The New CSA 2010 rules can end your carer !

Taz, I agree there is a lot wrong with the trucking industry but you are saying that drivers should obey the rules and grow a backbone and stand up to the companies that try to get you to do something illegal. I think the companies are not the problem. The problem is the government. They keep passing laws in the name safety when most of the time it has nothing to do with safety it's just another way to fine a driver or company. You are complying with the government and bad mouthing drivers for doing what they have to do to support their families. I'm not trying to say drivers should be unsafe but we as drivers should stand up and tell the government and sometimes the companies they are going too far. We should be allowed to make the money we need without having to worry about loosing our jobs or taking money away from our families to pay a fine we can not afford.

 

Capital 48, absolutely for sure the insurance companies!! Do you know who is the absolute worse about taking money out of a drivers pocket? It's not the companies or the government it's the shippers and receivers. Just imagine how much a driver could make if the shippers and receivers would get you in and out in a short time. But they sometimes hold a driver up for several hours and the driver doesn't get paid for that time. Now with the trucking companies going to electronic logs if you are a solo driver all the time you are being held up goes against your 14 hours. If you drive 1/2 hour in the morning to deliver a load and the receiver holds you up for 8 hours when you leave you only have 5 1/2 hours left to drive. That will get you to the next place to re-load then you're done, you're out of time. My wife took 4 months off last summer because of family problems and I drove solo. I can't tell you how many times I ran out of time while still at the dock! As you know when you are loaded/unloaded most companies will not let you stay on their property, you have to leave and they don't care if you are out of time or not! If you refuse to leave they will call the cops on you. Before anyone says if you are that close to being out of time you stop and take your 10 hour break before you go into the shipper/receiver. I have already seen what happens when a driver does this. Of course a company can not fire you for doing it but what they will do is make you sit and tell you they have no loads for you. You'll go from getting 3000 miles a week to 1000 miles a week until you can't take it any more and you quit. I have seen this happen over and over again. Most drivers blame the company and it is partly their fault but it's really DOT's fault for writing these laws and not allowing any leeway for circumstances a driver gets into. Here is another example. I was driving through Washington DC one day. I had 4 1/2 hours left to drive when I got the the loop around DC on the north side. I ran out of time before I got to the Flying J just north of Richmond, Va. Now you are stuck at a rest area with no way to get anything to eat for the next 10 hours. Before anyone tells me I should have stopped before I got to DC and got something to eat, I started in no where Delaware that morning, I have to drive about an hour to where I was picking up. It took the shipper about 5 hours to get me loaded. I then cut across hwy 50 through Delaware and Maryland into Washington DC. My point is this is back roads all the way across with no where to stop and eat except for Annapolis Md. and there you have to be lucky enough to get a parking place. When you have paper logs you can make all of your wait time go away, with e-logs you can't. Dot is forcing all trucking companies to switch to e-logs in the near future. Taz tells us we need to grow a backbone and stand up to the companies but I think the drivers and the companies need to stand up to the government. Until we do they will just keep passing laws after laws making it easier for them to fine drivers and companies. The government needs to realize when a driver gets a fine they are not just punishing the driver. They are taking that money from the drivers family. A drivers family has to go without something they may need so that money can go to the state. I don't know about any of you but you can take the poorest state in the country and that state has more money than me! When the companies gets fined it keeps them from buying better equipment or more equipment. It keeps them from paying their drivers better wages!!! We all know we have to have laws. But when it gets to the point that the laws are hurting people and putting them out of a job they are going too far!!

 

Thanks ladywrongway03, I have already found a new job. Actually I will go through orientation tomorrow and will be driving again tomorrow night. With that said I am turning over this thread to all of you if you want to keep it going. I may stop in from time to time just to see what's going on. Thanks to you all, well to most of you!!

 

EdwardTheTrucker, You are absolutely right. I should have done things differently, next time you can bet I will. Hind sight is always better than foresight!

Thanks to all for the kind thoughts and best wishes!!!