ELD exempt trucks or gliders

Discussion in 'Experienced Truckers' Advice' started by crocky, Apr 9, 2018.

  1. Rubber duck kw

    Rubber duck kw Road Train Member

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    If the hos were to keep drivers from being abused it would be applied to strictly the company not to drivers
     
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  3. Farmerbob1

    Farmerbob1 Road Train Member

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    Owner ops can be pressured too. They have more leeway to give a middle finger and walk away, but shippers and brokers can still make a lot of ridiculous demands, I'm sure. With the HOS regulations, you can keep those demands within reason.
     
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  4. Brettj3876

    Brettj3876 Road Train Member

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    Yup my dad knows at some point down the line eld will be for every truck on the road but he's still gonna keep the old iron alive for the reliability and easy to work on factor.
     
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  5. crocky

    crocky Road Train Member

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    I think my first post covered that already..
     
  6. crocky

    crocky Road Train Member

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    Do officers have ELD? Seems they drive as part of their jobs and carry around guns.. but for some reason they aren't limtied on their hours of service.
     
  7. RET423

    RET423 Medium Load Member

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    This is true but not a good basis for comparison, especially when we are debating whether government regulation has been a good or bad thing; here is why.

    1) Cars and pickups today cannot even be purchased stripped down to the features that were available in the 1970's, you quite simply get a LOT more car today even when you buy the "Base" model. In your example of a pickup especially because a pickup in 1970 was a farm implement with a metal interior and built to work, today they are preferred luxury vehicles with all the trimmings and those who want one built to "work" have to add all the heavy duty stuff as an option; times have changed. Inflation only matters when you are comparing "Like Value" and there is no "Like Value" available in the modern car market; if you get a lot more that must be considered for a comparison to be valid.

    2) An enormous amount of expense in modern cars are the direct result of government mandates, these have always existed but the requirements in 1970 were not a fraction of the requirements today. It can be debated whether some or all of these requirements are a "good thing" but what cannot be debated is that these costs which greatly inflate the cost of new cars is the fault of government regulation; we can't say "It was better when government regulated trucking more because new cars were more in reach of an average workers salary" when a huge portion of the increase in new car costs is because of government regulation. This would be like a doctor punching you in the face then blaming your face as he charges you to stitch the wound.

    3) In the 1970's a cars lifespan was generally considered to be 100,000 miles, that does not mean none went further but to expect there to be much left at 100,000 was foolish. Today's motors are not only far more powerful and efficient per pound they also have not even reached their half life at 100,000 miles; electronic fuel injection and multi spark ignitions that adjust for optimum timing and fuel ratio have all but eliminated the formation of carbon deposits and the subsequent "sludge" which restricted lubrication and wore everything out. A person who buys a new car and properly maintains it can expect over 200,000 miles with minimal repair expense in most cases, even the extremely cheapo cars will provide this service; that must be considered when comparing for inflationary purposes or the comparison is void.

    4) Regular maintenance was much more expensive in 1970 vehicles, points/cap/rotor/plugs and condenser required replacement every 25,000 miles; every 50,000 you would replace the plug wires along with those components. In 1970 the max any responsible car owner would go between oil changes was 3000 miles and this was woefully inadequate if the vehicle was driven short distances most of the time; transmissions were good for 75,000 or so. in 1970 all suspension components required regular greasing like the big rigs do today, coolant had a two year or 25,000 mile life expectancy and had to be replaced.

    A new car will have zero ignition maintenance for at least 150,000 miles and most factory manuals recommend changing the oil at 7 or 8 thousand miles; and the oil that gets drained out at 8000 miles has a better lubricating capacity than the new oil had in 1970. Modern transmissions will easily clear 150,000 miles if the owner changes the fluid every 50,000 miles or so; and there are not even any grease fitting on a modern car to grease as they are all sealed and permanently lubed. Coolant today is rated from 100,000 mile life expectancy to lifetime depending on the manufacture.

    Vehicle maintenance was a constant and regular part of peoples life in 1970, today involves an occasional glance at the dipsticks and overflow bottle with a light that comes on when the oil change is due; most people who buy new cars today rarely ever "go to the shop" while their 1970 counterpart "had a mechanic" that they knew by first name.

    Major repair work on cars today is almost exclusively done by used car buyers who run the second half of the cars life cycle, it is not uncommon for the new car buyer to go their entire ownership period with zero repairs and just some oil changes at the jiffy lube.

    For these reasons I would say that the cost of personal transportation is more affordable today for people working in the same line of work as those in 1970, simply using the MSRP to make a determination leaves out all of the relevant data; todays vehicle buyers get far more than twice the value as could be bought in 1970 so the sticker price does not tell the tale.

    In fact, I would buy and trust to drive reliably an 8 year old F100 today with 100,000 miles on it at the day of purchase more than I would trust a 1970 F100 that I bought off the lot new, and that 8 year old F100 would have more power, better efficiency and many more options than were even possible in 1970. The 8 year old F100 would have more life left in it than the new 1970 F100 and even buying the 8 year old one used it would still require less maintenance than the new 1970 F100.

    Just some things to consider when you hear comparisons made that really are not comparable at all, I love old cars and I have a stable of them but this is based on nostalgia; they were a pain in my ### back in the day.
     
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  8. Bean Jr.

    Bean Jr. Road Train Member

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    Very good points.
     
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  9. RET423

    RET423 Medium Load Member

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    This is just more Union nonsense propaganda.

    After the "public safety" argument goes down in flames we always get to the "poor truckers were just snowflake puppy's getting abused by the fat cat smoking a cigar who would cast them into the street and stomp on their face if they refused to work around the clock".

    BS, this is the claim that is refined to condemn free market capitalism in every sector and it fails for the same reasons everywhere it gets applied.

    1) Nanny State workers are the snowflakes, those who came before knew how to deal with the men they worked for and they were proud of their work ethic; they bragged about how hard they worked and how serious they were about about being an expert at whatever job they had.
    Today it is not uncommon for a trucker to proudly proclaim that his policy is to never back up and not practice backing up, just avoid it all costs because it is "too risky".
    Just go look at threads where a young driver is looking for advice on how to properly shift or improve his backing skills, they are LITTERED with naysayers who resent the driver for wanting to hone his trade and caring about his own proficiency.

    2) The Free Market Capitalist model has always outperformed the government controlled Market, there are no exceptions. From the smallest and newest worker to the Owner and Employer the opportunities to prosper are far more plentiful in the non regulated system; the only people who lament deregulation are the few who lost their "Money for nothing" position that was secured based on how many calendar days they had been showing up instead of by their merit. When deregulation came the locked doors were kicked open and they had to compete, all the people they had been blocking with their hired government guns came through those doors and revealed just how lazy and incompetent most of those "protected" workers and companies were.

    If you told my grandfather that he was a helpless snowflake who needed government to tell him and force him to work only the hours they deemed he could handle he would punch you in the nose, the same if you told him he needed ANYBODY to "protect him" from his boss. He was trucking through the great depression, then he went to fight in WW2, then he came back and trucked until he had a stroke in the 1980's; the history you have absorbed from the Unions propaganda has no resemblance to the truth.
     
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  10. Bean Jr.

    Bean Jr. Road Train Member

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    I think you have confused me with somebody who likes unions. That they are ineffective is proof to what you have written, but nowhere did you refute my claim for why they were initiated in the first place.

    But I must strongly disagree with your assessment of companies being altruistic. They will not make improvements just to benefit the workers, they will make improvements to increase production. When it is a buyer's market, high unemployment, the perks disappear. When it is a seller's market, low unemployment, they are necessary in order to attract talent.

    My dad started driving in the late 40s. Only 130 lbs, soaking wet, he shunned luxuries like power steering, a/c, etc. There are people on this forum who would like the DOT to put a truck OOS for not having them! The trucking world has changed and the free market has done it.
     
  11. RET423

    RET423 Medium Load Member

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    I didn't mean to imply that companies are altruistic, I intended to say that Capitalism with the least possible government interference is inherently altruistic.

    I get a bit passionate on this subject as I have seen the destruction of government "help" escalate for many decades, it really makes the hair on my neck stand up when the claim is made that men are better off with the government dealing with their boss instead of letting the Market do what the Market always does; find the correct balance which maintains a consistent, well compensated and productive work force and the best possible quality for the money.

    HOS came about because Unions used the dues they collected to bribe politicians into getting their members less work for the pay they earned.

    There was absolutely nothing altruistic about the government that took that bribe or the one that continues to take those bribes today; they are all policies designed to hold back the competition that expose the Unions as incompetent.

    The government is not the "good guy", I can handle any boss in any market but the government crushes every good thing and every man that will not fall to his knees in submission.
     
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