It would be great if we were allowed to use common sense to decide when we drive and sleep. But history shows that many people don't have common sense. There are always those few that ruin it for everyone else.
That was the case, exactly the same, under the old HOS rules too. Yes, indeed; it is regretable that all drivers need to be regulated because some drivers lack the common sense to manage their time and sleep well, and to put safety first. But that does not justify the new rules. While they make drivers jump through new hoops, the new HOS rules do NOTHING to improve safety, or to increase common-sense behavior in the driver community.
Viewing the bigger picture, if you look at your carrier's current SMS scores, you will see that in two BASIC categories, the scores exceed intervention threshholds. This was not the case when the SMS data first became available and before EOBR's went into widespread use there. It is the case now, such that "this carrier may be prioritized for an intervention action and roadside inspection."
It is intersting to note that while the number of power units increased by 3.2%, the number of crashes involving injuries or fatalities increased by 53%.
So, why is that? Is it that your carrier's contractors suddenly developed a lack of common sense? Is it because there are not yet enough regulations in place to address those few contractors at your carrier who ruin it for all others?
Instead of standing tall in the public eye as the safety-first company it once was, your carrier is now on the defensive under a scoring system that does not tell the true story, can easily be misunderstood by the general public, and is increasingly used by shippers to make carrier-choice decisions based on statistics of the kind cited above.
Your carrier's current SMS scores are a gift to a competing carrier that has better scores. It is not much of a stretch to imagine a sales person from a competing carrier saying to one of your customers, "Check out these scores. It's sad, isn't it, what happened to that once-great company?"
There is a lot going on with recently-adopted FMCSA rules, but very little of it is based in common sense or justified because of a new lack of common sense among drivers. Safety-wise, your carrier is no less of a company than it was before SMS scores went public. But the results the new rules are generating defy common sense.
The new rules address the lack of common sense among drivers no better than the old rules did, but the rules themselves are insane.
Because of them, your carrier has become an on-road crime wave in the public eye. And in the shipping and compliance community, you --a driver who is steeped in common sense and is professional in every way -- is known by the company you keep.
Given your stated purpose -- to keep on driving and to preserve your sanity -- letting HOS rules changes slide is a strategy that works.
But kindly note that some of us have other purposes in this business of expediting. For us, the new rules run counter to those purposes and letting them slide is not something we are willing to do.
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