Letters to the Editor: Hours of Service, Hypermiling, EOBRs
These letters appear in the July 2 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
Hours of Service
The critics of a nonsynchronized hours-of-service application tend to be somewhat too closely affiliated with the providers of onboard solutions.
Their criticism usually surrounds comments that the “cellphone can be turned off,” thus losing mileage traveled and a perceived risk of driver manipulation.
The wireless software applications supporting HOS regulations are essentially the same as those provided by well-known onboard names.
Turning a handset off will not allow a driver to avoid some type of time classification; in fact, it can signal an alert to the home office. Each driver’s individual records are stored in the back-end servers rather than on the handset, so as soon as it is powered up again, the phone will download the current hours summary.
As for security, each driver has his or her own identification code.
Is any system foolproof? Probably not, but handset-oriented systems can be as useful to the industry as onboard ones, and both are significant improvements over the paper-based logs being used today.
John Moscatelli
Transportation/Distribution
Sales Manager
Data Solutions Consulting Group
AT&T Mobility
Tampa, Fla.
Hypermiling
This letter is in response to the letter headlined “Hypermiling” in the June 18 Transport
Topics (p. 9; click here for previous letter).
Tailgating — or hypermiling, as the term is now called — has several dangerous outcomes:
• A vehicle behind a semitrailer truck has no field of vision as to what is ahead.
• Tire blowout from a semi can total a car without a second’s notice.
• A semi can slow down rapidly with the use of the jake brake [engine brake], and the trailing vehicle will not see any stop lights.
• Tailgating a semi causes the truck driver to pay more attention to the vehicle he or she knows is behind the truck but cannot see because the semi’s blind spot prevents its driver from seeing the vehicle following in the truck’s mirrors — causing the semi’s driver to lose focus on the road ahead.
This action is very annoying to truckers. Do we really need data to see that this practice is very dangerous?
Where has our common sense gone?
Michael Darnell
President
American Truck Drivers Association
Whitmore Lake, Mich.
Let’s see: Traveling at 60 mph, you are covering 88 feet per second. Vehicles hypermiling are generally following at or about 40 feet to 60 feet behind the truck to be out of the wind and actually in a low pressure area that pulls the car along.
Now, it takes the average driver a half-second to recognize a hazard in front of him, i.e., the truck just applied the brakes — not the maximum application, one hopes — so the hypermiler covers 44 feet before he even can get his foot on the brake pedal. Giving the hypermiling driver the benefit of the doubt and saying he was 60 feet behind the truck, he has 12 feet left.
But there is another half-second delay before the average driver can get his foot on the brakes and apply them, so another 44 feet goes by as the truck is slowing down because his brakes took hold while the tailgating driver was moving his foot to the car brake pedal).
Whoops! Somebody just had a bad day.
Realistically, it is even worse, as the vehicles do this at even higher speeds and there is another delay, wherein the brake pedal is applied and a small lag occurs before the vehicle actually starts to slow down.
With the advent of television coverage and Internet coverage of hypermiling, we will see more of this in the future. Truck drivers are going to have to be even more vigilant about watching their mirrors for that extra shadow back there that lets them know someone is right up behind them and, when they find someone following too closely, to put on the brake lights without slowing down much and make them go around, even if it delays you for a few minutes.
It is better than letting them stay there on your tail and possibly having all that post-accident paperwork to fill out. And even if the accident isn’t written up as being your fault, it still goes on a lot of local, state and federal records.
That’s just the 2 cents’ worth of a truck driver who also spent 32 years in law enforcement and has worked thousands of accidents.
Frank Williams
Driver
Joe Tex Xpress
Mount Vernon, Texas
Onboard Recorders
Electronic onboard recorders are nothing more than Big Brother watching drivers. This defeats the idea that drivers are professionals. From where I sit, EOBRs are an effort to make it easier to sue the transportation industry.
For the next question — “Is there a need for more technology in the transportation industry?” — the answer is “Yes,” provided that the purpose of the technology is to make me a better and safer driver without playing the role of my mommy in my cab.
There is something else to consider about EOBRs: In many instances, I believe they would make the road more hazardous to be on, especially if the current hours-of-service rules are not changed to give the driver more flexibility.
There is a solution to the noncompliant companies, and it is simple: Get them off the road.
Gary Hull
Driver
Dedicated Transportation
Jennings, La.
