USA Today Fatigued Truckers article

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

I haven’t seen any threads about this yet, which surprises me. The Dec 29-Jan 1 issue of USA Today has a Top of the Front Page Headline about Fatigued Drivers, it has the usual inaccuracies, that most here are used to seeing in Rail related stories.

In the sidebar, it even admits their data MAY be flawed, no MAYBE about it, IT IS FLAWED. I wont claim that there isn’t a problem, but their data is flawed, gate stamps only record the Tractor, NOT the DRIVER so many of their reported “Violations” could simply be teams driving the same truck.

The “with some exceptions” of the 14 hour rule being a driver is allowed one “16 Hour Day Short Haul exception” per week, or 34 hour reset, if they have reported for duty, and logged off at their “Home Terminal” in the last 5 work duty cycles, which would be very typical of the port operations, they are targeting in the article.

As a Truck Driver myself, with 30 years experience, I can tell you that the electronic log books, that were recently mandated, are only marginally more difficult to “Fudge” than paper logbooks, you just have know ahead of time that you need to be “Creative” .

Electronic logbooks will help prevent some HOS violations, and document some that do occur, but if they really want to reduce HOS violations, then the government needs to push to change from mileage/trip based pay to hourly pay for drivers, if paid by the hour, a driver is NOT going to falsify logbook entries, and work for FREE. Hourly pay, would do more for HOS violations than all the electronic logbooks ever will.

I use an electronic logbook at work, and when it asks me to “Certify these are entries are Correct” I click NO, and I am NOT TRYING to “Fudge” my logbook, and I expect to get paid by the times on my trip sheets, regardless of what my OBC/ELD shows for my times, I have had too many issues with that damn thing, I am NOT going to be paid by what it records.

2

Is this the story?

https://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/news/rigged-asleep-at-the-wheel/

It’s part 4 of a series in 2017 about drivers at the container ports being exploited by the companies they work for and the big box retailers that use those compaines. It’s an agenda driven series of articles, no surprise there, but I don’t think it’s directed at the rest of the industry.

For those interested,

Part 1. https://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/news/rigged-forced-into-debt-worked-past-exhaustion-left-with-nothing/

Part 2. https://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/news/rigged-retail-giants-enable-trucker-exploitation/

Part 3. https://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/news/rigged-shell-games-how-trucking-companies-that-cheat-drivers-dodge-penalties/

Jeff

3

Yep, that’s the one. I had’t seen the other articles, as I’m not a USA Today subscriber, I happened to be at a Hotel for the New Years weekend, and saw this article in a Hotel supplied issue.

I have only read the first article in your link so far, I have heard of the “Lease to Own” programs, er, uhm SCAMS, and unfortunately, they are not limited to port operations, but there does seem to be a higher incidence of them in port operations. There should be laws regarding that type of abuse.

At least they don’t consistently use the term “Conductor” for the operator of the vehicle [;)].

Doug

4

There has been some discussion on the forum about the electronic logs and how they will effect the freight market and the railroads. You’re the first person who has said the elogs will be easy to fudge.

I don’t doubt you. The elogs get in to people’s money and quality of life. So there is an incentive to cheat. It’s going to be interesting to see how this all plays out.

5

My paper logbook, which even with the OBC, I still keep, consistently shows more hours on duty than my OBC/ELD does, and I am paid by the hour, so there is no reason for me to cheat.

It is not a big discrepancy, but when I get to work, and am unlocking the yard and driving to my tractor, or leaving and the one to lock up the yard, I either have not logged in to the OBC, or have already logged out, but am still working, and believe me, I am accounting for that time, on my trip sheets, and getting paid for it, even if it is not on my OBC.

It IS harder to “Fudge” driving time, and Start and End times for the day, but it is just as easy to log “OFF DUTY” while at a customer, which wont extend my DAY, it would allow me to work more hours per week.

ELogs, DO make it harder, but don’t solve the problem. As I mentioned earlier, hourly pay would go much farther, than Elogs, to solve HOS violations, and Safety concerns.

Doug

6

[O]This old trucker pulled the “pin” after 50 yrs. Through the years I could see what was gonna happen; if it wasn’t a company it was a snakein the grass Broker( first driver in last out ----- except the brokers good buddy (driver). Those who have been there and had that happen know what mean. Sometimes time and tide don’t change things.

7

[soapbox] As a retired OTR Driver, and someone who was also involved, at the level of Company Safety…The ‘arguments’ presented here are not ‘new’, they are ongoing in an industry that, in the areas of Driver Safety, and H.O.S., can at best, be described as somewhat scizophrenic, IMHO.[|(]

I retired on the cusp of electronic record keeping, as well as the realization[in the Enforcement side of things]; that there was instrumentation that could be used to track driver movement.

That is, the electronics [engine mounted computers] provided by engine manufacturers, and as well, there were some very rudimentary, early electronic logging devices, then available. The engine computer provided info as to periods of acceleration, and deceleration[ie: Hard Stops]; And as well, times of engine operation, and shut down. Each function could be used to v

8

The 3 biggest issues in the battle against Fatigue the industry faces and I am going from my drivers own complaints here are 1st Lack of Safe Parking anywhere near a major city. 2nd is that Stupid 14 hour clock that was forced on the industry in the HOS regulations drivers are rushing so hard to get things done in order to beat that clock they can not see straight some nights and then run out of time on the clock no where near a safe place to park. 3 Shippers and Receivers both not having drivers a safe place to park when they hold them and kill their clocks while waiting to load or unload their trailers. I had to go to Ottawa IL yesterday there is a Tyson DC warehouse there for meat. At the Wal-Mart I went to were 22 bobtails all waiting on their loads so I went to the Loves 3 and the other TS 3 miles away 60 more trucks all waiting on their loads from Tyson. Yet not one of their carriers will bill Tyson for Detention time. My carrier does and we do collect even from our Haz-mat shippers They know when our truck shows up they have 2 hours free beyond that it is 400 an hour to the truck. You would be amazed how fast they will unload or load when they start getting hammered even Union Grocery warehouses unload their own stuff off us. Super Valu tried to delay one of our trucks for 20 hours just once. 8 grand later plus court costs they saw it our way.

9

Don’t you mean the “kingpin”?[;)]

10

To Shadow the Cat’s O. :

Absolutely No argument from me, concerning what you said!

The problem is that more companies will NOT back their Drivers, and it is left to the Drivers to ‘make up’ any discrepancies/scheduling, as to time, and delays…

The Federal Rules were published by a bureaucracy, that does not understand [or wants to[|(] ] the problems with what goes on in the ‘real world’; they are written only to cover situations dreamed up in Wahington, D.C., by people who are out of touch with ‘real world’ operations. Bureaucrats/Politicians who are divorced from those ‘tail waggin’ the dog’ situations faced by individuals each working day.[2c]

11

I wonder what changes, if any, would have to be made in practices that I observed more than twelve years ago, when I received semi loads of chemicals from Colorado Springs.

I do not know when the drivers left their origin or how long it took them to reach the Salt Lake area, but when I arrived at work in the morning, I would find a rig in the driveway, usually with the driver asleep. After waking him, I would direct him where to go after I had told the guard to open the gate for him. (It was always a pleasure to find the van up against the dock when I got there after stopping at my desk; some drivers needed direction in getting set right (right next to a dumpster with very little clearance).

After taking part of the load off at one dock, I directed the driver to another dock, where I took the rest of the load–flammables had been loaded first and corrosives last, at my direction to the shipper. (occasionally, I had to set pallets of solvent on the first dock while I took all the corrosives off and then set them back to be carried to the proper dock.)

The load had to come across Wyoming, for it was not allowed to pass through the Eisenhower Tunnel on I-70.

12

Deggesty (Johnny): Sounds pretty ‘normal’ for deliveries to a facility that handles, or preforms manufacturing of chemical products. Similarly, for some warehouses that would segregate products by their haz-mat classes ( generally, to observe local fire regulations?). Several movements are considered to be part of the process.

Certain areas/or jurisdictions have ‘exclusions’ for different types of haz-mat… A couple I was familiar with, were the Maryland & Delaware Turnpikes. Maryland required s MHP to be notified by phone when such a load was on their tollroad ; Delaware required just a notice at the toll both, but to cross the ‘Twin Bridges’[I-95] into NJ required an escort, DHP was the escort to the NJ side . PA Turnpike required phone notice to the Toll Authority at each tunnel.

Each State will have their own regulations for transit, some pretty intense, other’s not so much.

Generally, drivers who haul those kinds of materials will get to be regulars, familiar with the various customers idiosyncrasies about deliveries, or pick-ups.

I’d bet (Shadow’s Owner’s) Company has a pretty, healthy instruction manual for their drivers; concerning proceedures on the products they haul. [:-^]

13

[:)] Chuck, sorry to confuse you. That was a slang phrase used by railroad switchmen. Somehow it got transfered to the trucks. The fithwheel or saddle has a lever on the driver side ,you pull the lever and that releases the jaws around the “kingpin”. In days past the kingpin was on the saddle and pushed into the trailer.This was a new form of "hitching up " in the early 40s. It did not last long. Because a driver had to have another king pin in case he had to hitch to an old style trailer. No train car knuckles -----or couplers were hurt on this post. Just greasy hands.Sometimes being 85 yrs. is not easy.

14

“Pulling the pin” also refers to a railroader who retires–or has the pin pulled on him because the company did not want him any more.

15

Actually, the first time I remember running across the phrase “pulling the pin” was probably in an early Joseph Wambaugh novel where a police officer retiring referred to “pulling the pin” as in removing the badge. It’s I think in more general use these days, as I recall in my line of work it was also used in that context, even though the badges we wore were clip-on and not metal.

16

I have heard the term used in various situations/professions and I always (rightly or wrongly) associated it with the visual of the actor in a WW-II movie pulling the pin with his teeth just before he flung the hand-granade over the no-man’s land at the enemy.

17

I think it has generalized over the last six decades or more to a meaning that one pulls the pin holding things together, or that fasten one to something he/she’d rather not be bound to. In the Canadian military, pulling the pin has an obvious connotation, but when not used on a grenade range it means taking one’s (early)release voluntarily, even at some cost to one’s pension, or just retiring fully pensionable, but…leaving.

In a somewhat related vein, there is the expression “pulling pole.” We use bell tents with a central pole. It’s the first thing done, inserting it into its recess at the apex of the roof, and then others peg and tighten the draw-strings while the pole-putter holds it vertical and steady. When camp is breaking, the last thing one does is to pull the pole, thus formally and fully breaking camp because the tents are not longer useable. So, some use the term “pull pole” to leave a location or gathering, leave on posting, or to simply retire.

18

“Pulling the pin” may have its origins prior to the mandated adoption of Janney couplers, so well over 100 years ago, when uncoupling a car was accomplished by pulling the pin on the link and pin devices of that era, and then generalized as slang to retiring or being fired.

19

Our hazmat tanker and our pneumatic boys all get a book of directions to and from our washouts our customers Hazmat routes to take if those apply which connections we normally use emergency contact numbers for everyone at the company customers Chemtrec and we have all the State and local Hazmat responders on file here at the office and pray we never need the suckers. The worst part for us is knowing we screw up people more than likely are going to be dead with some of these loads so we try and minimize the risk to all.

We call it at least here Pulled the knobs when someone retires in relation to our air brake system you have to push the buttons in to release them and pull them to set them. So when a driver pulls them for the last time we say he pulled the knobs off.