Face it. We iz twuckews und we izn't smert enuff to figga oot whut Are bawdies can hundle.

 

Where is Dobry4U when we NEED her! :lol:

Seriously REV... no problem. Teaming is a different animal... which you have never done. I understand. Wouldn't it be nice if they had separate HOS rules for US? If they believe that 8 hours IN THE SLEEPER is good enough, then they should write rules that allow TEAMS to do just that! In MOST cases, we take a two hour break once a day to eat and shower anyway!

The ONLY "split" that works well for TEAMS is the 5 and 5. MAYBE a 6 and 5 and an "expected" meal break. The interesting thing is, that we rarely come CLOSE to the 14 hour limit! Personally.... I don't WANT to have to get up again after only 5 or 6 hours sleep and drive again!

I have ALWAYS said that the FMCSA regs were geared toward the SOLO driver. And I WILL say that when I DID get to drive Solo.... I had to work my butt off to "manage" my logbook! :lol2:

The FACT remains that there IS a "split sleeper" option available to all drivers that CAN be used efficiently (in some cases) to meet schedules while STILL ensuring a rested driver. If managed properly, it allows a driver to take a shower and eat.... AND have that time count towards the total 10 hour off duty requirement. And when all is said and done, you arrive at the SAME time as you would if you took a full 10 hour break OR if you drove/slept 5 and 5.

 

And as such, there is no need for any changes to the current regs in regards to the spllit sleeper provision. Sure, there are ways that it would be easier, but the current regs work (as attested by you), and they also work for the solo driver (as attested by me), so if they aren't working for someone else, it probably isn't the fault of the regs.

 

I've been around for long enough to have acquired a healthy suspicion with regard to all who are labeled experts. The best I ever heard is that an "expert" is somebody who's a long way from home because at home they don't let him talk.

I don't believe it. The testing and research is junk science and means nothing at all. A trucker who lives a life of splitting his bunk time and getting rest wherever he needs it probably gains faster reaction times, not slower. It's the same thing as the daily required nutrients they print on canned food. It's meaningless.

Under split sleeper berth rules, mandatory eight hour stretches of sleep are not legally required, but drivers found time to get those large blocks of sleep anyway, required or not, because they wanted them. I've been looking at this for a long time and have noticed that truck stops and rest areas fill up full at night and have been for a long time. That is because most drivers want, and get, a full night's rest whenever they can, regardless of regulations. Maybe things were different fifteen or twenty years ago, but today, drivers seek rest. They don't need regulations that categorize bunk time as work hours. Nobody needs that. It's dangerous. Sleep time is never work time. The present law is dangerously out of conformity with reality.

What is important is getting rest when needed.

The most dangerous part of the mandatory eight hour sleep break is the part that counts blocks of bunk time shorter than eight hours as a driver's working hours. That is an insane bit of legislation. No driver wants to, or can afford to, sacrifice his working hours. Therefore, in order to stay legal under the present regs, he has to skip sleep breaks and naps. Another way of stating this is that he must continue to drive when sleepy. That is the greatest danger of all and has nothing to do with "cumulative sleep deficit."

I'm not on this forum to wail about the present regs or look for sympathy because I find them difficult to live with. I'm writing about them because I'm trying to get the split sleeper berth provision restored as part of HOS regulations. I'm trying to find drivers who will continue to contact their legislators and get the present regs reversed.

Here is the gist of it: The most important, and most dangerous reality regarding the present regs is the practice of forgoing needed sleep breaks because the time counts against a driver's working hours. That dangerous aspect of the present regs trumps anything else.

Split time was part of the trucking regs for 70 years, for good reason. Good reason goes out the window these days, and not enough people do anything about. Contact your legislators.



stonefly

 

...falsification of the log books...

That option will be gone if EOBRs are mandated.

If EOBRs are mandated, in conjunction with the present HOS rules, we will have a new game of "who can stay awake at the wheel." The only drivers who will get the loads will be the ones who can do an 11 hour stretch without taking a break. That would be a great economic spur for all the meth labs springing up around the country.

Personally, I prefer sleep breaks to amphetamines. I think there may be among the rule makers those who have their money invested in the meth labs.



stonefly

 

The statistics regarding fatigue and crashes since the new rules were put in place would grossly disagree with your assessment.

 

No they wouldn't.



stonefly

 

Who are the people coming up with those statistics? The same people who made the rules?



stonefly

 

Yeah, it's a gubberment conspiracy. Break out the tin foil.

Prove their statistics wrong then, because at-fault truck crashes have been going DOWN year after year.

 

Yes they would. I have read a couple of excellent books on sleep research. Most people don't get enough.

And I think that weird sleep cycles and poor sleep quality still affect drivers in a major way. I know when I pull our tanker I'm at the mercy of our customers production schedule with random 8, 10 or 16 hour shifts. It gets my body confused by the end of the week. More than once I've slept in the parking lot after unloading even though I had the hours to get home legally. I got a horrible night of sleep in LA Friday, so I took a 3 hour nap coming home. The nap caused me to go over my 16, but I was awake & alert for the rest of the trip.

I'm not crazy about the current HOS regs, but I can make them work. In Cali we get 12 & 16, not 11 & 14, that helps a lot. The problem is that they occasionally force one to lie and thus break the law, which gives the powers that be leverage over me because I've made myself a criminal. It's a common strategy, used by countless regimes over the course of history- make laws that the average citizen will break so you can place almost anyone under the thumb of power at almost any time.

I'm not sure what I will do if we have to have EOBR's. It's a fairly common scenario dor me to run out of hours 45 minutes from home on an LA turn. What really sucks is that the closest place back on the route to get any services is Westley, which is over 2 hours. I'm not shutting down for 10 hours when I'm 45 minutes from home and I'm not shutting down 2 hours early because there's no parking or services available near where I will run out of hours.