Just some of the stupid things I see

Wait, they get put out of service at the scale for not being able to prove that they weren't sleeping in their truck (which anyone else on the road can do) so now they're supposed to sleep in their truck at the scale? Talk about re-tarded.

 

Problem is, I do a lot of "Regional" trailer moves for my company. Shuttle trailers from urban shippers/recievers and pass them off to long-haul drivers passing though.

Technically I'm "delivering" the empty trailer to a shipper. (then returning home, or to the next location bobtail) So I log it as line 3. Even if I'm bobtail 1/2 the day.

As for my buddies in blue, no offense, but I always assume I'm guilty of SOMETHING, (even if it's as irrational as reminding you of your ex-wife's new boyfriend) The less I deal with you guys the better, nothing personal.

 

I called the court to find out the process for fighting an overweight ticket once. It was going to take me three trips to town 85 miles each way, minus lost revenue while I'm off the road to fight the ticket. The ticket was $240, they make them things impossible to fight. It was an easy win deal, but I couldn't afford the lost customers while I sat in court.

 

An attorney could have handled it without you going to court .

 

Putting a driver OOS at a scale is insane . Does a driver that is stopped at 8 a.m. , put out of service until 6 p.m. have enough rest to drive until 5 a.m. ?
Nowhere in the regulations is sleep required .
In some cases (hazmat loads for example ) you can be OOS but still on duty . The only option is to have another driver take the load . They'd have to send another tractor because the OOS driver would have to stay at the scale .

 

Not really, they can find a safety defect that could be too dangerous to allow to continue to drive. (As far as the law's concerned "Driver Fatigue" is right up there with a cracked axle though.)

USA Truck has a terminal in West Memphis, but there's a scale on the bridge between Ark & Tenn. They yank in USA rigs all the time and make them send out a repair crew instead of letting them drive 2 miles away.

 

Tractors are one thing, cause you can sleep in the sleeper, but a pickup truck? And on suspicion of sleeping in the the pickup? What's the guy supposed to do, sleep in the scalehouse? If they're going to abuse their authority like that, they need to have all authority over hotshotters taken away, since they've demonstrated that they can't handle it.

 

they are going to start charging for parking at the coops.....don't forget to get a receipt!

"Well driver...the only thing I have to work as a receipt would be this over weight ticket.....will that do?"

 

Officers at some scales will escort a pickup driver to a motel but even then if a driver had slept in his truck and was stopped and put out of service a couple of hours later how much rest would he get in the next 10 hours ? I know I wouldn't be able to sleep at all during the day .

 

Hours of service isn't about being rested, the dot cops on here will tell you, they're just doing their job, not necessarily what is right. I drove common sense for a long time until I got a logbook violation. I rarely drove bad tired, until I tried driving and logging legal. When I'm not tired, I can't sleep, I don't care what the law says.