DOT Officially Floats HOS Changes That Would Alter 14 Hour Clock/30 minute Break

I did. We won’t get back to those. Everyone (Public Citizen, PATT, etc) wants us to have a clock and a schedule for our perfect world of driving trucks.

 

I did and look back how bad the drivers were treated back then. It was get the load delivered at any price. Log books did not even matter. I remember when the told us we had to match the fuel receipts within 24 hours. Basically the same day we fueled we had to log it sometime and driver got mad. Then it was within 15 minutesand drive said that crazy.

The trucking companies did not care anything about log books. As long as you turned in a Legal log book that all they cared about. You could make 1,600 miles go away and make it look legal and the trucking company was ok with that. Untill the D.O.T did inspection at trucking company and said how come nobody is logging fueling at the trucking company terminal. When every truck is fueled when it pulls in.

 

These are proposed changes. Nothing official yet,

 

Short haul are the clear winners here if it gets approved.

 

Me

 

13th Amendment takes care of the Employer Slave Labor and another section say that employment is "At will" by you or your employer. It will be different in the Union Hall.

 

Me, for the old rules pre 03. Actually worked better for me.

As for the 30 minute break, it stays but it can be part of on duty-not driving, so it is not really a break.

 

If the pre ' 03 rules were so bad and dangerous, someone will have to explain to me why "non property hauling carriers" (motor coach drivers) are still using the same rules.
That is somehow those rules are fine for up to 56 human souls on board, but too dangerous for 1 person in the cab of a tractor hauling a load of paper towels.
I operated fine under the old rules, from 1976 until 2003. Were there abuses? Yes. As the level of enforcement increased incrementally over the years until the ELD 2017, and now the 2019 AOBRD deadline, it has become clearer and clearer that the HOS rules were the culprit, not the recording or enforcement methods.
I distinctly remember Annette Sandberg who was head of the FMCSA under the Bush Administration touting the new 14 hour window in 2003. Her reasoning was 14 hour window combined with 10 hours of "deep restorative sleep" equals 24 hours, so the all important "biological clock" would not be disturbed, totally ignoring the realities of modern life and trucking needs. Or the differences between the biological needs of different humans.
It only took 16 years to realize the mistake, and at least another 2-3 to correct it from now. So for 20 years a government regulation caused undue hardship and maybe more than a few deaths. But impossible to quantify any of the damage.

 

You want to be paid for doing nothing?