Life on the Road – Trucking News Blog

By Renee Jones Schneider, Star Tribune

Every time there is a truck crash the subject comes up. It has fueled many discussions from truck stops to the Federal Government. Truckers, like the ones in the article say to sleep when you’re tired, no amount of money is worth your life, etc… But every driver has done it. Either being forced to by a load under pressure or a case I have been in several times when you’re loaded in the afternoon and still have to drive 10 or 11 hours. It’s tough to find a parking place after midnight. Parking is few and far between especially out east, even the illegal spots are taken.

Don’t you love these headlines?

Weary truckers pose a highway threat
By JIM SPENCER, Star Tribune
Last update: July 22, 2010 – 3:01 PM
Before he crashed his semitrailer truck in a midday accident that killed two people, Jason Styrbicky had been driving all night. At the accident scene, Styrbicky appeared so tired that the State Patrol ordered him off the road for 10 hours.

You would think he’d be off the road a little longer due to the fatality, drug testing and the fact his truck was probably banged up a little. That doesn’t really make sense, but it’s made to sound dramatic.

The issue always comes up and always blaming the driver. One sentence I read in this story, I have never seen anywhere else.

Yet fatigue drives regulatory debates, including whether to impose driving restrictions and whether to pay truckers by the mile or the hour.

Most of the time, including the rest of this article is spent talking about fatigue, rest and in other places even sleep disorders. Thirty seconds into the video the journalists mentions that the numbers of truck fatalities have been going down since 2005. Then he moves into the airliner comparison. Which number are people going to remember and care about?

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Maurice Snyder wins with his blue and white Lonestar. Even though it was a Fourth of July Contest, Marice is Canadian and as soon as I get his paypal address, he will get our thanks for supporting our Facebook page. Not exactly what  I was hoping for on the Fourth, but that’s okay. It was open to everyone and everyone had the same chance at the $100. Next time will probably be more or we’ll start doing it more often and just open it up to any photos of almost any kind. I’m always open for new ideas for photo contests or anything else.

With a camera in every cell phone a photo contest should be easy. Uploading photos to your facebook page is almost automatic. Now we have a budget for things like this I want to take advantage of it. If you don’t have and don’t want a facebook account, next time I will open up a special email address @lifeontheroad.com for photos so the facebook account will be optional.

Everyone has heard that right? It’s about the most offensive thing a driver can hear. It’s degrading and mostly untrue. Being on the other side of the desk for about a year, I still don’t agree with it, but I do agree with Bad Driver’s are a Dime a Dozen, Good drivers are few and far between. While  at the Safety desk, the company has been audited by FMCSA (DOT) and IFTA (the fuel tax people). Thankfully, we’re still in business, any fine from either of those agencies and a small trucking company would be history. As a company, before the economy blew up, we had a warehouse, a brokerage and a much larger trucking company. Now we concentrate on the trucking company, the brokerage is dissolved and the warehouse has an “arrangement” with the neighbors.

Ever wonder why your company harasses you about doing your logs and fuel info correctly? Fines can run in the thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Owner operators have as much impact on a company’s safety rating as company drivers. The other day I was involved in a meeting with the company’s owner and an owner operator. The short version went like this – If you want to keep driving for us, you must do your logs the right way. We don’t make the rules for logs, the government does. If you don’t do your logs the way the government tells you how to do your logs, we get fined out of existence. If you don’t fix your logs, we can’t allow you to put the company at risk.

Part of being a leased owner operator instead of an independent owner operator is the company ensures your paperwork is in compliance with the government. You don’t have to file your fuel taxes every quarter, your drug paperwork is taken care of, most places allow some sort of advance or breaks on maintenance and the biggest reason why I was always leased is that you get paid for a load right away and it doesn’t matter if the company gets paid 30 or 90 days out, six months plus or if they don’t get paid at all. I don’t know how we can make it easier or any more open for our drivers. The company will pay for your Driver’s Daily Log every year, the books are completely open. Want to know how much a customer / broker paid the company for a load? Just ask and we show you the real invoice.  The only punishment we have handed out is taken everyone’s Prepass until they can pass an inspection without any violations.

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Yes it’s true, our first photo contest. We’ve wanted to do this since the start, but have now figured out some of the technical details. Upload your photos to the Life on the Road Fan Page.

1. You have to have or create a Facebook account. If you don’t want to use real names, that’s okay, just a real email address so you can receive Facebook messages.
2. You have to “Like” the Life on the Road fan page in order to upload photos.
3. Go to the Life on the Road fan page and upload to the fan photo section.

If you have any technical issues or questions about uploading, let me know.

Rules

Must be your photo. Yes, I do know how to look for meta information and look for duplicate images on the web. If you have a photo online already in Flickr, SmugMug, Picasa or some other web photo service, be ready to prove it’s your account where the picture is.

Vote for you favorite photo by clicking the “Like” link on each photo. You can only vote once on each photo. Facebook keeps track of that so I don’t have to. The photo with the most likes and or comments wins. In case of problems, ties, disputes or anything else, I have the final decision. Multiple entries are allowed. Let’s keep the maximum entries at three per person, only one picture per person gets a prize. You can’t win more than once no matter how many photos you submit or votes you have.

UPDATE: Just a reminder 5 more days until the deadline.

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How tough is that? English speaking or not, what did this guy think he was doing? He endangered everyone around him. “Very sleep deprived”, thanks Canada for not only hiring this guy, but sending him down here and not being able to speak a single word of English and I’m pretty sure even in Canada you pull over when you see flashing lights behind you.

The chase lasted more than 20 miles and on top of that the bomb sniffing dog alerts and put everyone in a panic. Wonder which energy drink it was, that must be some powerful stuff.

Here’s part of the CNN Story as well:

Truck suspected to hold explosives found full of energy drinks
By the CNN Wire Staff
May 14, 2010 8:40 p.m. EDT
(CNN) — A police dog’s false hit for explosives on a truck that had been driven erratically by a man who did not speak English attracted a throng of law enforcement personnel to a rural road in Wisconsin on Thursday night.

But they turned up nothing more powerful than energy drinks, police said Friday.

After three tire-deflation devices caused his truck to come to a halt in the middle of Highway 16, Gill refused for nearly 90 minutes to get out of the cab of the truck, Pedersen said.

At one point, Gill got out of his truck but failed to follow instructions and was shot “multiple times” with nonlethal weapons, Pedersen said.

That caused Gill to drop a bag he had been holding and get back into the truck, Pedersen said.

It’s one of those – if it wasn’t so serious it would be funny. Right after the Times Square incident too. FBI, ATF, HAZMAT Team, plus the usual police, sheriff and EMTs, sounds like quite a party. Blowing out tires and shooting the guy with bean bags, entertaining too. One more idiot off the road. But not before giving the rest of us the usual black eye, should be used to it by now.

Remember when Driver’s Appreciation Week actually meant something? Now it’s just another sign at a big franchise truck stop. There may a couple of items on sale but that’s about it nowadays, nothing worth stopping for. There are still some truck stops worth stopping at, they are the “mom & pop” truck stops, which means anything but FJ, Petro, TA, Pilot and Loves.

We are having a commercial drivers’ appreciation at the Dodge City Travel Center located in northern Alabama on May 19 and 20.  Free buffet lunch will be available to CDL holders.  Donuts and coffee will be available in the Drivers Lounge for the early birds.  There will be games and prizes for the drivers.  And just for the fun of it, Harley Davidison will be joining us for the event.

Marshall mentioned he wanted an iPhone but traded his Blackberry for the Droid on Verizon and is pretty happy with it so far. I waited forever to get a Smart Phone and went for the G1 on T-Mobile. Nowadays a lot of laptop work can now be done on smart phones, emails and attachments, if you can email you can fax with services like efax.com. You can update spreadsheets, documents and browse the web. I still like a laptop because it’s still easier to type on a keyboard than a phone and even the fastest phone is still slower than a slow laptop.

Smart phones are strictly a personal choice. There are more and more smart phones becoming available and with the usual two year contract, most are almost affordable. If you’re on the road all the time, it’s easily a justifiable expense, if you’ve got it.

After my contract for both of our phones ran out, we went to the big three carriers browsed the stores which were within a mile of each other and settled on T-Mobile. The network is a major factor in the decision process. Verizon may have the better coverage and when I was driving I had very few problems, but I have friends that are still driving and have T-Mobile and AT&T with no network problems.

I’ve never had a Blackberry, almost, but glad I waited. I looked briefly at the iPhone and almost fell for the social pressure. I’m sure it’s a great phone, but my thoughts, it seems like a new iPhone comes out every six months with new features and you wish you would have waited. All of my email, contacts and calendars are already on Google, the Google Phone seemed like a natural choice. T-Mobile was the cheapest at the time. Cheaper data plan, messaging and calling plans.

iPhones comes in one flavor only with AT&T, Blackberry has several models and several carriers and Android (Google) phones are now with every major carrier in several different models. Even though my G1 is the first generation, I don’t think I’d trade it for the new ones. I like having real keyboard, but I suppose it’s something you get used to. Software upgrades still happen on the G1 though it’s stuck at 1.6 while the newer Androids have 2.1, the G1 is rumored to be receiving an upgrade soon. Even though it’s the first model of the first generation it’s still being upgraded and it’s definitely not obsolete, unlike the first iPhone. Plus expandable memory and removable battery were major selling points over the iPhone. And if  I get really ambitious and the G1 is left behind any future upgrades, I can always “root” the phone and put an entirely different operating system on it, thanks to the huge  android community.

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That’s more of a question than a statement. I’ve tried to keep up with the new rules are but there are so many misinterpretations that it has been more than a little confusing. Being the Safety Manager for a small company, I found what I always knew as a driver, the Safety department doesn’t really hire drivers, they make sure the driver’s paper work is in order and the insurance company says they will insure a driver in one of their trucks or not.

Currently when a driver is hired, the insurance company pulls a copy of that driver’s MVR and the decision is made based on that one piece of paper. If a driver’s MVR is more than one piece of paper, they probably won’t be insurable. The other determining factor some companies use is the DAC report. Some companies use it, some companies know the DAC system has been abused by carriers, blacklisting drivers for small or no reason at all. DAC was only the company’s side of the story. There are usually a few different versions of events, the driver’s version, the company’s version and the truth is usually somewhere in between.

I don’t know exactly why the government became more involved in truck driver’s lives, but like all programs, this one has good intentions. My guess is that companies needed something more than just a driver’s MVR. DAC was almost worthless and employment verifications are not supposed to be used as references. That is why many smaller companies only hire by referrals from their current drivers.

CSA 2010 will include every roadside inspection the driver has had, assign those inspections a score. Accidents, tickets and any other violations in a commercial vehicle will be included in that score. This score not only affects the drivers, but all the drivers that drive or leased to a company, those scores will be assigned to the company. When a driver leaves that company, their score doesn’t follow them to the new company, but the score is available under the new Pre-Employment Screening Program. The formula used involves weighting different violations so the more serious violations receive higher score. Between the formula and when and how a driver’s score travels with them and how it affects a company if the driver leaves and the new hiring company is a major cause of the confusion. Read the rest of this entry »

Sorry for the delay in posting, but we have been under some internal reconstruction. With all of the details out of the way, we are now free to keep trucking ahead.

Contests

The first one will be to turn the Best Trucker Podcast post into a real contest with the winner and the creator of the Best Trucker Podcast will actually win something. We haven’t decided yet, but it will be worthwhile. Keep your favorite Trucking Podcaster informed. If you have any ideas for other contests, let us know. Contact us here.

Facebook

I created a new Facebook Fan page and the purpose of the fan page will be the complete opposite of the website. At the website things are structured and pertains to current events in trucking, politics and other subjects posted by contributors. Facebook is going to be almost anything goes. Truck stop reviews, politics, diesel prices, chicken coop updates, traffic and road conditions, politics and just about anything else and is open to anyone and everyone that wishes to participate. It will still be moderated and will be kept family safe, but other than that, have fun.

We’re still on twitter and the writing staff is growing as I’m writing this. If you’re interested in writing a post for Life on the Road, we give a small “Thank-you” (cash) for contributing. This is open to anyone that is passionate about trucking, electronics, computers as they are used by truckers, national politics or almost anything else and is serious about writing.  If you’re interested in writing let us know.

A film is being made focusing on the struggle young people are facing in today’s economy. The Academy Award winning director is looking for truckers in their 20s and 30s who are working to support their families and set aside money for their children’s future.

The website is Your Money Story.Net but if you want to send me your details at our editor address LifeontheRoadBlog@gmail.com I will forward your story directly to the journalist doing some of the scouting for the film.