4 ms·

It would be resoundingly ignored, and its utterly unenforceable. Right now, if you're a driver and you decline a load, it may be days to get another one at tim

by Aloha 11y ago

It would be resoundingly ignored, and its utterly unenforceable. Right now, if you're a driver and you decline a load, it may be days to get another one at times, especially if you're stuck in a city with a ton of inbound freight, but not too much outbound freight - so you take what you can, push your endurance, and hope you can get far enough out of town that they wont try to swap it on you.

op00to 11y ago
... So obviously the solution is to keep killing motorists so you can get a paycheck. Gotcha.
- URSpider94 11y ago
  Drivers are fallible human beings. With families. And car payments. And mortgages. Many of them own their own trucks, and have to make payments on those as well. I'm pretty damned sure that nobody goes out on the road thinking that they're going to kill someone, while destroying their livelihood and injuring themselves in the process. If you knew that the difference between working today and not being able to work for another several days was to put in a few extra hours, are you telling me you'd never make that same decision yourself?
- Aloha 11y ago
  The article is weasel worded, frankly. In 2013 there were 32,719 vehicle related deaths in the US, 3,964 of them involved a 'large truck' in other words about 12.5% of total deaths. According to the IIHS - the number of fatalities per 100 million miles traveled is significantly lower (.88 for passenger vehicles in a large truck involved crash and .21 for occupants of large trucks) than the average for all vehicle (1.10) - and in just 15 (1998) years the numbers have declined significantly (from 1.67 and .37, and 1.8 respectively). I'd be happy to hear what your solution to the problem is, I realize any death at all is a shame, but nothing can be made 100% safe - statistically, you're at a greater risk of dying of stomach cancer, suicide or malaria - than you are to die in a vehicle accident of any kind (11.6 deaths per 100,000 in the US), or for that matter you're more likely to die of Melanoma, Hepatitis B or an Upper Respiratory Infection then you are to die in an accident with a large truck (.9 deaths per 100,000 in the US are involving a large truck). The solutions are neither clear, nor easy, but if you have one, I'd be open to ideas.
mcguire 11y ago
"It would be resoundingly ignored, and its utterly unenforceable." My understanding is that currently, a driver has essentially three states: on-duty, driving; on-duty, not driving; and off-duty. Further, as I understand it, strictness about maintaining logs and electronic log books (which drivers like, judging by the ads I see for it) have made fudging duty hours much less of a problem now than in the good ol' amphetamine days. You can force a driver to go off duty, but you can't force him to sleep. And the driver hours-of-service regulations are insane.[1] [1] http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/regulations/hours-service/summary-hours-service-regulations http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/regulations/hours-service/summary-h...
kw71 11y ago
I think it's unenforceable with the current infrastructure. In Europe, trucks are required to have chart recorders called tachographs. You put one chart in the machine per day and that's your log. I think this makes it a lot more difficult to keep two logs, and now there are computerized tachograph recorders which should be even more resistant to tampering (ie. they can get the current date and time from a trusted source such as mobile network, tv broadcast, or GPS.)
- kolinko 11y ago
  It still doesn't help if you switch driver's schedule from night to day. If monday tuesday and wednesday you drove through the day, and then friday evening they tell you to take a night course, then the tahoraph will say thay you had enough rest, while you will still get sleepy in the middle of night. In other words - tachograph will tell you whether the driver had a break, not whether he slept properly during that break.
  - stefantalpalaru 11y ago
    It's more or less the same situation you see in health-care providers doing a night shift immediately after the day shift. Not ideal, but they do get more free time to compensate afterwards. European trucking laws are quite sane. From http://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/users/professional-drivers/index_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/users/professional... : "Driving time should not exceed 9 hours a day or 56 hours a week. After 4½ hours, drivers must take a break of at least 45 minutes."

by Aloha 11y ago

op00to 11y ago

... So obviously the solution is to keep killing motorists so you can get a paycheck. Gotcha.

URSpider94 11y ago
Drivers are fallible human beings. With families. And car payments. And mortgages. Many of them own their own trucks, and have to make payments on those as well. I'm pretty damned sure that nobody goes out on the road thinking that they're going to kill someone, while destroying their livelihood and injuring themselves in the process. If you knew that the difference between working today and not being able to work for another several days was to put in a few extra hours, are you telling me you'd never make that same decision yourself?
Aloha 11y ago
The article is weasel worded, frankly. In 2013 there were 32,719 vehicle related deaths in the US, 3,964 of them involved a 'large truck' in other words about 12.5% of total deaths. According to the IIHS - the number of fatalities per 100 million miles traveled is significantly lower (.88 for passenger vehicles in a large truck involved crash and .21 for occupants of large trucks) than the average for all vehicle (1.10) - and in just 15 (1998) years the numbers have declined significantly (from 1.67 and .37, and 1.8 respectively). I'd be happy to hear what your solution to the problem is, I realize any death at all is a shame, but nothing can be made 100% safe - statistically, you're at a greater risk of dying of stomach cancer, suicide or malaria - than you are to die in a vehicle accident of any kind (11.6 deaths per 100,000 in the US), or for that matter you're more likely to die of Melanoma, Hepatitis B or an Upper Respiratory Infection then you are to die in an accident with a large truck (.9 deaths per 100,000 in the US are involving a large truck). The solutions are neither clear, nor easy, but if you have one, I'd be open to ideas.

mcguire 11y ago

"It would be resoundingly ignored, and its utterly unenforceable." My understanding is that currently, a driver has essentially three states: on-duty, driving; on-duty, not driving; and off-duty. Further, as I understand it, strictness about maintaining logs and electronic log books (which drivers like, judging by the ads I see for it) have made fudging duty hours much less of a problem now than in the good ol' amphetamine days. You can force a driver to go off duty, but you can't force him to sleep. And the driver hours-of-service regulations are insane.[1] [1] http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/regulations/hours-service/summary-hours-service-regulations http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/regulations/hours-service/summary-h...

kw71 11y ago

I think it's unenforceable with the current infrastructure. In Europe, trucks are required to have chart recorders called tachographs. You put one chart in the machine per day and that's your log. I think this makes it a lot more difficult to keep two logs, and now there are computerized tachograph recorders which should be even more resistant to tampering (ie. they can get the current date and time from a trusted source such as mobile network, tv broadcast, or GPS.)

kolinko 11y ago
It still doesn't help if you switch driver's schedule from night to day. If monday tuesday and wednesday you drove through the day, and then friday evening they tell you to take a night course, then the tahoraph will say thay you had enough rest, while you will still get sleepy in the middle of night. In other words - tachograph will tell you whether the driver had a break, not whether he slept properly during that break.
- stefantalpalaru 11y ago
  It's more or less the same situation you see in health-care providers doing a night shift immediately after the day shift. Not ideal, but they do get more free time to compensate afterwards. European trucking laws are quite sane. From http://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/users/professional-drivers/index_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/transport/road_safety/users/professional... : "Driving time should not exceed 9 hours a day or 56 hours a week. After 4½ hours, drivers must take a break of at least 45 minutes."