Trucking | More Hours of Service

Most of the time Dave Sweetman’s column is about image and being professional with an occasional cute story of what happens on the road. His March’s column talks about how the new Hours of Service are confusing even for the industry. His answer for a fix is (which I agree, mostly):

Is there a solution to our dilemma? Absolutely. Give ‘em what they want. Run compliant. Log it legal. If your company or broker says different, hand them the keys. But you say, “I can’t make money running legal.” Pal, if you are that close to going under, you are only treading water, and it’s just a matter of time before the bank and the bill collectors pull you under. And Heaven help you, if you are running hot and become involved in an accident. Whether it is your fault or not, the ambulance chasers will serve you up like toast, while your company, broker and shipper will disavow any knowledge of your lying ways.

The ultimate insult to the professional driver is that the new laws completely ignore the root of all trucking safety evil: Uncompensated time at shipping and receiving docks that force a driver to wait 6-8-10 hours for a load, logging it as Off Duty to scrimp on logbook hours.

It’s not worth lying on your log, if your in a wreck you’ll get fried. How about standing up to your company or broker and running legal no matter what they say or pressure you to do is the only way that shippers are going to get the idea that between the uncompensated dock time and pushing a driver beyond legal will not be put up with anymore.

But should the new HOS cover that? It’s not up to the government to compensate us.