Letters: Hours of Service, Public Transport, Leading by Example

These Letters to the Editor appear in the Jan. 24 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

Hours of Service

Historically, the hours-of-service regulations have never been a “one size fits all” solution to the number of hours a driver is permitted to operate (“Trucking Blasts HOS Plan, Drive Time May Be Cut; Restart Rules Altered,” 1-3, p. 1). Changes to the HOS regulations will always affect carrier operations differently — some slightly, some dramatically.

This point leads me to the proposed 34-hour restart, which must include two nights from midnight to 6 a.m., and the fact that it would be permitted only once every seven days. For any number of reasons, many carriers and drivers are opposed to this change, but because the 34-hour proposal still appears to be an option, I suggest calculating the 60/70 hours the “old-fashioned way.”

Before there was a 34-hour restart, drivers used a rolling seven- or eight-day system to calculate hours. Each new day became a new seventh or eighth day and, as midnight approached each day, a driver would go back seven or eight days and subtract those hours from the last seven- or eight-day total to determine available hours for the next day — one stroke after midnight. It worked then, it still works today and it will work tomorrow.

As always, it will not work for every carrier and driver. However, using the old system of calculation for the 60/70 hours, some drivers conceivably could operate seven days a week without ever taking a day off. Others still would have to take some off-duty time for available hours to catch up, but, in many cases, less than 34 hours and without the two nights being a factor.

There is a problem with this option, however, that being education for carriers and drivers. Newer carriers and drivers (and conceivably enforcement) may not understand how the calculation works. Older drivers may need some re-education, but it is certainly an option that seems to be overlooked.

Revisiting this alternative to the calculation, 70/80 hours could solve some of the problems carriers and drivers foresee with the proposed changes. There may be something to the notion of making money the “old-fashioned way.”

Ron Edwards

Director of Safety

Company Name Withheld by Request

Lansing, Mich.

How is it that unemployment is near 10%, but we still have a driver shortage? I believe the answers are pay and lifestyle. Our trucks would be full, otherwise.

A railroad engineer can be on duty 12 hours and an airline pilot for 16 hours, yet they want to cut the over-the-road driver to 10 hours. It does not make sense to me. Cut the driver’s hours, and you cut his pay — forcing more good drivers off the road.

Some time ago, two of our largest over-the-road carriers commented that, until driver pay goes to $50,000 plus cost per mile — with more home time — this problem will continue.

Norman Seeger

Partner

Seeger Associates

Rupert, Vt.

We have an administration that says it wants to create jobs, however, its transportation department, from Secretary LaHood on down, wants to eliminate driving jobs by fiddling with hours of service — i.e., the Compliance, Safety, Accountability program — coming off a year with the least fatalities in years, and forcing carriers to use all teams or additional drivers to add two days more to trips west and back.

Delays in the transportation of food and produce will drive up the cost of everything when we should be bringing costs down.

Look at the current cost of fuel — and nobody doing anything about it — sending billions more dollars to foreign oil companies.

Doesn’t anybody in Washington realize how fast they are ruining this country, doubling the cost of everything when so many of our people are out of work and on food stamps?

Barry Bloedel

Chairman

America Midwest Transportation

New Ulm, Minn.

Public Transport

Public transport can enhance sustainability and climate-change mitigation.

Transport is responsible for about a quarter to a third of carbon emissions in most developed economies and is often the only major sector whose share of emissions is increasing. Moreover, while all transport sectors are experiencing growth, those witnessing the most growth (developing countries such as India) tend to be the most polluting.

In India, the motor vehicle fleet has been doubling every four years over the past three decades. The rapid growth in motor vehicle activity in Indian cities has brought in its wake a range of adverse effects.

In Delhi, the data show that of the total 3,000 metric tonnes of pollutants belched out every day, close to two-thirds (66%) is from vehicles. Similarly, the contribution of vehicles to urban air pollution is 52% in Bombay and close to one-third in Calcutta.

Regardless of whether a bus is “clean” or “dirty,” if it is reasonably full, it can displace anywhere from five to 50 other motorized vehicles, including often very dirty two-wheelers as well as cars.

In some developing cities, the primary displacement is of high-emissions motorcycles and scooters. The fuel savings, CO2 reductions and air pollutant reductions from switching to bus travel can be large — possibly much larger than those from making a fuel change or technology upgrade to the bus itself.

Bimlesh Kumar, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor

Department of Civil Engineering

Indian Institute  of Technology Guwahati

Guwahati, Assam

India

Leading by Example

The New Year has arrived on schedule and with it, hopes and dreams hang in the balance for a lot of my professional driver friends. I would like to address the issue to hiring authorities on the virtues of leading by example.

I have observed from my current job-searching experiences that corporate driver recruiters and their support staff haven’t a clue as to what they are truly seeking when recruiting for a professional driver.

Case in point: Using the same extensive background check standards you put prospective drivers through, how many of your corporate executives and driver recruiters would be able to pass an extensive background investigation detailing data from their department of motor vehicles, criminal, past-employment and credit-bureau records — as well as a possibly flawed DAC employment-history report — to see if they would truly qualify for their own present executive position? Would their lives and personal integrity pass muster? Would they be comfortable about disclosing “everything confidential” to a complete stranger or to other third parties?

Sixty-six percent of all identity theft cases come from job application information, according to statistics from the LifeLock identity protection service. Remember — we all stopped being righteous after Eve and Adam ate that apple in the Garden of Eden.

Have you considered that your current hiring policies may be the reason you always have a phantom driver shortage?

I know the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration makes you do this, but my re- search shows that is not always the case. Fleet insurance underwriters only react to the prospective driver’s DMV abstract and recommend accordingly.

So the question remains, as the New Year progresses: Would you, yourself, be able to pass the same level of scrutiny you are making driver applicants go through, or would you flat-out fail the test?

Leadership is 75% leading by example — in other words, integrity. The other 25% of leadership is improvising, adapting and overcoming your problems.

Think about these things as you assess your driver-recruitment objectives for the year 2011 and beyond.

David Ritter

Owner-Operator

Semper Fi Transport

Klamath Falls, Ore.