Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/661456
PULSE April 2016 | Overdrive | 5 By Max Heine Editorial director mheine@randallreilly.com Gordon Alkire: To my knowledge, in the 45-plus years I have been behind the wheel of a CMV, I have had only one call-in. The callers were wrong and were trying to push the blame for their act of stupidity off themselves. When I had the company ask them for their name and address, they decided to rescind their complaint. On the other hand, I have called in on some really stupid drivers. Like catching a driver squirting on the ground next to his truck. I took pictures and did send them to his com- pany. That has happened several times. Mark Digregorio: Thir- ty-three years of driving trucks, 18 company jobs, 12 years of being an own- er-operator, and three years as my own company … not once did I ever have any complaints from anyone! From an old-school trucker! Gary: Yes, it allegedly happened to me and my wife as team drivers. Right when we were about to celebrate our six-month anniversary [with the company] and qualify for the safety bonus, someone called in on us, but the company did not get their info, just an approximate location. They then told us about it two hours af- terward. Then, of course, they reminded us that a call-in disqualified us for the safety bonus. Great timing both times. ... We're now owner-operators and have not had it happen since. Go figure, it's all about the Benjamins! E ven proponents of electronic logging devices have to admit: The gadgets do nothing in terms of the underlying hours of service absurdity through which truckers are pushed to work when they should be resting and to rest when they know they could be driving safely. It's an unsafe system that's also demeaning to professional drivers. It doesn't take much acquaintance with trucking to realize how diverse the driving jobs are in terms of applications, schedules, dock times, etc. Nor does it take much science to see that adults' sleeping habits vary by age and from individual to individual, and that no set number of hours in the bunk guarantees anything about the quality of sleep. Hence the impossible task of coming up with an hours of service recipe that works for the entire industry. Given the history of log cheating, involving anyone from the driver up to fleet owners, some forced rest is better than no forced rest. But that's not good enough, which brings me to some points raised by sources in our two-part Tomorrow's Trucker series. Though fatigue measurement is in relative infancy compared to other areas of health sci- ence, it could be the next big thing for trucking. Road-facing cameras not only capture wrecks and careless driving, but also show evidence of erratic driving that can indicate fatigue. Certainly driver-facing cameras also can give strong evidence. The same data derived from equipment that measures length and quality of sleep for drivers with sleep apnea could be a key part of a fatigue measurement system. Not too far out in the future are wearable sensors and monitors placed in seats and steering wheels that can pick up vital signs related to fatigue levels. Put aside, for the moment, all of the nega- tive aspects of either having your body moni- tored every second you're on duty, or of having your health data transmitted to DOT medical examiners, law enforcement, fleet personnel or all three. It's anyone's guess how much privacy rights will prevent or curtail such practices. Instead, assume that biomet- rics and other fatigue-related data gathering become stan- dardized. That could form the foundation for a totally revised approach to hours of service. You'd truly drive when rested and sleep when tired. Clock-based restrictions would be minimal, or much more flexible, and potentially a boon to operational freedom – for self-dispatched independents, at least. Of course, there are many unknowns and problems to ad- dress before such a system could be considered, and the outcome might well be to reject it. Or perhaps something based in reality – the driver's true fitness for duty, and not some rigid, almost arbitrary system cooked up by regulators – could become an improvement over a one-size-fits-all system that actually fits very few. Off the clock In-cab cameras and other emerging technologies have potential for fatigue measurement, and therefore radical changes to hours of service.