Why CSA 2010 and E-Logs are a good thing.

Depends on which carrier you look at and the drivers. Are we comparing drivers with the same amount of experience, or just 10 drivers.

 

It is rare that I have seen a small carrier with a truck that is laying on it's side. Most of the time it will be one of the mega carriers involved in an accident. I would welcome compairing my safety record with any major carrier. I have an excellent safety record. I would bet that my safety record is better than 100% of the major carriers. Statistics can be weighted according to a number of factors, including size.

 

Honestly I don't think it would matter. You can use a random pulling system to get the 10 or pick your best 10 mega carrier drivers and I pick the best 10 smaller guys and I have a feeling my 10 would be safer. For the most part I think the drivers for the big guys don't give a crap and that is what is hurting the industry. Why would they care as they don't pay for anything. The company in which they drive are the ones that are out as where a smaller guy it really hits with the money for damages and the fines and so forth. A big company might have a bigger fleet but that just means the drivers that drive their trucks are messing up the industry and that is whats forcing these changes as the government doesn't know what to do to stop it.

 

I think it would be interesting to see how that would shake out. I personally think that the majority of drivers at your mega carriers actually do a good job. There are some students, and paycheck drivers that truly don't care. They just see dollar signs and want "unskilled" labor until the job market turns around and they can go back to doing something else. CSA has been a eyeopener for many drivers, what used to be a "warning" ticket that didn't mean anything now carries weight. It's not a perfect system and I have many times questioned the point of it. However I would say that it does help drivers/carriers realize that they have a responsibility for safety/compliance.

I understand that you drive when you're rested. A lot of people don't have enough common sense to understand when they are rested and when the aren't. They can't plan a trip well enough to figure out when to start to make the deliveries on time and push too hard, they don't understand that it's a job and sometimes you need to leave home a bit earlier than you'd like. These are the drivers that are unsafe, they're not eLog drivers or EOBR #######, they're drivers that don't need to be in the industry. In the long run these drivers are the ones that create more regulations. Drivers that cannot control themselves will need to be controlled by someone else.

The way I feel about it, and this could change because the weather is getting colder and I'm going on a road trip next week, is that if you want to change the industry two things needs to change. There needs to be a higher standard for entry level drivers, and the regulations needs to change to be easier to understand.

I have no statistics to back this up, but I'll say that your average driver doesn't understand the HOS regulations well enough to be compliant.

 

I am going to agree with this post 100%. I must say I found nothing in here to make me wanna go further. Good post.. I will keep an eye on this thread as I posted alot in the begining.

 

You truly make this forum interesting. It's nice to be able to have an actual discussion about things without either side taking things personally. Thank you for your time and insight.

 

I don't get paid by the mile. I get paid by percentage also. Before they stretched out the Ag exemption to 150 air miles on Oct 1, we had to run otr 11/14 for all trips beyond 100 air miles. Most of the time we do more then 1 trip a day which means we would be pushing against both or 11 hour clock and 14 hour clock real hard unless we were driving like our hair is on fire. It is either that or only do one trip a day.

Running Elogs and driving slower and more relaxed means less loads per week for me which means less money, ALOT less money.

This new Ag exemption milage rule is great for me. I can now pretty much do any of our ND runs with 1 exception (williston) and not even have to drag out my log book since we don't even have to log when we are ag exempt. Since I only haul bulk product from farmers yards to processing then I can run Ag exempt 12 months a year.

Well actually, we do have to fill out a page but as per ND DOT, we just draw a line through off duty, write down our totals and write AG Exempt int he comments section.


But the majority of drivers out there no when they are tired and need sleep. Not everyone needs 10 hours of rest to be fully recovered for the next day.

 

If you don't need to stretch your log book any more why would eLogs hurt your bottom line? PS running slower and more relaxed seems like safer than the alternative, wide open and stressed.

 

You don't understand because no one has said it... I know the regulations and have operated within them since I started driving.... The "real truckers" are the spineless ones who cannot tell their masters the simple word "NO". The use of electronic logs have no effected me in the least other than not have the tedious bother of keep track of paper. It has and hopefully will start to curtail the monkeys who will do anything for their masters for free.

 

Whether on paper logs, or E-logs, the rules don't change. The only change is better enforcement of the rules, with E-logs. If you can't make decent to good money, running by the rules, you are in the wrong game.