Overdrive

June 2018

Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info

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Voices 8 | Overdrive | June 2018 At first glance, one might think, "Great. It's about time someone did some- thing!" I'm talking about Texas Congressman Brian Babin's bill to change the hours rule, adding a three-hour off-duty pause to the 14- hour clock. In some views, this effectively extends the maximum workday to 17 hours. The bill, which mir- rors a petition to the Fed- eral Motor Carrier Safety Administration by the Owner-Operator Indepen- dent Drivers Association to institute such a pause, has been greeted with mixed reviews. After years of cries to fix the hours of service, a surprising number of truckers say this proposal just isn't what's needed. Does this bill improve off-duty flexibility or just move the finish line? It's been about 15 years since the basic 11/14/10 rules went into effect. I remember how much more work I could complete with the added hour of drive time we got from that rule. People regularly pontif- icate about how much bet- ter trucking was with the old 10/8 rules and more sleeper splits. I'd remind people that we still got tired and that the working environment for trucking was very different. Talking with two truck- ing friends, we romanti- cized about the old rules. Like most who've been around 20 years or more, we bragged about being Kings of Deceptiveness when it came to logs. We made the paper look legal, and no one said a word if nothing went wrong. The company made money, and the bosses got their bonuses. Most everyone was complicit. Does anyone really believe this behavior should return? Not only has the hours rule changed, but the "rules of engagement," so to speak, also changed, with tighter audits and larger, more numerous lawsuits being brought. At ever smaller and smaller carri- ers, compliance and safety personnel are charged with making sure drivers don't bankrupt the company with multimillion-dollar settlements. In spite of that, too many of us still are coerced to accept avoidable risks, on top of the great daily risks owner-operators face. And for what? Whether we favor the current hours rule or not, it is still personal respon- sibility that remains the ultimate consideration. It's on us to operate safely and within the scope of the law. We owe that much to our families and communities. IS 'MOVING THE FINISH LINE' BEST FOR HOURS CHANGE? Find more from Landstar-leased owner-operator Gary Buchs and other haulers and Overdrive editors via the Overdrive Extra blog: OverdriveOnline.com/Overdrive-Extra. BY GARY BUCHS " The system based on hours is the prob- lem, dreamed up by people who don't drive but schedule their life around a clock. Give a driver only so many hours to do a job, and he is going to hurry and by default be unsafe. Measure the working day by miles — say, 700 a day. How about a receipt for just where you bought your first cup of cof- fee instead of all this logging nonsense. " — John Griffin " Why most romanti- cize the old rules: At least you could stop the clock and take a nap as long as it was two hours or more. I ran out of [on-duty time] 15 minutes from home under these rules. Had drive time left. These new rules aren't working. I need flexibility. " — Ray Hochstetler " I think most people, if asked, would accept the current situation if they could just change one thing, that being the ability or flexibility to stop the 14-hour clock with a split-sleeper option. Not sure if that is 5/5 or 6/4. Anything is better than the 8/2 nightmare we're deal- ing with now. " — Michael " I like my 10-hour break. I remember times on eight hours I would rush through showering after wait- ing sometime an hour to get one. And also eat, then get some sleep, and get on the road after eight hours were up. If we're not fudging our comic books, I am for getting rid of the 14-hour rule, since there is no way we're going to get the American worker to load or unload our trailers any faster. " — Dennis Meyer

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