I have heard it to but IMHO it is urban legend. If someone tried that I can just hear the cop and a judge say "You did not have to have the animal with you."

If anyone can show me chapter and verse in any state that says you may leave a vehicle running if you have an animal in it then I will be more than happy to stand corrected.

 

It probably comes from the fact that animal rights activists will make a huge deal out of it. The courts wouldn't want their names spread all over the media about making a dog sweat, so they drop the case. Again, it's fine for humans to sleep in 27f or 95f weather and supposed to get "restful sleep", but God forbid you do it to a dog that you picked up from a neighbor for free.

 

That is true in some states. I think Landline magazine or Overdrive recently had an article about idling laws. OOIDA's website might have that info.

 

Here's OOIDA's info on each state's idling laws.

http://www.landlinemag.com/Archives/...ling_laws.html

 

1.95 an hour

 

not one mention on that site about temps above a certain point so that means no idleing for a/c what a joke glad its largely unenforced

 

Greg, thanks for the link. I had a handout from our last safety meeting but I handed it to my wife when it was over and SOMEhow.....it fanished before it ever hit my cab.

 

Actually several of them make mention about temps, and/or that it is ok to idle if you are in the sleeper berth. Look under "Exemptions" for each state.

 

I idled 24/7 @ gordon even though they want you to be under 30%, but there are certain ways of getting around that and you could get fired if you got caught.

 

No not every company will let you idle. Most companies realize that it's part of their expense of doing business. However, Swift just enacted a strict policy that people could only idle at 28%. They made their drivers sign a contract saying that if they didn't cut it down within a week they were fired.

I think it was foolish of the drivers to sign the contract because 1) they're signing their firing papers 2) they won't get unemployment because they "broke an employment contract". They should have made Swift fire them. I think they would have gotten unemployment then. They aren't so quick to fire people when they have to pay unemployment.

To put this in prospective what 28% is, if you drive 10 hours you can only idle 2.8 hours. There's no way in hell anyone is going to get good sleep idling 2.8 hours out of their requisite 10 hour break.

Since most of their trucks are opti-idle at Swift I imagine you can get more than 2.8 hours idling. However, anyone with a continuous idle truck it is only 2.8 hours of idle time if you've driven 10 hours. Therefore, you must multiply 28% by whatever amount of time they've driven to determine what the 28% hours will be.

I find this a ludicrous policy given the fact that in the S.E. in the summer time with 100 degree weather and 90-100% humidity the drivers most certainly are suffering. It's too bad that the owner doesn't care that his most important commodity is his drivers. I truly believe this was a policy to "weed out" any experienced drivers. Unlike other companies who want experienced drivers I don't think Swift wants them. They make a ton of money on government writeoffs training the newbies as well as paying them lower. Imagine the profit margin when the companies already charge for fuel? You make the drivers not idle, you're charging for fuel in your freight rates and you don't buy A.P.U.s I guess that Billionaire will be getting richer much quicker now!!!

The reason the anti-idling policy weeded out experienced drivers is because the newbies owe a certain amount of their time to Swift to pay them back for trucking school. When Swift says, jump, new drivers say how high. Experienced drivers say why. I had a friend of mine with 15 years of experience quit Swift because he was a high idler and he was on the way to being fired. What a way to treat experienced drivers. Certainly, experienced drivers are more reliable and have less accidents. Apparently, the owner of Swift feels that "oh well" I'm still making more on the newbies. Must be one of a very few companies that feel that way.

I have a friend who has figured out a way around the idle issue. I'm certain that the same people that turn trucks up without it registering on the Qualcomms probably also do the "idle illusion". Although, I can't believe that companies wouldn't be able to figure this out by the fuel mileage going down considerably or just by watching the truck via Qualcomm. If it isn't moving and it's utilizing fuel obviously it shouldn't take anyone a long time to figure out that the "idle information" has been tampered with. :roll: :roll: :roll: