Dispatcher tries to force driver to drive tired. *MUST SEE*

Well, you post is well thought out and logical. Kudos to you for that!

But I can help but think that K&B has a policy(like most bottom feeder types) of merely paying lip service to DOT regs. You know what I mean, preach about safety, but get away with all the violations that you can!

 

It's not even that sinister. It's that lack of accountability thing. Start tying paychecks and bonus payouts to safety scores along with measurable internal metrics, and you'd be amazed at how those scores would come down. Probably would result in a coincidental mass exodus of bad players, both in management and behind the wheel.

 

Wrong -

Pitchforks aside I do not know where to start.

How about numbers:

K&B has 633 truck inspections in two years on 602 trucks. Not that many. Each truck is inspected once ever other year or so. In these inspections half are sighted with equipment violations and of those about 1.5 equipment violations per a instance. Not good. You got about a 50/50 chance of rolling into a K&B inspection and getting a ticket. 15% out of service rate is not good also.

K&B drivers got inspected 1,385 times in two years on 602 trucks. That would be about once a year per driver. OOS rate for drivers is 2%. Not to bad all other things considered.

As your company statics are way off and misread, I do not know what you are extrapolating!

In all cases the driver can be blamed. That is what crappy companies like to do and some drivers are just dumb enough to believe it and take it to heart. The bottom line is all these companies draw drivers from the same driver pool thus management needs to be blamed for the statistics that bear.

That stat. the the driver has most the influence on looks good for K&B which easily reflects the hire of experienced drivers. Does K&B just now happen to find the good experienced drivers that just cannot write a good log book or is company pressure forcing mistakes? The answer is obvious.

How hard is it to do basic research on your driver's qualifications? It is not hard at all, only when turnover is at a ridiculous rate does that simple task become a chore.

At 80% substance abuse is a real problem and indicative of drivers self-medicating to accommidate the other problems (HOS and planning) of K&B.

As others have stated all these companies are evaluated on a curve with peer sized companies. They all pull from the same driver pool. At some point management has to take responsibility and quit scapegoating drivers.

 

I said "inspections" and did not differentiate driver vs vehicle. Truth be told, the total isn't that interesting. Same with the OOS rate. Neither exonerates anyone.

If you weren't in such a hurry to make the company driver a victim, you may also see that I'm not defending the company's practices either. Personally, I think at most of the big carriers there is a consistent mix of out of touch management with no incentive other than to turn pennies into billions, and a lot of drivers working for them that are either too desperate, not smart or talented enough, to go somewhere else for better pay and job conditions. Nobody is forced to do anything they don't want to do. There isn't a single K&B or other mega fleet driver reporting to work with a gun to their head.

How hard is it for a driver to check the dates on their CDL and medical card once in a while? Make sure they have the cards in their wallet to make sure they don't get that ticket. Kinda like putting a seat belt on, really. Sure, by law the carrier has to keep up with it. But who gets the ticket when the driver missed the expiration or leaves the medical card on their dresser at home?

And really, blaming someone's bad decision with drugs or alcohol on their job pressure? Who doesn't have job pressure? Or family issues. Or some kind of stressful element to their life. Everyone should be doing drugs and alcohol by that logic. 80% is misleading. That's the calculated percentile based on a peer group. So 4 violations across 600 drivers. Maybe a few more that haven't been caught. How does that measure up to the general public? Or other high stress jobs like police officers and combat soldiers. Perspective matters.

I still say if management and drivers alike are incentivized toward safety, the good players on both ends will drive the number down and the bad players will have to move somewhere else that they aren't getting punished. That goes for everyone, starting from the top.

The status quo will exist as long as profit is priority over a sustainable business plan. Trucking is not an island with this problem. Medium and large companies across all industries do the same thing. As long as you have revolving doors with managers that continue to push crap down to make numbers this month at all costs, and the same revolving door of line workers (drivers) willing to work under those conditions, it will never change.

 

Am I the only person here that thinks Abe is a wimp & should be flipping burgers somewhere?

The bottom line is he just had 20 hours off. He should be ready to work. If he's not, it's his failure.

I've been talked to a lot worse by a dispatcher over much smaller issues. I understand the pressures that a dispatcher works under. You can only hold hands with a certain number of whiny, crybaby drivers at once.

Nobody was asking Abe to do anything illegal. They just wanted him to perform the job he was hired to do. If he can't do it I think they would be perfectly justified in firing him. He can probably get on with Swift or CRE.

 

Yes they were TELLING him to do something illegal. That is drive fatigued.

 

I think I read it or heard it somewhere but I am not about to listen to the video or go through 26 pages to find it so let me see if I understand this correctly.....he took his 10 then drove 20 miles and took another 10. Then he drove 2 hours and needed to shut down for another 10 because he couldn't drive the remaining 160 miles? Is that right?

Appears to me that honest Abe was ticked off that he got laid over one too many times so he was going to show them who was boss. I wouldn't be surprised if they terminated him for that wiretapping deal.

I was pulled over by Penn*DOT and I left my dash cam running with the mic on and recorded the whole episode. I posted it to You Tube for reasons that I won't go into here. Well didn't that DOT cop see the video on You Tube and call me on my cell phone? He said "This is Officer XYZ and I am calling to tell you that a warrant will be issued for your arrest this afternoon under wiretapping laws" or some such paraphrase.

 

Well, did you get a warrant?

Pennsylvania is a two party state and not done over the phone across state lines.

 

FMCSA says he should not have been fatigued....he was legal. I don't think there is anything in the regs that state back to back 10 hr breaks makes you fatigued....unless you are asking for another round of studies and HOS rule changes.

KB's position would be that if a driver is not rested enough to drive after 20 hours off duty then he is not suited to be a truck driver.

 

Don't think so but I haven't been stopped by the cops in PA since. He said he would give me a hour to take the video down and then he wouldn't go through with it.