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Hours-of-service regs can’t please everyone

Seeing how everyone is different, so is everyone’s rest needs. No matter how you change the rules there isn’t going to be one particular way to set everything up to be good for everyone. Someone may be able to drive eight hours and the next guy/gal may be able to drive 18 (just for argument), and the next day those same people may be reversed. Thus causing fatigue because they were able to do it one day the dispatcher/load planner looks at this and shoves at those drivers something that mimics what they did the day before; when told “I can’t do it” by the driver it falls on deaf ears. I think the rules imposed on the drivers by the companies need desperately to be evaluated … i.e., if you’re late you get a mark against you. What if you are a responsible driver and you get tired and want to be safe so you stop and take a nap? You either lose valuable hours of work or get hit by your company with the consequences of being late (which after just a few they will fire you).

Elaine Clark

Douglasville, Ga.

 

Politicians not qualified to set hours regulations

We talk about the need for truckers to band together. These new hours-of-service rules help unions get dues. The big boys have a way to band [together] when it is to their advantage. If every driver wrote their congressman and senators asking them to fill out a log with the rules drivers have to comply with, most of those completing a log would be cited and put out of service for not following the rules and if their livelihood depended on doing a log they would be unemployed for lack of income. Those trying to write these laws have never driven a truck and have no clue of a living income from real work.

Chuck Thomas


Industry must get more drivers

Driver shortage could not have but one reason. Lies like the one that caused me to lose mine. Stop the lies, and the road will open up for new interest. Without new bodies in this industry the shortage will become greater. The robots are coming so the shortage will be diverted. Robots and big business will make more without the people’s needs or concerns [in mind]. Driver shortage is just another storm brewing to bring in more technology and less human error. Human error can probably be [traced] back to corporate earnings and the all-American Greed for appearance.

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John Woodcox

Carl Junction, Mo.


 

How will the new U.S./Mexico cross-border program affect trucking?

VIA FACEBOOK

It is going to ruin the industry as it did before.

— Angel S.

Angel, you couldn’t have said it any better. It’s bad enough American jobs were lost to Mexico and Canada.

— Fred S.

I’m more worried for the safety of our driving public and for the safety of the general population when these “foreigners” start spending time here. Yes, there are malcontents driving U.S.-based trucks, but holy cow can we be rest assured these “foreigners” aren’t crazy drugged up drunks carrying weapons?

— Charlie N.

Charlie, are you kidding? I work for a distribution center. More then half the drivers I deal with are already foreign. Barely speak or understand English. Most are Russians and Middle Eastern.

— Scott Z.

The pros and cons are almost nonexistent. I’m not for or against. The majority of freight any driver takes is from points to and from the 48 states. Unless you pull for a carrier that primarily takes loads from the border, there will be minimal effect felt.

— Joe L.

I have already seen some of the effects of the cross-border agreement. I could go into the border states and get a fairly good step-deck rate. Last time I was in Laredo some Broker offered me an over-dimensional load for $1.20 that included permits … the same similar load several months ago would have been double plus permits, close to 3 per mile. I asked him, “How do you expect to move it for so cheap?” His reply, “I have drivers that will haul it.”

— Tony F.

I am concerned about the safety aspect but I just spent money to go through a background and fingerprint check to prove who I was and had no felony and was no threat to the nation. Let’s see the [Mexican] driver checks … questions abound. As for what it will do to the freight price, well, with the ever-growing and restrictive regs slowing down trucks and driving some off the road and others like me [with] 27-plus years of safe driving asking ourselves is it still worth doing OTR for this little pay … The government and big trucking corps need and want [Mexican] trucks to keep or cut pay rates low.

— F Scott D.

I think we need to worry about the Cubans out of south Florida and whatever those drivers are that are from California also.

— James J.


How do you keep in touch with your family during the holiday season?

Cell phone. I just give them a call and talk with them.

— Randy Holliday,

Indianapolis, Ind.,

owner-operator leased to Landstar



Go home. I have my own authority, so I just make it to where I can go home.

—Bryant Race,

Erin, N.Y.,

independent owner-operator


Tell my carrier (as a joke that) I have an emergency so I can go home.

— Alvin Harris,

Houston, Texas,

owner-operator leased to Frontier Transport


Telephone. We don’t really make any arrangements. They just give me a call.

— J.D. Ravellette,

Heartland, Ind.,

company driver for T&M Trucking



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