Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/426944
December 2014 |
Overdrive
| 37
challenge and have detrimental effects
on a motor carrier's Compliance, Safety,
Accountability score. In 2013, there
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in Oregon, he says.
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tions appear in the federal database, there
were 15,000 hours violations marked
in 2013. A primary difference is access
to information: "We use data that other
states might not," says McKane.
Oregon is among just a few states na-
tionwide with a weight-distance use tax
for heavy vehicles; as such, it operates
its own bypass system. And "when we
weigh a truck, we record that the truck
was there," McKane says. That record
is available statewide and in other
states. "If I'm in Portland looking at
a log book, I can get on my computer
and see where the driver's crossed three
or four scales on I-5."
Weigh station data helps mightily in
verifying a driver's activities, McKane
says. "If he's off substantially, he's got a
problem."
In addition to routine enforcement,
unannounced 24-hour blitz efforts
that target hours of service at various
locations have been common since
2009, says McKane. During those, "we
do nothing but bring drivers in to check
their log books."
Washington state-based Tilden Curl,
owner-operator of Tecco Trucking,
views such enforcement as an effective
deterrent to log book cheating. "I'm
much more in favor of that sort of en-
forcement rather than a more-intrusive
EOBR-type setup" with an "automatic
dispersal from the truck to a passing
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"I have a lot of issues with that
sort of enforcement," which has been
talked about and tested of late via
FMCSA's Wireless Roadside Inspection
efforts. "It's a warrantless search."
At the same time, Curl says he hates
getting inspected in Oregon. "They re-
ally go through your business," he says.
Before he transitioned to a manual-en-
try logbook app for his tablet, "I had to
spend 30 minutes once going through
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