I'm with Highway and the others on here that say no arbitrary limits -
every person truly is different.
It really depends on the responsibility level of the drivers that carriers contract:
Responsible drivers, who know their own limitations, that have a fairly high degree of personal ethics and integrity, and are willing to act on that = safe.
Irresponsible drivers, well ..... not so much
Same here, sorta .... but not because they would take back to back 700 - 800 mile runs (something I have done, and have done quite safely) - but because they have done it
while knowing full well they would not be able to do so safely.
That's irresponsible - and it is unethical.
No, there shouldn't - it is a penalizing the majority who are responsible, for the actions of a few, that happen to be irresponsible. In practice, such efforts rarely, if ever, solve the problem that they were intended to address - and often they have unintended consequences, which are not desirable.
Would you support the banning and confiscation of all guns from all citizens, just because there are a (relatively) small number of criminals and whackjobs out there that might do something insane ?
I certainly wouldn't ......
What has regulation of our industry really given us ? Has it truly addressed the issue of the vast majority of unsafe drivers -
which are not even commercial drivers ?
We are one of the few industries where the income of individuals is being artificially capped, as a consequence of the arbitrary limitations on the hours we are permitted to work.
Therein lies the real problem with regulation - any regulation, in any aspect of industry or civil life - the matter of deciding who gets to determine the answer to those types of questions:
Owner-operators and drivers ?
Carriers ?
Some Federal apparatchik, who's "professional driving experience" consists of a one or two hour commute, twice daily, from Northern VA into DC five days a week ?
A member of PATT ? (Parents Against Tired Truckers)
It is good for you to raise the question for discussion however - because ultimately, the slippery slope to the
reduction of freedom (through regulation) comes about from the failure of an industry to police itself. That largely boils down to a failure of
personal responsibility on the part of
individuals.
Rules and regulations are really only necessary
where personal responsibility fails.
And the bottomline is that no amount of rules and regulations will really ever handle the issue of those that are indeed truly irresponsible - those folks will seek to break and violate the rules anyways.
Having no personal rules of their own, they aren't going to abide by someone else's - if there is any way that they can avoid it.
The solution to the problem lies not in limiting the freedom of everyone to "solve" a problem, which in fact, originates only from a few - it lies either in raising the personal ethics, integrity, and respsonsility level of all individuals - particularly those who are prone to being less responsible.
