End Of The Trucking Industry! Wireless "in motion inspections"

Playing devils advocate here for both sides.

On the one hand this is going to be a very good change for those of us who actully follow the laws. Its highly unlikely any of us who do what the book says, keep our trucks maintained, do our checks and maintain legal speeds as much as posible are going to be bothered much if at all more then we already are.

What it will do however, is start pulling a lot of these fly by night cowboys off the road or force them into running legally and thus bankrupt likely. A lot of the trucks you will see get pulled in are going to be the chicago special, forigener with a hole in the floor, or held together with duct tape style rigs where the odds of the guy behind the wheel gibbering at the scale house and being entitled and pissy are high.

It will also help weed out a lot of the drivers who couldnt drive a truck in a direct line 10 feet through a parking lot the size of a small city without manageing to hit all 3 of the cars both trees the light pole and get hung up on railroad tracks.....that arent even in the parking lot.

Plus we are already tracked 50 ways to sunday as it is. Got a phone? Your being tracked at least somehow. Got paperlogs? Still being tracked even if you have more freedom to fudge numbers. Got a BOL your being tracked. Basically as soon as you turn the key in your truck your being tracked.

Finally how do you think a lot of these special taskforces for brokers, parking, road improvments and so on will get funded. You want those you want this to fund them by taking money from the fly by nighters. Its a double win. Competition gets nailed and you get perks.

Now as devils advocate for the other side, it also sucks because frankly no one likes big brother ramming his nose so far up our collective ##### you can see it when we speak. It does open up the POTENTIAL for abuse and with many states cutting funding to officers in general these weigh stations may become the goto for state income. How much it is abused is anyones guess. Additionally, it does line up several more ways for the government to screw us.

If your a otherwise good driver and make a mistake one day the government has the ability to more or less rob you at their leasure. Plus with these devices tattleing on you. if you zone out a bit and speed some just flowing with traffic there is every potential for them to slam you on it Especially with governer mandates coming up. Go to roll into a checkpoint and oh look your ELD said you did 72 in a 70. or you did 63 wbile the governer limit is 62. Ticket 4 U. Or worse you flowed with traffic through a construction zone and even though the limit was 45...say its also chicago and doing 45 is near 100% to cause a wreck so you did 50-60 like everyone else....welp congrats you just got nailed for speeding in a construction zone....2 days later.

The more the government gets involved and can track you the more easily they can #### you over. And should you participate in "wrong think or wrong vote" they can quite easilly flag you and your truck to get ####ed with at every chance they can.

And those are only the low hanging fruit. If this law is good or bad will ENTIRELY depend on your point of view and hoe its used. Myself i think while it has positives its also got a near 100% chance of being an abused law. But i am also 100% sure actual drivers and O/Os will do what we always do. We will break out the lube, let the government have its way and figure it out as always.

 

This has been said thousand of times during hard times. Some move on and “New” suckers join the party. It will always be like this. Nothing new, individuals hauling cheap freight will never go away. I’ve been in this industry 43 years plus, and seen this “cycle” over and over.

 

Possiby this can be connected to the advent of driverless trucks so eventually all inspection is electronic.

Weigh in motion and thermal brake inspection and the truck owner gets the electronic fine...

 

They can send me electronic bills, I will pay them with my very own cryptocurrency I call BSCOIN (trademark symbol here) - it will be like bit-coin only shadier -

 

I didn't know a dvir wasnt required, thats going to save me a few button presses in the morning. I've always logged it as no defects even if there was something because I am sure as hell not snitching on myself to dot when they check my logs. Good bye dvir

 

If you dont go to Canada, and there are no defects, then you do not have to fill out a DVIR (unless your company requires it, but the DOT doesnt need it).

 

I’d rather not be inspected at all, but I’d rather be inspected by a unemotional machine ten times, than some hard breathing rookie out to make a name for himself or some cantankerous old fart that just got yelled at by his wife again.

it’s not the inspections that are the problem, it’s the people associated with them.

 

Wonder how the Chicagoland companies will handle this when they want to tape a different DOT number on their truck for a trip.