New rules coming regarding HOURS?

...???

 

Is that what I said?

 

You having a 70 hr work week makes you poorer, so I asked that question....so let me ask it again:

So you're saying you can't make a decent living in 70 hrs weekly as an owner operator?

 

And again I answer:

Is that what I said?

"Poorer" - having less money than would otherwise be the case.

The 70 hour rule means I have to leave money on the table that I could otherwise earn. Hence poorer. As for making a decent living, why should I settle for that?

 

Why is that even relevant? What is decent to someone living in Southern California may be completely different than someone living in Alabama. Should we limit how many lawns someone who owns a lawn service can mow because they could make a “decent” living with 85 lawns for a week or whatever the number might be? Or should nurse be limited to a certain number of hours per week because that many hours provides a “decent” living?We live in a capitalist society. A person should be given the latitude to work as hard as they prefer. I understand the need for regulations in certain industries for public safety purposes. But whether one can make what someone else determines is a “decent” living is irrelevant.

 

If the 70 hr rule was eliminated, how much more do you think you would earn? Is that really a game changing amount of money? What if shippers and receivers got word on this, they already don't care about truckers and time, I can see them lollygagging worse than before

 

I would probably get an extra load a week. These days with rates so high I'm averaging about 1500 per load after fuel, and it really gets up my nose when I have to sit for no reason. I book my own freight so brokers and shippers don't know anything at all about my clocks. We just agree on appointment times. So no one is going to be able to take advantage of me if the 70 hour rule goes away.

Having no 70 hour rule might cause problems for drivers who have others planning their time for them. That is part of the reason why I don't think company and OO drivers should necessarily have the same HOS rules.

 

There are some parts of your post that are convincing. I'm not even disagreeing for the most part. You cannot compare lawn care providers or nurses to truck drivers. The leaders, that you and I voted in, have an obligation to protect the masses. I only ask that question because there are so many drivers that will crucify other drivers(especially owner ops) if they work the whole 70, get cheap freight, can't gross $3500 or better in a 70 hr work week. When I say decent, take it in stride. I don't know everyone's situation. The 70 hr rule to me doesn't hinder a driver from making money. That's just me. There are many other things that are more trying at times in my opinion than that rule. Your last sentence saying that certain industries have to be regulated is on point. Ours is one. The funny thing is, I read these gripes about elogs and the 70 hr rule, and so many guys want the industry to be deregulated. These are the same guys that crucify people that fail a drug test.... why not deregulated those rules? Why does a driver's activities on his/her personal time have to affect his career?

 

Couldn’t drivers run their 70 hours out in 6 or 7 days and then go inside and work in a warehouse hour for 48 hours straight and then grab a 34 hour reset and do it all over again?
.
The 70 hour doesn’t limit how much you can work, just how much you’re allowed to drive on the highway with me.

 

I cannot make a living in Maryland (With a exception of a Union Opportunity in Baltimore that would have been life altering) I lived in a land of 400,000 dollar colonial 4 bedroom homes with two floors and a basement plus a two car garage on three acres.

Here in Arkansas I found a wife, plus a small decent house on several acres of land with trees and other issues that we invested 10 years of our sweat and labor to clean up and make decent. It was literally a homestead on which we improved.

We ran everything on so little with all paid off. House was free and clear in 6 years while my Pa labored under a 75,000 dollar note over 15 to 20 years payments. On a house that is probably appraising at 300,000 by now.

I am grateful to Arkansas for a chance to live relatively free on a decent income for what we were able to do in those days. I live on a fixed income now in completely different situations and medical issues that are really expensive. Im looking at two procedures that will cost about 11,000 dollars in the next 6 weeks. Im responsible for a portion of that. These procedures have to be done and with luck due to my deductible to medicare paid for this year I wont owe much. (Deductible hospital A and B was met, $1350.00)

Maryland is my ancestral home among other things and I will always love what they have done for me growing up. But they are not a place where you can do a basic income working something that does not pay very much against say someone with a doctorate earning 150,000 behind a government desk shuffling what few reports that get to it a day.

There are so many artificial barriers such as degrees. My spouse is third generation French partial ancestry to arrive to America. Scots Irish would be another (House of Stewart) SHE is the first in her family history to have anything from college, first a two year then a 4 year degree.

It's worthless.

Combined with my own college stab at IT, our total cost was 46000 cool dollars between 2002 and 2006 precisely. We paid that 46000 dollar off with a final one time wire of about 26000 dollars in 2013.

Worthless.

Why?

10,000 people have that degree every year. There are only a few thousand employers at most who would take it.

And my stab at being a 40+ year old sitting next to a pretty 18 year old among 50 others learning how to operate a Cisco Router? What rock did I crawl out from under. Who am I to dare show up in college with all these young people and try to learn something that is not trucking?

46000 gone. Poof. Spun. Light a match and BURN IT. It would probably have been a pretty sight, a pile of 100 dollar bills in the burn pit out back to burn over a hour.

I am relatively bitter about that loss. We worked really hard with faith to see if there is a future we can hack out of solid rock that this Nation has become while we were away driving big trucks.