Something I read.

[Orangetxguy]

http://www.landlinemag.com/Special_R...b/021711.shtml

By David Tanner, Land Line associate editor

Thursday, Feb. 17, 2011 – U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-OR, filed a bill today aimed at holding shippers and receivers accountable for the time that truckers are unnecessarily detained at the docks. OOIDA leadership immediately issued a statement in support of the bill.

DeFazio’s bill, HR756, would direct the secretary of transportation to study the issue of driver detention time and establish standards for the maximum number of hours a trucker may be detained at the docks.

The bill calls for a final rule to be in place one year after enactment that would deal with issues of driver safety, hours of service, violations and penalties relating to detention. Shippers and receivers would have to compensate truck drivers that are detained beyond a reasonable amount of time determined by the study and rulemaking.

OOIDA leadership thanked DeFazio for taking this important issue to task.

“In a just-in-time, deregulated industry, trucking has de-evolved to where truckers are donating their time to the benefit of shippers and receivers,” OOIDA Executive Vice President Todd Spencer said. “The problem persists because it doesn’t cost shippers or receivers to squander drivers’ time.”

According to bill language, “A shipper or receiver may not detain a person who operates a commercial motor vehicle transporting property in interstate commerce before the loading or unloading of such vehicle without providing compensation for time detained beyond the maximum number of hours that the Secretary determines, by regulation, is reasonable.”

OOIDA has been pushing for years for a solution to unreasonable detention time. Wasted time at the docks is routinely among the top issues that drivers complain about.

And they have good reason.

A 2009 Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration study showed that wasted time at the docks costs the trucking industry $3 billion and the public another $6.5 billion each year.

The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, began investigation about a year ago into detention time issues and interviewing drivers and industry stakeholders. DeFazio made the GAO report, which he requested, public in conjunction with the filing of the bill.

“About 65 percent of drivers reported lost revenue as a result of detention time from either missing an opportunity to secure another load or paying late fees to the shipper,” GAO officials stated in the report.

“(F)acility limitations, arriving for a scheduled pick-up and finding the product was not ready for shipment, poor service provided by facility staff, and facility scheduling practices were the most frequently cited contributing factors.”

In a press release, DeFazio said he sought the GAO study because it was
clear that detention time was a problem.

“Over the years I’ve heard anecdotes from truck drivers that detention time is a big problem and contributes significantly to inefficiencies in the supply chain productivity,” DeFazio said. “I asked GAO to study detention time and quantify the results. It’s clear from the report that detaining truckers at loading docks is a significant problem that FMCSA needs to regulate.”

Spencer says it’s about time that truck drivers were given some assurances without worrying about detention time cutting into their hours of service.

“The colossal, mind-numbing wait times at loading docks are the biggest drain on productivity and on drivers,” Spencer said. “Shippers and receivers have for too long gotten away with wasting truckers’ time without any accountability for their role in the ultimate effect it has on highway safety.”

In February 2009, OOIDA Director of Regulatory Affairs Joe Rajkovacz testified on the issue of efficiency before a joint House panel in February 2009 in California. The panel included the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Subcommittee on Highways and Transit, which DeFazio chaired at the time.

“While truckers actually are sticklers for appointments and show up on time, many shippers and receivers are indifferent to the amount of time spent by a driver at the docks or apathetic to whether the truck is being released into rush hour traffic,” Rajkovacz told the panel.

“If somehow, a trucker’s time spent loading and unloading actuallyrepresented a potential cost to shippers, shippers and receivers would have an incentive to be more aware and more efficient.”

Click here to read
the full bill.

Copyright 2011 by OOIDA

Congress-critter DeFazio has been proposing a lot of "trucker friendly" legislation of late. I keep wondering what bug crawled into his ear!

[Roadhog]

pppbbbbffftt-spittle come on trekky

it's a pathetic Jedi mind trick.

[Windwalker]

Orange, if indeed it is a bug, it might be a good thing to have it crawl in just a bit deeper. He might even propose that they go after the 4-wheelers that cause the accidents.

[Orangetxguy]

Orange, if indeed it is a bug, it might be a good thing to have it crawl in just a bit deeper. He might even propose that they go after the 4-wheelers that cause the accidents.

Actually...I think that Oregon has been doing the same thing that Washington state started doing a few years ago. Putting State Troopers with radios and cameras in the trucks to catch the aggressive ones that intentionally cut off trucks.


It still amazes me that DeFazio has introduced the number of "Trucker Friendly" bills that he has the last couple years....simply because he IS from Oregon.....which is a truck un-friendly state.

[Roadhog]

I think this bill has merits, but beyond the GOA report, this bill goes nowhere. I bet Rep. DeFazio's union backers won't support this, against the union docks. The shippers, consignees and major corporations are going to fight like hell against this. Who's going to lobby for the trucker besides OOIDA? I don't know...just seems like a good idea, but doesn't have any muscle.

I really don't want to see any more bloated and inevitably corrupt gubbermunt bureaucracy and well dammut...I don't trust liberals with good intentions. lol
It would be nice to see some things improve, but so far I just see the gubbermunt making things worse and worse.


Lots of carriers negotiate rates with detention delay's figured into the contract, collect the fees, and don't pass it on to their drivers. This bill doesn't solve that, or even mention it. Some companies are good for it, but I only worked for one company that actually gave me a detention allowance once, because I sat at a union grocery dock in Detroit for 30 hours. I scorched the plastic on my cell phone.

[Orangetxguy]

I think this bill has merits, but beyond the GOA report, this bill goes nowhere. I bet Rep. DeFazio's union backers won't support this, against the union docks. The shippers, consignees and major corporations are going to fight like hell against this. Who's going to lobby for the trucker besides OOIDA? I don't know...just seems like a good idea, but doesn't have any muscle.

I really don't want to see any more bloated and inevitably corrupt gubbermunt bureaucracy and well dammut...I don't trust liberals with good intentions. lol
It would be nice to see some things improve, but so far I just see the gubbermunt making things worse and worse.


Lots of carriers negotiate rates with detention delay's figured into the contract, collect the fees, and don't pass it on to their drivers. This bill doesn't solve that, or even mention it. Some companies are good for it, but I only worked for one company that actually gave me a detention allowance once, because I sat at a union grocery dock in Detroit for 30 hours. I scorched the plastic on my cell phone.

I was just a kid, when deregulation of trucking took place, and do not know exactly what it was like for the owners of small trucking companies, under "regulation". My second oldest brother was driving OTR then though, and I can tell you that the couple runs I took with him down into Southern California and down to Nogales, he didn't sit. Of course......Will hauled grain down to Souther Cali.....and he backed onto a machine that lifted his trailer...just like the papermills use today for dumping chips....Load with bananas at the dock...then back to Montana.......Grapefruit and oranges out of Nogales.

I started driving when the "Union" drivers were slinging bricks and rocks thru windshields of trucks that were out on the road, when they were striking to prevent de-regulation.

I don't trust any congress critter. period.

[Southron]

One of my friends who used to drive for Stevens told me that he once had to wait at shipper for 5 days for a live load! If they had to pay us for our time, that crap would go away! The longest I ever had to wait at a customer was 20 hours, but still, it cost me and my co-driver a day's pay for waiting. I think if these companies had to pay out, they would get us in and out a hell of a lot quicker!

[Orangetxguy]

One of my friends who used to drive for Stevens told me that he once had to wait at shipper for 5 days for a live load! If they had to pay us for our time, that crap would go away! The longest I ever had to wait at a customer was 20 hours, but still, it cost me and my co-driver a day's pay for waiting. I think if these companies had to pay out, they would get us in and out a hell of a lot quicker!

This very thing is why I never took up a career pulling reefer or dry van. Back in 88 I pulled reefer in Seattle, just long enough to get that company to sign off on my ability to drive truck (3 miserable weeks). Then I went to work for an oil company hauling gas.

That reefer company I drove for went out of business 3 years after I took my leave. It had been in business since the early 50's.....but when "Daddy" died....the kids went nutz thinking they knew how to grow a business. They grew it right into the toilet.

[Roadhog]

Living up in the sticks, we don't have a whole lot of options, if you don't pull reefer.
We get some flatbed or van, but not like out of Detroit...or Chicago.
I lucked out getting a flatbed gig hauling steel, after 6 years of the dreaded grocery cartel.

Anyway, the point I want to make to be fair, is this detention stuff can go both ways. It is probably 90+% detention against the carrier, but some drivers screw up delivery times as well, and in some cases costing the customer.

Looking back at my track record, I was awesome mannnnnnnn!
Might have been a tad late on a couple deliveries, and even at that, it was like an hour or two. But I do distinctly remember one event, which I was late about an hour... I got treated with the usual disrespect PLUS the cold shoulder, and the whole 9 yards.... and it was over a load of spring water. lol
( I could understand if it was a hazmat load of ping pong balls...)
My excuse, the dispatch gave me the wrong address, and I failed to double check with the customer.

[Windwalker]

I had 5 late loads in my career. The first one was because I was in a hospital rather than at the customer. Engine exhaust when a grass-burner parked next to me and I had my fresh air open. Second one I was involved in an accident in CO, and the third, I had fuel coming out of the radiator. Fourth one, an earthquake left be between overpasses with no exit. you know.... Minor things like that.

There was a time I could have had an apartment in Montreal. I was there every week, and it would take an average of more than two days to load a live load. No matter where the load went to in Canada, I always was getting reloaded there. Thinking back, I wish we'd had the 34 hour reset back then.

If that regulation goes through, you may expect the customers to make the windows much smaller. No more than 5 minutes before your appointment time, and no more than 2 minutes after, or something like that. They will have a way to retaliate. You can bet on that. Miss your appointment time, come back next week.