Silly HOS question

A zero tolerance policy for HOS regs is impractical and at some times impossible. The driver I referred to ran out of hours getting unloaded because the customer took 6 hrs to unload him.

What would you do in that situation, stop the unloading process when you are running low on hours, take your ten there when the customer has a no overnight parking policy, or find the closest safe place to park which is 20 miles away?

i have had to debate with customers as to whether or not I'll be staying overnight and I have been threatened to be towed but luckily it was a bluff.

I haven't had to go over my hours before but I know of drivers with very valid reasons to do so.

 

Truthfully. The answer is log it as it is done. You do not have an option to drive.

 

That is an issue for each carrier's customer service department to solve. Unhook from the trailer and have the driver return when he/she has available hours. A customer taking 6 hours to unload a trailer is not a valid reason to violate the HOS, let alone have a DM falsify his HOS record.

 

It also helps that Walmart DCs have very few trucks and drivers. Their excess freight is handled by the knuckledraggers who treat the world like like a demolition derby. They NEED a lot of drivers, but make sure they're not the ones hit by the bad score when one of their 'contracted, independent carriers' drivers' screws up.

 

We obviously have two very different opinions and likely won't agree anytime soon.

I'm not saying that the HOS regs are pointless, I think they serve a purpose and they should be respected, but I wouldn't think less of a driver for going a few min over.

 

Walmart has over 7200 drivers. Our safety department does not have access to whether or not a contracted carrier is violating the HOS regulations. Many of these contracted drivers deliver the same loads to stores and other DC's as our own drivers, so any violation of the HOS regulations is on them, not Walmart.

 

I can understand a driver going over on his driving hours. Every driver at some point runs into a situation that may cause an unexpected delay. The problem I have with your scenario is not that the driver went 20 minutes over, but with the DM who falsified his logs to make it look like it never happened.

 

I think what sly fox was getting at is that when you decrease the number of trucks/drivers you decrease the amount of accidents/violations.

I don't think that Wal Mart's csa is not impressive but it is kinda easy to manage only 7200 drivers and they deliver to themselves most of the time so the customer is very easy to deal with.

There is a wal mart in the Baltimore area that lets the wal mart drivers park overnight but not the OTR drivers.

 

Only 7200 drivers? There are not too many carriers out here with more than 7200 drivers. Even prior to working at Walmart Transportation, I rarely had an issue finding a place to park when my hours were running out. Trucking companies need to either build more terminals and train their drivers about proper trip planning, instead of hiring any driver who can fog up a mirror. With all the information available today on just a smart phone, finding a place to park today is much easier than years ago prior to cell phones and Internet access.

 

Alot of customers will not let you disconnect from a trailer while it is in the door, customers can be a nightmare sometimes and if you try to sleep there they will have you towed or wake you up every few hours trying to get you to move. Even if it was their fault and they wouldn't let you drop the trailer and come back the next day.

There are just too many what ifs we can bring up in the scenario, but seeing as I didn't ask the driver for specifics on the situations I don't know why he felt obligated to have to drive 20 min over, but he seemed like a professional and probably made an appropriate descision based on the situation, but we may never know.