First Official Meeting with Drivers

I thought I was clear. What did I say that was incorrect? Show me where it says I must do an inspection at the end of my shift.

In fact, if you read the FMCSA document you yourself pasted, you will see it says the driver must do an inspection BEFORE driving the vehicle. There is no requirement that I know of requiring me to do another inspection at the end of the day. All I have to do is complete the report by signing it. However if the driver decides to walk around that’s great. If the company wants to make a rule out of the post trip inspection that’s great too. But if the safety girl says the FMCSA requires them to, one of the drivers is likely to call BS. Did I make myself clear that time?

 

Same page, friend.

 

After careful thought, you might want to learn from the Dispatch people what the problems are vs the logs. If the drivers aint got the hours to deliver on time, something is not quite right.

If you have drivers running illegally they need to be taught that they cannot run illegally. Taught as in schooled rather than being told they will not run illegally end dot. One of the problems that people run illegally might be because they fear for the job and don't know how to say no to dispatch. Or... they are a outlaw and will run illegal anyway, these are the ones you want to eliminate.

We had one post to TTR not too long ago who complained that the ELD system was being fat fingered for a couple hours trying to get his work day started so he can just go. Took me a while to finish laughing. However the poor soul might not understand how to use the system as in operating it.

You might want to be sure to have the drivers feel that when they take the time to inspect the vehicles by which the entire company depends on for a living, if these vehicles come up defective in pretrips etc they have to go to the shop without any penalty, punishment or blowback from Dispatcher or anyone. The shop must fix that truck. Or put that driver into another truck or assign the load to another ready driver. This would be the greatest weakness of any trucking company that fails to maintain the trucks, PTI's become a joke and the drivers feel that they have no value when the truck does break somewhere. Oh we wont fix it because it will wait until the load is delivered. Or it's too expensive or or or.

Many of your drivers are warriors. They face situations that might take a long time to resolve while everyone else goes home to get a nice night sleep in a warm bed. While the driver for example has to cross cabbage in a howling storm on chain not sure if he or she will make it across Wyoming to come. If you are unsure where Cabbage is it's in eastern Oregon prior to Odgen. That is one example of what drivers go through.

I can go on, but I think that's enough for this post. You might lose some drivers after the meeting. Maybe you would have lost them anyway. Or maybe no one addressed adequately the problem that drove em out. This meeting will be pretty intense for everyone involved.

 

Get your CDL and about 10 years experience, then they might respect you. lol AZ Pete can't tell the difference between You're and Your so I don't know how much of his advice you should take.

As a professional driver, you should never go into a violation, with or without the ELD Mandate, if management is making them go into violation then your problem isn't with the drivers.

 

Don't mention examples by name. "I've seen several examples of misusing the Personal Conveyance status. I'd like to hear what are the reasons to use PC, etc..."

"I've been asked by the company to monitor X. If the company doesn't monitor X and prevent frequent violations of X this company can be severely fined or shut down and we all lose our jobs. Someone has to be the referee. I'm not here to punish anyone but to make sure we follow the rules so we will have a place to work."

 

LOL I guessed you missed where the OP said The company wants the drivers to do two inspections per day instead of just the pre trip inspection that is required by law. There’s no “severe fine or shutdown” for not doing a post trip inspection. Just another case of pencil pushers that don’t know wtf they’re doing. How would they like it if the company told them to work from 9:00 to 5:45 instead of 9:00 to 5:30?

 

PC can be solved by adding a line 5 specifically for that purpose. Poof no more violations. Next.

 

Logging PTI's usually becomes VERY IMPORTANT following a crash involving death(s) and when lawyers and subpoenas come into play. It's hard to claim your drivers "are concerned with the safe operation of their vehicle" when you can't show a regular inspection process.

 

BS man what are you talking about? They still do a pre trip inspection and log it good grief why the rule so difficult to understand? This is just some auditors misinterpretation of the rule and a company that doesn’t know better

 

PC was just an example I picked. Even with line 5 there are illegal ways to use PC. I get a company-wide email every Monday explaining the frequent misuse of PC. PC could be whatever HOS topic the OP sees.