samfp1943 wrote: Trucking is an industry that is slaved to the shipper and reciever added to volume. I never hauled livestock but have been around meat plants long enough to understand that the "bull haulers" run dollar trucks and that livestock WILL get to the slaughter house alive or dead. Some of those guys do not know what stop means, Penna to Okla, Fla to Ks or Okla...DOT guys seem to look the other way when animal transportation is involved. Rest Stops for Livestok are few ande far between. Cattle Transport is most likely the industry where the term " Funny Book" for log books ortiginated.
Trucking is an industry that is slaved to the shipper and reciever added to volume. I never hauled livestock but have been around meat plants long enough to understand that the "bull haulers" run dollar trucks and that livestock WILL get to the slaughter house alive or dead.
Some of those guys do not know what stop means, Penna to Okla, Fla to Ks or Okla...DOT guys seem to look the other way when animal transportation is involved. Rest Stops for Livestok are few ande far between.
Cattle Transport is most likely the industry where the term " Funny Book" for log books ortiginated.
It is related to the term "Comic Book" where you kept three logs. One for yourself, One for the Nice Officer and one for the company. Sometimes entire trips is not logged as long you did not get caught away from your off duty location who knew?
One way they can get ya is having two oil changes in a month. That is about 30,000 miles. Luckly the Rotella Blend gets a bit of 20,000 miles on one oil change so you can push it a little bit.
No one knows the word stop unless a company from the CEO all the way down to the Tire Boy in the shop cares for safety and professionalism and enforces it at all levels. There are companies that exist actually running legal. They dont make very much money in a work week but there are no worries.
They can regulate, legislate and sign laws all they want to but trucking will continue to be dominated by very powerful people bent on making the most dollar in a work week which consists of 7 days and 168 hours.
Shippers and recievers run 24/7 and Meat plants are among the most demanding of them. They want thier livestock yesterday and want thier delieverys completed tomorrow no matter where it is in the USA.
I can show up at a food distribution facility 1000 miles from meat country 24 hours later and say on the radio "I got a meat load" and Im given the first dock and the first unload order of the morning regardless of the fact that there are 500 other truckers surrounding the place having arrived the night before and rested and ready to unload thier widgets and food.
If this sounds condescending then you need to understand that truckers are driven both from a internal desire to get the load there no matter what, ahead of schedule while dispatchers, shippers and brokers lose sleep at night following the satellite tracker every mile of the entire trip praying that there is no delay... probably because they already promised a pickup of a new load later that day.
A delay of one hour for an inspection can and does threaten the ontime arrival, thousands of dollars in future revenue of that week and both the company and driver in potential lost fines plus additional penalties in both time and money getting past all of that. If the incident is severe enough, the trucking company may be told that they lost thier shipper's account and another company will make the revenue. (YER FIRED!>)
I cannot tell you how many times Im breathing down that poor mechanic's neck to hurry up and replace the failed alternator while mentally calculating how to make this necessary repair stop NOT show up in the logs because it will create a situation where there is a violation.
Oh yes, th Alternator. I want the biggest and the best so they WONT fail when crunch time is on. None of that cheap parts-usa crap.
In Europe they use Electronic Logs backed with satellite tracking. Everyone does well enough over there. Here in the USA the entire system of paper logs is broken and will never work. That is why they are called comic books and generate feelings of laughter.
The poor livestock hauler must be feeling the heat most of all.. there are literally hundreds of trailers coming into "His" meat plant empty and all need to be loaded and possibly waiting on his livestock. If he is smart, they run teams and keep that thing going 24/7
If it takes long enough to complete loading, you can highlight the text, then copy it to the clipboard, that is what I did.
It is a short four paragraph article, where each paragraph is only one sentence. It states that the Arkansas Democrat Gazette reported that the USDA, in a letter "last Thursday", has said that the regulations regarding how often livestock must be unloaded for feeding, watering, and resting when transported by train also apply when transported by truck. Previously, it had not been interpreted as applying to trucking.
"No soup for you!" - Yev Kassem (from Seinfeld)
That link locked me to the email register page and broke the back button on the browser.
I usually dont register with my email too often, is there a way to capture the article and show it here?
They do have feedlots for them to marshal in numbers before being shipped to the slaughter.
The winter brings on boards on the outside of the trailer so they dont freeze during the trip. In all seasons the dying and dead livestock are usually removed from the food chain if they dont survive the trip.
If the Government was really serious about regulating trucking the way they do trains they can start by removing the rusted shut padlock on the weight station signs and throw away the "closed" side.
And finish with having federal agents in all trucking facilties, shippers and recievers and truckstops to oversee and monitor the activity. That will slow things down to unacceptable levels and potentially bring this Nation down a little bit when the cargo arrives at the store not so fresh.
There is an old law that required you to have your logs on you at all times subject to inspection. I can count on two hands the number of times I actually got inspected. I passed 8 and failed two which were settled promptly once the fines were paid and the OOS expired. That was for the first ten years.
I think the Livestock haulers have a "Territory" within a certain range of a meat plant and there appears to be adequate supply. Keep in mind 24/7 thousands of livestock are needed at each plant and there is a constant, very intense activity around the clock.
Nah, Each year the noise from the Government fades into the background no matter how much they shout from the altar in the church of safety. There are a few states with scalehouses everyone respects and obidently crosses the I's and dots the T's and comes thru with the hair washed and the face shaved. Everywhere else? HAH!
So now, after every stock car in railroad service has been scrapped or placed on display in a museum, we get a level playing field.
http://www.ttnews.com/members/topNews/0016232.html
The railroads were required by law to stop livestock shipments every 24 (not 28!) hours and let the livestock out into pens for feed and water. And that law was obeyed and enforced.
I certainly don't object to that. I'm an animal welfare guy. (not animal rights!). But the truckers were always considered exempt from this requirement for humane treatment of livestock. And they'd keep those critters cooped up in that truck as long as necessary.
I'd like to see how they enforce this. The Feds can't effectively enforce weight limits, speed limits, hours of service rules, etc. on the truckers. This is meaningless dribble.
The truckers could drive 'em from Florida to Kansas without a drop of water. And they did. And they will.
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