We should park our units

I think you are on to something. Quite a bit of freight is sitting right now, and not moving. Just talked to the travel agent and rates are definitely up, and few available trucks. I just hate speeding to beat this dam clock. My fuel costs are up and the wear and tear on my truck is not something I am happy about. I will have to adjust, no way around that. But dam, I thought I was supposed to be well rested, bright and chipper and all of that... Actually, I am wore out, not sleeping well and quite stressed. What we do for money... Shave another ten years off my life, oh well.

 

Don't worry if rates stay up everyone who isn't an O/O will be. For every what's a fair rate thread on here there are a thousand that just plow in and work for free cause the bank said they can have a truck.

 

Yeah please do that, won't end the ELDs but will drive rates even higher
If you are an owner operator in the open market elds are the best thing ever, rates are skyrocketing.
If you run cheap freight and are suffering due to ELDs that's on you.

 

For sure. Everyone's hearing all about the "easy riches" and working to get in on the action. It'll go back down at some point. Always does. EOBR is REALLY gonna suck when freight and rates are down. Maybe that pain will put the weaker ones out quicker and the downturn won't last as long? Have to look for a silver lining anywhere you can I guess.

 

So you want me to park my truck and take
A stand against a rule that no longer allows anybody to
Bend a truck driver over the table and use his time for free
Without any repercussions.
I think not.

We should make a stand against anybody that's still
Lying and cheating on paper logs.
We all know that's exactly what you're doing.

 

Rollin', I am frustrated, many think the HOS is there to limit them but they don't get how it plays in limiting the carrier or how it has kept a cap on the over-capacity we already have. Most seem to think that the customer can be forced to give a crap but nothing is going to change them, NOTHING because it has been the same way for the last 30 years.

IF we want to change things, it has to start with trimming capacity through attrition and licensing, not expanding it and as you said if they change HOS, it will expand it.

 

2018 is the first year for ELD's, new tax cuts, economy is doing great, rates are up, people start buying more trucks and bring more drivers over
2019 things settle down, rates are back to average (but still ok) life goes on
2020 economy slows down, over capacity of trucks drives rates down, people start creating nostalgic threads remembering the good old days

 

You're exactly right. I'll give you another example of trimmed capacity by HOS getting expanded thru a revision,of the regs. Do you remember the 34 hour restart provision that said a driver must have 2 off duty or sleeper berth pperiods between 1am and 5am. Or something like that? And you could only have one reset per week. I forgot the exact wording but I do remember how it made getting a 34 hour reset kind of a pain because of the odd hours of trucking. I remember most every one here complaining about that regulation. OOIDA protested it too. And they reversed it a couple of years ago. The mega carriers were saying that reg restrained capacity. I'm certain it did on weekend freight especially. Booking on Fridays hasn't been near as lucrative since they did away with that regulation.

 

30 days minimum ... inventory is on a loop

 

Mega carriers have hundreds of drivers ready to haul that freight and for CHEAP.