Driver Lifestyles

Frustration - An Expediter's concerns with the new Hours of Service rules

Carroll and Dora Bean are veteran owner-operators leased with FedEx Custom Critical's White Glove division.  In the following paragraphs, Carroll takes issue with parts of the most recent version of the Hours of Service regulations.  Expediters Online.com feels that Carroll's comments reflect the thoughts of many professional drivers in expediting and general trucking and we extend our gratitude to him for sharing those thoughts here.
 
I am writing this out of frustration over the October 1, 2005 HOS (Hours of service) rules mandated for all CMV (Commercial Motor Vehicle) drivers, such as myself, by the FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration) I have found there are many more CMV team drivers that find themselves in the very same dilemma.

As I write this I have recently turned 56 years old. I started my trucking career at the age of 17. Now, in my 39-year career, I’ve driven about 4 million miles in both short haul and long haul.

I’ve hauled just about everything from logs and pulpwood out of the deep woods, to new automobiles from the auto plants. I’ve pulled vans, reefers, both smooth bore and baffled tanks, flat beds, low beds, dumps, car trailers, and grain trailers.

I’ve worked for about 8 different employers, both large companies and small owner operators, none of whom were ever happy to see me leave. I married my wife in 1968 and trucking helped us raise our three children. We both are very fond of trucks and the trucking industry.

In 1994, with our children all grown and on their own, my wife got her CDL (Commercial Drivers License). We started driving together as a team to be together more and to see this great country that we love. We bought our first truck and leased on to a company 11 years ago. We are still with them today first because of the money we make and secondly because of what we do and the way we are treated.

We won’t haul cheap freight so specialty hauling is the only thing that really works for us. To us there is no such thing as a return load rate. A load is a load. We operate in 49 states and Canada keeping our equipment in top notch safe operating condition.

We buy new, no trade in, and pay for our trucks in 3 years running them 4 to 5 years. We don’t trade our used trucks in we sell them outright and that seems to work the best for us. We currently own and operate a 2003 Western Star with a 76 inch Constellation Sleeper with all the driver comforts. Neither my wife nor I have ever been involved in a chargeable accident nor have we ever received a moving violation. We have never received a log violation because we have always operated compliant to the law.

We are both members of OOIDA (Owner Operator Independent Driver Association) and were running compliant long before OOIDA asked us to. For the past 8 years we have been faithful participants in the Trucker Buddy Program and are both members of Highway Watch.

We both participate in our State Truck Driver Skills Competition. One year I won a first place and my wife won a second place losing to me by only 10 points. My win allowed me to compete in the ATA’s (American Trucking Associations) National Truck Driving Competition that year where I did very well.

When my wife and I started team driving we needed to determine which would be the safest and most efficient way for us to team drive. At that time we could split log and legally run either 4 hours on and 4 hours off, 5 hours on and 5 hours off, or 10 hours on and 10 hours off.

When we tried to do “10 on 10 off” we found that after about 4 to 5 hours of sleep we were wide awake just waiting 5 hours to drive which was more tiring than working. After about 36 hours of that routine we were totally exhausted and not as safe and alert as we should be behind the wheel.

We found that “5 on 5 off” seemed to work just right. We got the rest we needed, we didn’t have long work periods so we were always alert and safe behind the wheel. Being safe and alert means a lot not only to the driver but also to the motoring public and to the person in the sleeper. You can’t get any kind of rest in the sleeper if you don’t have complete trust in the other team driver. “5 on 5 off” was the perfect formula for us to be safe and efficient. Life was good and has been for the past 11 years.

Then along comes the FMCSA with this new HOS ruling and now we are being forced by law into doing something that we already tried 11 years ago and found it didn’t work for us. Not wanting to say we couldn’t do it we decided to give it another try, after all it has been 11 years since we last tried it and of course it’s mandatory now.

So, we gave it our best shot. Guess what?! We found it to be worse now than it was 11 years ago. It had been a long time since my wife or I caught ourselves "bobbing for apples" but there we were doing it again and that is very scary.

“10 on 10 off” may work great for a single driver as the truck is stopped during the sleeper berth time and not moving down the highway but the teams are a very different scenario.

The function of team drivers is to keep the truck moving. With the truck moving down the highway most of us can’t get more then 4 or 5 hours of rest at a time and that works just fine because you only need to work 4 or 5 hours at a time. The teams need to split log and they need to be given the opportunity to choose which split works best for them from a safety standpoint.

I am very frustrated and very nervous and here is why. We don’t want to leave our profession because we love what we do and we are very good at what we do. We enjoy servicing this great country of ours and we want to continue doing our job in the same high level of quality and safety that we always have but many of us that work as teams can’t if we have to operate the way the FMCSA has mandated.

So now, it seems, we are forced to make some choices. We can operate the way the FMCSA has mandated, we can continue to operate at the high level of safety and quality yet turn in logs that reflect the FMCSA mandate which would mean falsifying our logs and that would be illegal, or we must leave the profession that we are so good at and love so much. Unfortunately for many of us those are our choices now.

Total compliance which would compromise safety, uphold safety yet run illegal logs, or get out. I personally don’t like any of those choices. My wife and I, along with many other teams out here, are too young to retire and too old to realistically find something else to do. Especially something that would fulfill our needs and that we would love as much as we love team driving together.
 
The FMCSA should go back and take another hard look at what they have done by taking away the teams ability to make a safety oriented choice in split logging. The FMCSA has said they implemented these new HOS because it would be healthier for CMV drivers. The new HOS are actually very unhealthy for most team drivers. The mandated new HOS will produce many tired drivers behind the wheel.

In our opinion being able to split log “5 on 5 off” is far more of a plus health wise than “10 on 10 off” will ever be. The greater health issue, which is totally a personal decision, is paying attention to what you are putting into your body along with getting some form of physical exercise. My wife and I are in good health operating at a high degree of safety and it has all been a personal decision. We didn’t need the FMCSA to help us with any of that.

It seems to us the FMCSA has looked at the team drivers and single drivers as being the same. Just CMV drivers. We are all human and we are all CMV drivers but we can’t operate the same because we have different needs which the FMCSA, it seems, has chosen to ignore.

Before the law came into effect we contacted the FMCSA and voiced our concerns about the up coming new HOS. We also contacted our representatives in Washington DC but to no avail. I know that the FMCSA was pressured by courts who where pressured by special interest groups to change the HOS for CMV drivers but it was the FMCSA who made this decision and it‘s wrong.

The entire trucking industry as well as the general public and special interest groups should be very upset with this decision by the FMCSA. I have always been under the impression the trucking industry wanted drivers like us. Now we have a law that will force drivers like us out of the industry.

That just doesn’t make sense to me although it doesn‘t surprise me because one thing I’ve learned in my trucking career is that sometimes when new laws are implemented it’s pretty easy to see that common sense, and at times even safety, were not the deciding factors.

We love this country and this industry so much that it really hurts us to see some of the things that are taking place.  I’m not sure what life has in store for us now but we’ll continue to leave it in God’s hands. We have decided for the remaining time we are out here safety will continue to be our driving concern.

The safety of ourselves, the safety of the motoring public, and the safety of our customers freight will continue to be our priority. We will make our log books out the way the FMCSA has mandated regardless of it's relevance to safety. 

It’s kind of ironic that we could over come all the financial obstacles, both past and present, then lose our job due to an out of touch governmental agency being bullied by special interest groups demanding a change based on emotion rather than rational intelligent thinking.

Drivers like us are not part of the problem we’re the solution to the problem, folks. Regrettably, we probably won’t be out here serving this great country doing the job we love together as team drivers much longer.

Sincerely,

Carroll and Dora Bean, Jr.