Landstar Satellite Tracking Drivers!!!!

Right....and tell the rest of the story. Look at the old studies compared to todays.

What is the major differnce? Hours of service.

If you can't make any money driving 11hours a day for 70 hours a week, maybe you should consider changing jobs.

 

Back then, and I'm telling you this because I listen to those who drove back then, an 11 hour day without A/C, power steering, air ride, satelite radio and all the other compforts we have today, was a hard day. But people still did it. And did it safely.

The amount of regulations that the insurance companies put on trucking companies today has increased as much as the DOT regulations. Back then, if you had a roll over back then, you could still drive if you had a good enough excuse to tell your boss.

Today, if you have a rollover, chances are, you might as well hang up your keys. Because insurance companies aren't going to cover you. As a matter of fact, an insurance company pretty much dictates who a company can hire and who they have to fire....
The cost of a collisions today, is just too expencive to push driver passed their safe zones. A fatality is just something that 99% of the companies today can't afford. So most companies aren't going to push you.
Problem is now though, a lot of companies won't even allow you to work the way you like to work.
So they are going to force someone to work the way someone else thinks they should...

 

Please delete.

 

What rest of the story? I quoted from recent studies and stated what I see firsthand every day. HoS doesn't do a #### thing to keep some idiot in a minivan from getting me killed. Fact.

 

But it does give a steering wheel holder a reason to spend 6 hours on his laptop, sitting in the flying J.

 

Why does everyone think the OLD days were so great. There were just as many idiots on the road , accidents galore ( no publicised as much ) drivers hopped up on BENNIES walking around like zombies , majority werre just as dirty smelly as today , trucks wre JUNK compared to features we have now ( A/C , stereo , power steering , bigger sleepers ).

Try running TEAM in an R MODEL MACK 350 HP , 36 " crawl in bunk , AM radio , pulling a 40' trailmobile reefer with an old TK unit on mostly NON interstate roads

 

Missed the point entirly. Not gonna explain it to you...

 

I just checked my dictionary, and the definitions for "safe" and "lucky" read nothing like each other. Odd.

 

Insurance companies do dictate whom you can hire. If someone has a ticket where they are going too fast or too many tickets, then you may not be able to hire them because the insurance company won't cover them. This used to not be the case. You can blame greed and lawyers for the change. People get involved in an accident with a big truck and everyone sees dollar signs, whether the truck is at fault or not. Lawyers know that insurance companies will usually settle regardless of fault due to the lower cost to settle rather than litigate a case. The result is that we all pay higher premiums and drivers are sometimes unable to find work. It is likely to get worse with the rules coming down under CSA2010.

If I am thinking about hiring a driver, I no longer check their references before sending their information to the insurance company. If the insurance company gives them a pass then I start my background checks.

Things were not perfect 30 or so years ago. Some differences were that few lawsuits were filed. I don't remember seeing as many accidents as I have in recent years. Equipment is more comfortable today, but drivers are not nearly as courteous or responsible as back then. Years ago we had more career drivers. Today, there are many who come to this industry from other careers who have no idea of what is involved in driving or running a business. Rates were higher then compared to now, because they were regulated and it was much more difficult to get your authority prior to deregulation.

All the new regulations that are thrust upon this industry is driving many good drivers out of the business. Some are just fed up with all the BS. New drivers have no idea of how things were back then. Tickets were not that expensive, and with the exception of a few areas, we were not looked upon as a cash cow. I do think that drivers were safer 30 years ago and we didn't have driving schools. It was much more fun to drive then as compared to now. We traveled more of what we consider back roads today since many of the freeways we see today didn't exist. My first trip to California I-40 was not complete. Much of it was the old Route 66. I do miss some of the unique places that I saw on the old roads. Drivers did help one another back then. Technology has seen an end to much of that courtesy. It is rare to find a driver who will stop and help another today.

If you were lucky enough to have a sleeper it was about 36". Air conditioning was non existant when I first started driving. We didn't miss it since we never had it. I think most drivers I see today would not be able to work in the environment we had back then. We have become too spoiled. I would not want to go back to the small sleepers. And I do like air ride cabs. It is much easier on the body.

 

And if a company went BANKRUPT it was a big thing , they demeaned the owners ecte , name could not be used for X# of years , today they startup 5 minutes later with a name change.