Truck Load Rates Halt 8 Week Slide 2.0

I suppose but I expect my drivers to give it their all every week. In fact since I’m paying them big money I almost expect higher then I would do myself. End of the day the company has to make money as well. Not gonna lie though it takes a long time to assemble such a group.

 

Which exemptions? You mean covid relief HOS exemptions?

 

Yeah any and all of them related to covid. There is another thread on TTR talking about it being extended to like September.

Friday we picked up a load of bagged mulch, going to menards. The shipper gave us an HOS exemption form in case we ran out of hours! I’m like uhhhhhh no we’re not doing this. This mulch should not be under covid farm exemption.

It’s across the board though. Oh, I’m hauling a load of Cheerios, now I can run on PC and just put covid. lol.

Or like medical loads, we haul plenty and have only used the exemption probably 3 times in the last year and it’s because it really was an emergency load. Or, if it requires a team you don’t just run a solo on it and willy nilly it.

Im probably in the minority on this but I keep it legal 100% of the time. It probably cost us a lot of revenue but it’s the right thing to do. That mulch load was a direct customer too. I probably shouldn’t have said anything but I told the lady... look not trying to scare you but if we ran over hours and got into a crash and was sued, this isn’t going to hold up in front of a jury. We both know, and a jury would know this isn’t an emergency load. And they would sue you as well for suggesting we do it.

Probably will lose the customer now but sometimes you just gotta stand up and say what’s right.

 

Especially with the payouts lately they are astronomical and like ya said you have to do what’s right.

 

Mulch...are you kidding me? LOL
I am an opportunist in using exemptions but there is a common sense - if I were a cop, now way, I'd turn a blind eye on it.

 

I had no idea it was that easy to declare a load emergency relief. What a joke. I hauled some beer earlier this week. I'll bet there are a lot of guys that would have considered that emergency relief.

 

I suspect the exemptions keep getting extended partly because over the last few months commodity prices have also gotten out of whack. We haul a byproduct of ethanol and now with the price of corn going up and up it affects the ethanol plants. When they slow down then the feed coming out also slows down. Another thing is the American Cattleman’s Association is pushing for separate hours of service for livestock haulers or at the very least getting them the 150 mile radius on the unload end too. So the longer the exemption goes the more time they have to get other parts of their agenda hammered out.

Me personally? As long as I’m dragging a hopper and the government says it’s exempt and I don’t need a log book then that’s how I’m running. I got inspected in WY first part of last week and when he asked to see my ELD I said I was exempt and that was the end of it. He checked lights and the rest of my paperwork and gave me a clean inspection.

 

All these exemptions just go to prove how ELD regulations don't work. All of the mess we are in the blame for that lies entirely with the political class and their regulators.

 

I believe it’s Penn State, but someone is doing a study of livestock haulers over the last year without any HOS regulations. They’re compiling accident and inspection data to compare with previous years. It will be interesting to see what they find. The American Cattleman’s Association is partly behind it. The Ag lobby is huge and they have a lot of money to throw around.