I just heard on MSNBC tonight that Bush, in his last days in office, is signing a whole bunch of rules, one of which entails the relaxation of HOS regulations for truckers. Does anyone of you have more info on this ?

 

The "rule" that they are speaking of was the FMCSA proposed rules that they just came out with. Bush pushed them through. They are identical to the prior rules. Groups like Public Citizen are the ones who are calling them a "relaxation" of the rules, and the various media outlets are picking up on it.

Here's a statement from the Public Citizen website regarding this:

http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=2771

 

MSNBC are a bunch of far left pinheads!

 

I hope this finally settles the hos rules. It is hard for everyone to keep up with all the changes they have made the last several years. For a while it seemed they were making changes every year or so. There are some things I don't care for with current hos rules, but nothing that I can't live with for now. All these changes costs a lot of money.

 

From what Public Citizen is saying, I have a feeling they are planning to sue again.

 

These people never seem to give up trying to tell us how to run safely. I doubt any of them have ever even sat in a truck much less driven. Logs have little to do with safety. A driver will either be safe or not. Smart drivers will park it when they get tired. No amount of regulations will make anyone safe. You cannot legislate safety or common sense. Perhaps it is time to turn the tables and file suit against these groups who are always so anxious to go to court.

 

I looked at the link Rev posted. I noticed that the stats that they used where for the first new HOS rules that the death rate increased. What are the current stats for the 2nd new HOS rules?

Here are the things I have noticed...

1. With the 2nd new 14 hour window rule, instead of sleeping when traffic is in rush hour mode, now I have to drive to get out of town or shut down early and get up early in the AM to start driving. I could have taken a nap and let rush hour traffic clear out and then drive but that option has been taken away. I sure miss my 3:00pm naps. Tick-tock, tick-tock the 14 hour clock is running, gotta go, gotta go.

2. With the 2nd new 14 hour window rule, have you noticed the number trucks driving in rush hour traffic now slowing down traffic even more, making 4 wheelers take bigger risks to get in front of the big truck. Tick-tock, tick-tock the 14 hour clock is running, gotta go, gotta go.

3. With..., since all legal truckers are biding by the new rules, most truckers drive during daylight hours and are fighting for those limited parking spots at truck stops and rest areas. I feel sorry for all those truckers who were stuck at shipping/receiving for that 1:00pm appointment for 5-7 hours with their 14 hour clocks running, then when you are loaded/unloaded the customer says you can't stay here on their property, depending on what city you're in, good luck finding a safe parking spot or I guess you run illegal logs to find a spot seeing how states are passing laws about no parking on off/on ramps or roadside. I don't because I worry about a drunk driver hitting me.

4. With..., outlaws are going to be outlaws no matter what, do you think criminals care about gun laws.

5. With..., get your normal body clock rhythm out of sync and bad things are going to happen. Taking that curve too fast, bumping another truck, falling asleep behind the wheel, etc...
Truckers are always running on 5 clocks
1. 11 hour, 2. 14 hour, 3. 70 hour, 4. body clock, 5. real time clock.
I did a delivery at 06:00, worked 1/2 hour after my 10 off, dispatch sent me a load assignment with a 17:00 pickup time 2 miles from my delivery. Was awake the whole time in between, couldn't fall asleep. Even though I took another 10 hour break (without sleep) I could have driven legally for 11 hours. I picked up the load, service failed it and drove 2 hours down the road and shut it down for the night. I didn't make any friends with dispatch but dispatch isn't driving the truck, I am.

6, 7..., With..., add whatever you've seen out there.

 

From what I remember reading, truck related deaths are down, and have been for several years. The "stats" that Public Citizen uses are flawed or flat out incorrect. They also purposely don't take into account how many accidents are the fault of the car (which, from what I remember, is up).

 

You need to look at the figures involving truck accidents with a grain of salt. In the past they have included pickup trucks and similar vehicles in their statistics. Technically, a pickup is a truck but there is much difference between a pickup and an 18 wheeler. I would like to see the numbers broken out to separate big trucks from all of the others.

 

This is always my biggest gripe. There have been times I’ve been off for 24 hours, picked up a load and made it 300 miles and gotten tired. There have also been times I have run for 20 hours straight and still wasn’t tired. So much of fatigue has to do with things that are not sleep related. Anymore, I drive ‘til I’m tired, sleep ‘til I’m rested and then drive ‘til I’m tired again. It doesn’t take a lot of sense to know that this is the only safe thing to do. I’m not going to let the HOS force me to drive when I feel I’m not safe and I conversely am not going to let the HOS make me stop driving when I am not tired and know I won’t be able to sleep. If they catch my log when I have my pants down (so to speak), they can write whatever tickets they want, but for the last six years I’ve decided that safety is going to be number one.

I have often wondered if you could sue these groups for just that, Gman. I don’t think you could, because they ultimately do not make the rules. You just sue the FMCSA like OOIDA always does.

I actually feel a bit sorry for the FMCSA because no matter what they do, they get sued. They make one ruling and get sued by one of these pompous so-called citizen protection groups. They make a different and they get sued by OOIDA or the ATA. They just need to have some balls and do what is right. That of course seems to be beyond government workers, but it’d be nice if they’d try it for a change.

Anybody see where (in Sweden, maybe it was) they took out something like 80% of traffic control devices (stop signs and the like) and traffic accidents dropped sharply? It’s amazing what LESS government regulation can do.