Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/978209
Voices channel 19 6 | Overdrive | May 2018 Visit Senior Editor Todd Dills' CHANNEL 19 BLOG at OverdriveOnline.com/channel19 Write him at tdills@randallreilly.com. The anti-driver coercion rule, released in tandem with the electronic logging device mandate, places official prohibitions on driver harassment and coercion to violate a regulation. It opens new options for operators who find themselves stuck between an ELD and a hard place — say, detained at a shipper or receiver and out of hours, with no chance of remaining on the property. FMCSA Office of En- forcement and Compliance Director Joe DeLorenzo laid out some of those specifics two months ago at the Mid-America Truck- ing Show in Louisville, Kentucky. He noted new authorities the agency has to investigate such problem facilities — that is, provid- ed it knows about them. That's where you come in. During the MATS listening session with new FMCSA Administrator Ray Martinez, a third-gen- eration small-fleet owner relayed an anecdote about a recent situation where a driver nearly out of hours was detained at a facility for six hours. This was after carrier personnel got in touch with the facility and the broker on the load to "make sure that if the driver sat for more than two hours, he'd have a safe place to park." That safe place to park to regain hours – you see where this is going – didn't materialize. "Shippers need to be held to the fire and not pay just 25 (dollars) an hour for detention" and think the problem goes away, the fleet owner said. The coercion rule "for the first time gave us en- forcement authority over a shipper [or receiver] that causes a violation of the regs" by a driver, DeLo- renzo said. "We've had very little action in that area," perhaps the biggest current problem for own- er-operators. Answering the question of just what FMCSA could do to help solve the problem, DeLo- renzo added, is "exactly why we" developed the coercion rule. Once the agency knows about such a problem, "we now have the authority … to address it. We can go after them investigatively and fine them for that." Filing a complaint about a location can be done via the National Consumer Complaint Database's FMCSA-specific website: NCCDB.FMCSA.DOT.gov. For more detail on what you need to submit a complaint, see the March 29 post on the Channel 19 blog. If enough operators engage FMCSA this way about such problems, it might be an effective way to put your tax dollars and on-the-ground informa- tion to work supporting enforcement where it's needed. Better yet, con- sidering the long-ongoing hours/detention dilemma, shippers and receivers with the biggest problems might have a little more impetus to get their act together. Blowing the whistle on shippers, receivers Courtesy of Dock411 In the wake of the ELD mandate coming into effect last December, notes Heartland Express driver Bob Stanton, "the term 'shipper/receiver of choice' is getting a lot of traction," particularly as it relates to load/ unload efficiency and the ability to park at least somewhat securely for longer periods when out of hours. "If I've got a choice on a well-reviewed customer or a negatively reviewed one, who am I going to choose?" The Dock411 app affords users the ability to review more than 100,000 locations across North America, as well as access to loading dock information to prep for delivery/arrival. It's free for drivers, but there's a new sub- scription service for shippers and receivers, detailed in the April 11 Channel 19 blog post. It affords shippers/ receivers opportunities to engage Dock411 driver users in various ways, including advertising their participa- tion in the network to streamline delivery of dock information to haulers.