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[quote]QUOTE: <i>Originally posted by SP9033</i> <br /><br />Hey Highiron, <br /> <br />Do you feel cheap, WALL MART is now going to tell you how many hours you must work! They want 16 hours a day! <br /> <br />They now want asian results out of you truckers, work more for less! They also want and need mexican trucking right here is america, just to drive down there costs! <br /> <br />JIm - Lawton, NV MP 236 <br />[/quote] <br /> <br />=) right here we go... <br /> <br />Alot of my experience and training revoloved around bypassing the limitations of federal hours of service rules. Now I did get caught from time to time for driving when I should not. <br /> <br />If I did not drive those loads they will put some one else in the rig and tell him or her to deliver it or else. <br /> <br />Walmart has many trucks. They depend on many outside trucks under contract to deliver the freight. They seek to control with a iron grip the time used by the truck driver. <br /> <br />16 hours is not enough time to get a day's work done. <br /> <br />I can bring up many many situations where time just flowed thru the driver's hands as he or she waited all day to get loaded, get empty or waitied for a load. wait wait wait. <br /> <br />40-60 hours a week spent waiting (unpaid) and not counted in the logbook. I would sleep in the berth according to the log book. But in reality stood at the walmart counter with 30 other drivers waiting for that trailer to be unloaded. <br /> <br />Mexican trucks are being upgraded to current US and Canadian standards to be able to operate in the rest of North America. Only along the border you will see transfer trucks waiting a day or more for the cross border loads. Money has nothing to do with it. <br /> <br />You can pay a driver 1 cent or 1000 dollars but they are still going to be stuck waiting. When it is time to drive, they are tired from waiting and need to sleep for a while. <br /> <br />It is the company that seeks to squeeze every last moment of productivity by keeping the wheels rolling at the expense of personal hygene, meals, laundry, home time with family and maintaince that will run the driver into the ground. <br /> <br />Federal hours of service laws are written by those influenced by labs that sprout sleep data that does not take into account CO2 poisioning, stress and threat of firings and unreasonable shipping and recieving schedules. <br /> <br />These driving hour laws are little changed from 1936! <br /> <br />The best drivers will be husband and wife teams that can do the job 24/7 365. They will cook food on the move, bag the laundry and save other tasks for once a month when they are allowed home. <br /> <br />Railroad engineers hog out at the end of thier allowed time driving. At that moment they are legally NOT ALLOWED to move that train one inch. <br /> <br />If truckers were held to the same standard as railroad engineers then you will see thousands of trucks on the shoulders unable to move an inch until they have thier required rest or another driver and or a truck is dispatched to replace them. <br /> <br />This would be totally unacceptable to walmart and virtually every shipper/reciever in the USA. <br /> <br />There are time periods where I have no hours to drive for days at a time. (Max 70 hour rule) and still took loads into the east coast. These time periods were logged as vacation time off at home. Had I been inspected at a scale house by law enforcement they certainly would have shut me down and levied fines to both my company and me. <br /> <br />That is when I decided to train my wife and go as a team. Single drivers dont have the time in a day to do the work safely and correctly. <br /> <br />If you listen to the CB radio you will hear talk along the interstate about when drivers slept. <br /> <br />"last week" <br /> <br />"Maybe today after I get unloaded" <br /> <br />"Maybe I will get a few hours.. Im too tired to keep it between the lines" <br /> <br />Does walmart hear this talk? Or any other outfit? Probably. But that does not matter. What matters is keeping that truck rolling and making money. <br /> <br />I see no relief for drivers until deep root attitudes are changed to foster true rest periods without threat of ternimation, loss of schedules, delays imposed by angry customers who are out of product, inexperienced drivers who need more time to complete a task. <br /> <br />Comapny resources such as satellite tracking and real time dispatching based on miles per hour averaged every 5 minutes and distance to go until arrive at the customer. There is a dead line on the bottom of that screen. Once the numbers go negative, the company knows that load is running late. <br /> <br />They will consume much man hours and resources producting alert reports of late drivers and try to save the promised delivery times. I have had many reports generated against me even though I may set personal records for time/distance endurance. <br /> <br />Walmart once held a honored status among drivers. They were given a truck and told "You are the captian of this ship" and as long they completed thier assigned tasks slowly and safely everything was golden. <br /> <br />Now you look at a walmart distribution center and see many many bobtail trucks sitting empty because there are not enough drivers availible to run the trailers to and from the walmarts. <br /> <br />Why are they not enough drivers? Federal rules hours of service. Walmart can comply with the regulations to the letter and freight moves slowly. Or they can ask for more time to drive (16 hours?) and try to make that tired and unhappy driver do two days's worth of work in one day. <br /> <br />Eventually nothing moves because you cannot pay drivers enough to endure such "Slack action" between the hours law, dispatchers and the demands of the job. <br /> <br />Then you need to hire more drivers at a higher pay. This is unacceptable because everything then cost more money. What do you do? ***ed if you do and ***ed if you dont. <br /> <br />You hire two drivers, put them in two trucks and hope that you get 16 hours work out of them in that day. Or find one team to run the truck 24/7
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