4 ms·

They aren't paid when waiting for loads though, and that eats into hours. So you can be stuck at a terminal burning drive hours while technically not driving.

dsfyu404ed 4y ago
And it drives them up the wall that they can't get to the shipper/receiver, clock out and then load/unload, drive 10-30min to where they can park and then turn the truck off for the night. Meanwhile some CDL bus driver or day cab driver clocks out at the end of his shift, commutes an hour home, has dinner, gets woken up for 10min at 3am by his infant and then clocks back into work at 4am and the government is fine with it. Same number of waking hours. Same number of driving hours. But the white collar bureaucrats give the latter a pass. Back in the day they just cooked the books but now with ELD they can't anymore.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
  It seems to me the dynamics of the failures are different - cab drivers drive smaller vehicles at slower speeds in more engaging traffic. When a semi truck crashes it makes a highly visible spectacle, and if there are other people involved, with fatalities. If a cab driver takes a micronap in rush hour traffic they bounce off someone's bumper.
  - 29083011397778 4y ago
    Note parent also mentioned bus driver. 20 tonnes does not merely "bounce off someone's bumper"; 20 tonnes plus 70 passengers even less so, and all that's assuming it's only a 40-foot bus. Articulated buses are 60' here, with some articulated trolley-buses having such outrageous torque they had to be de-tuned to avoid destroying themselves. A zero-to-sixty (kilometer) on par with a Miata, no loudly revving diesel engine or exhaust, and approximately 40 tonnes between coach and passenger weight should not be so quickly dismissed.
    - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
      That does change the math, but again, the buses aren't usually going that fast (I'm sure their average speed is far closer to zero than to 60), and like I said, they are much more engaged, constantly stopping or changing lanes. There's much less chance of the bus driver nodding off on a quiet stretch of highway.
- lazyasciiart 4y ago
  It does seem like a small but noticeable improvement would be made if shipping/receiving locations were incentivized to allow trucks to park there overnight. Walmart was an example that stuck out to me - it's a decision by each store as to whether trucks can stay in the parking lot overnight. I can't see why anyone benefits from allowing a Walmart to say truck drivers can't stay in their massive parking lot before the planned 5am delivery.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  You mean the buses where you don't have to wear a seatbelt or even have a seat? Safety is pretty damn low on bus priorities. Even with our damn children, school buses are often driven by underpaid, overworked, inexperienced people, and the kids have nothing to protect them in an accident. City buses don't have belts or safety either, but at least they are usually in very low speed collisions. We had to implement an annoying rule about stopping before train tracks so they'd stop trying to cross in front of trains! We ignore it because fixing it would cost tax dollars
mistermegabyte 4y ago
They're not burning drive hours, they're burning on-duty hours which are also limited. You are limited to 14 hours of on-duty time. You are also limited to 11 hours of actual driving time out of those 14 hours. So, I guess if you are delayed more than 3 hours (minus breaks) you are kinda eating into drive hours because of the on-duty limit of 14.
- richardc323 4y ago
  Sounds like as well as mandating limited on-duty time government needs to mandate pay for waiting time is same as pay for driving. This would reduce the incentive for drivers to drive more hours. This is not so straightforward when drivers are paid by the kilometer. In such cases government could mandate minimum waiting pay rate is average equivalent hourly pay rate of driving hours from same shift, or such like.
  - lazyasciiart 4y ago
    I was just reading Arriving Today[0] which mentioned that people have studied pay-per-mile for US truckers and come up with pretty clear payment rates that are needed to support safe driving behaviors. I think it was about 60c/mile was majority safe speed and length of drive, but the average is 30c/mile and for individual truckers contracting out, it pushes down towards about 20c/mile. [0]https://www.harpercollins.com/products/arriving-today-christopher-mims https://www.harpercollins.com/products/arriving-today-christ...

dsfyu404ed 4y ago

And it drives them up the wall that they can't get to the shipper/receiver, clock out and then load/unload, drive 10-30min to where they can park and then turn the truck off for the night. Meanwhile some CDL bus driver or day cab driver clocks out at the end of his shift, commutes an hour home, has dinner, gets woken up for 10min at 3am by his infant and then clocks back into work at 4am and the government is fine with it. Same number of waking hours. Same number of driving hours. But the white collar bureaucrats give the latter a pass. Back in the day they just cooked the books but now with ELD they can't anymore.

SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
It seems to me the dynamics of the failures are different - cab drivers drive smaller vehicles at slower speeds in more engaging traffic. When a semi truck crashes it makes a highly visible spectacle, and if there are other people involved, with fatalities. If a cab driver takes a micronap in rush hour traffic they bounce off someone's bumper.
- 29083011397778 4y ago
  Note parent also mentioned bus driver. 20 tonnes does not merely "bounce off someone's bumper"; 20 tonnes plus 70 passengers even less so, and all that's assuming it's only a 40-foot bus. Articulated buses are 60' here, with some articulated trolley-buses having such outrageous torque they had to be de-tuned to avoid destroying themselves. A zero-to-sixty (kilometer) on par with a Miata, no loudly revving diesel engine or exhaust, and approximately 40 tonnes between coach and passenger weight should not be so quickly dismissed.
  - SketchySeaBeast 4y ago
    That does change the math, but again, the buses aren't usually going that fast (I'm sure their average speed is far closer to zero than to 60), and like I said, they are much more engaged, constantly stopping or changing lanes. There's much less chance of the bus driver nodding off on a quiet stretch of highway.
lazyasciiart 4y ago
It does seem like a small but noticeable improvement would be made if shipping/receiving locations were incentivized to allow trucks to park there overnight. Walmart was an example that stuck out to me - it's a decision by each store as to whether trucks can stay in the parking lot overnight. I can't see why anyone benefits from allowing a Walmart to say truck drivers can't stay in their massive parking lot before the planned 5am delivery.
mrguyorama 4y ago
You mean the buses where you don't have to wear a seatbelt or even have a seat? Safety is pretty damn low on bus priorities. Even with our damn children, school buses are often driven by underpaid, overworked, inexperienced people, and the kids have nothing to protect them in an accident. City buses don't have belts or safety either, but at least they are usually in very low speed collisions. We had to implement an annoying rule about stopping before train tracks so they'd stop trying to cross in front of trains! We ignore it because fixing it would cost tax dollars

mistermegabyte 4y ago

They're not burning drive hours, they're burning on-duty hours which are also limited. You are limited to 14 hours of on-duty time. You are also limited to 11 hours of actual driving time out of those 14 hours. So, I guess if you are delayed more than 3 hours (minus breaks) you are kinda eating into drive hours because of the on-duty limit of 14.

richardc323 4y ago
Sounds like as well as mandating limited on-duty time government needs to mandate pay for waiting time is same as pay for driving. This would reduce the incentive for drivers to drive more hours. This is not so straightforward when drivers are paid by the kilometer. In such cases government could mandate minimum waiting pay rate is average equivalent hourly pay rate of driving hours from same shift, or such like.
- lazyasciiart 4y ago
  I was just reading Arriving Today[0] which mentioned that people have studied pay-per-mile for US truckers and come up with pretty clear payment rates that are needed to support safe driving behaviors. I think it was about 60c/mile was majority safe speed and length of drive, but the average is 30c/mile and for individual truckers contracting out, it pushes down towards about 20c/mile. [0]https://www.harpercollins.com/products/arriving-today-christopher-mims https://www.harpercollins.com/products/arriving-today-christ...