbook

 

Wow, hvac guys at publix I delivered to this morning pulled all the nails out and swept the trailer out. That is a first....

 

You know, this company needs to get their #### together. Last paycheck they only took $40 instead of $67 out for medical. $27 less. This paycheck they took $76. That’s $9 over. So, guess that means for their mistake I am having to pay that $27 back, $9 per check for the rest of the plan year. Which granted, is only 2 more checks. But WTFH?!?!?
This is on top of the fiasco I’ve already been through with medical benefits from 2017 that Dennis didn’t make up. Long story, but I paid 90% of it by check back in 2017, but it somehow never made it into the books. And the other 10%? I paid that a couple weeks ago by a personal check when it was brought to my attention. Then I get a negative check and no one can tell me why. So, yeah, I’m a bit irritated right now. We may be owned by Knight, but it’s still the same old ####.