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The ELD Dilemna

Illustrative of not defining the actual 'problem' with HOS is the current electronic surveillance method of  ELDs.  By defining the problem on the one hand as 'safety', and on the other hand as an electronic lock to deter adjusting logs, FMCSA has already admitted it does not understand its mission nor its solution, both of which are seen as punitive.

Adjusting logs is a direct function of having to work under rules that both do not understand the work being governed and do not enhance a drivers economic well being.  Besides designing a driver's work days with irregular hours, HOS logs do not guarantee pay for all hours worked.  Instead both paper and E-logs record all the hours in a day drivers must work to do their job, but still allow carriers to pay only for the driving hours.  Non-driving hours can consume from one to 14 hours of a driver's 14 hour allotment of available hours.  If you had this type of pay schedule, wouldn't you 'adjust' your non-driving hours so as to maximize your driving hours, your earning hours? Because you'd have to, in order to make a living.

Until FMCSA acknowledges that working without pay is the driver of the log adjusting, they will rubber stamp any simplistic and automated system offered by the carriers and vendors, whose only goal is more profit at the expense of commercial drivers and by extension, at the expense of the safety of the drivers and  the innocent public.

The ELD Solution Defined devising HOS to allow drivers to prosper safely

Congress charged the FMCSA with the mission of upgrading the HOS with an electronic format.  Congress, however, also does not understand why HOS, as currently written and enforced, is not working.  They have been misled into thinking it is a method problem and thus a different, electronic, method would 'solve' the problem.

As the reader has already surmised, this is only a feel good high tech bandaid. 

If you understand that adjusting logs is an economic based issue, then the obvious solution is to devise HOS to allow drivers to prosper safely.

THE REAL PROBLEM THAT HAS BEEN CREATED BY NEGLECT OF FMCSA AND NEW PUNITIVE LAWS

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George woke up in his cab one morning and didn't feel like driving. "I was exhausted, so I just sat all day in the TA and drank coffee, played some video games. I told my dispatcher that I had been throwing up and couldn't drive. I didn't like lying, and it made me feel like a deadbeat, but I didn't have a choice. I was so tired. Truth be told, I didn't really give a crap about the load anymore, or the job. Nothing really mattered."

The third-year driver, who asked that his real name not be used, wasn't just tired, bored or unhappy about his job, he probably was suffering from 'burnout,' a difference that eludes and confounds both drivers and their companies – even some doctors –  but is a serious and explicit malady from which recovery is more than a solid night's sleep away. While the term burnout often is used incorrectly to describe everything from exhaustion to hating your job, those who have studied the subject say it encompasses specific criteria and, unfortunately, is extremely difficult from which to recover. Many sufferers must quit their jobs to do so.

Nobody knows how much industry turnover is attributable to burnout, but driving a truck almost seems like a job made to order for the problem.

Michael Leiter, who recently joined the faculty at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, has been researching burnout for 30 years. He is one of the editors-in-chief of the peer-reviewed journal Burnout Research. According to Leiter, the current research shows that burnout has three components.

The first is physical and mental exhaustion. "Some people say burnout is just exhaustion, which is silly, since you could just call it exhaustion,” he explained. “It's clearly more than that, but exhaustion is definitely a piece of it. Exhaustion is when you say 'I feel tired when I start my work day.' Feeling tired at the end of your work day is not so bad, but when you feel tired at the beginning, it means that it's chronic. You're not really getting the rest and recovery you need, so that's one dimension, but still it's exhaustion. It's not burnout."

The second is cynicism about the job and distancing yourself from it. "For example," said Leiter, "you used to think you had a neat job, but now you say, 'I really don't give a damn anymore,' and part of that is often tied with being miffed at management for interfering with things. You find yourself saying, 'I just want to get away from this.' It's a kind of distancing and cynicism."

 

The third component is losing confidence in your abilities and skill. "Your sense of efficacy drops," Leiter said. "Ideally, you once felt like you were doing important work, and were good at it, but with burnout, you start doubting whether your work is important and that you're good at it." This combination of exhaustion, cynicism, and a lack of efficacy defines burnout."

When told of these criteria for burnout driver George said, "Yes. I felt all of this."

Leiter added: "What we find with people who are burned out is that they're concerned about workload and having too many demands, but they also are just really frustrated with everything about the job. They don't like the management of it. They don't like the pay.  Everything seems unfair, and they say things like: 'People are just really unpleasant to me, I don't like these people at all, and everything about this job is...  I don't like it at all."

Burnout is a relatively new concept, having been identified by psychologist Herbert Freudenberger in the 1970s, who coined the phrase based on his work at free clinics and therapeutic communities. In 1980, he published “Burn Out: The High Cost of High Achievement.” What it is and how to survive it, a book that became a standard reference on the topic. Much of his ideas survive, but his original 12-stage rubric of burnout has been pared down to three criteria. "It isn't quite so organized in that way, and the data doesn't really support it so much. It was a good early try to make sense out of it, but I don't really subscribe to that [the 12 stages]," said Leiter.

Vishwanath Baba, professor of management and chair, human resources and management at DeGroote School of Business, McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, who studies stress and burnout, agrees.

"The first symptom of burnout is exhaustion,” he noted. “You’re tired and oftentimes you're not merely physically tired but mentally tired. It is what I call emotional exhaustion. That is the first sign of burnout.”

When you're emotionally exhausted, he added, you're not able to provide the kind of service or attention that your work demands. You depersonalize the people you're working for and your customers. Then you start feeling guilty about it. "You think, 'I’m supposed to be good at this, but I don’t think I’m good at it anymore.' Self-doubt starts seeping in."

To Baba and others who research the issue, it's more effective and easier to deal with the causes of burnout before they occur. He is adamant about this. "My attitude is that it's much better to deal with the stress and the antecedents of stress, rather than treating burnout. It is already quite late when you start feeling burnout. When a manager sees burnout in a person, the best strategy is to reassign them." He added: "Take them away from the work environment and reassign."

He admits that this isn’t easy for carrier managers to do. Baba, who has presented his findings on driver stress to trucking industry stakeholders, says that managers can help by seeing early indications of burnout in drivers and taking action. "Burnout is an end state. It doesn't happen overnight."

The most important signs for managers to look for are drivers dragging their feet on assignments, being negative about everything and reluctance about doing the job. There are several remedies that managers can employ. The first is to increase a driver's resources such as more time to do the job and the training to deal with it. "As a manager, you need to make sure that the demands you place upon your workers are reasonable. I always tell managers to build a little slack time in designing work for their people." Again, it's not an easy fix for drivers.

Baba added: "Be realistic in terms of what resources are needed and make sure workers have those resources, including intellectual resources. If someone doesn’t know how to do certain things, provide training. Make sure they have equipment that is working and in good shape… in other words, try to minimize their stress level."

He noted that dispatchers and managers need to appreciate that not all drivers are the same. Some can handle what's thrown at them and others cannot. "Instead of treating them all as an undifferentiated mass, take a look at these [troubled] people and ask them, 'What is the problem?' Try to start a conversation. "

Leiter and Baba concur that social networks, phone conversations and other interactions can help prevent burnout if drivers are willing to reach out. "It's difficult for a truck driver [because they're alone most of the day] but strong, supportive relationships to the people at work and outside work can make a very big difference. They say people don't quit a job; they quit a boss, but they also quit a team, so when you have other people that you're connecting with, these relationships are as valuable as they can be."

As for George, he quit driving and now works in construction. "I just didn't want to drive anymore. I hated it. It didn't bring me the joy or money I expected. My attitude is way better now about everything."  

 

OUR RIGHT TO STAND AGAINST THE ELD MANDATE STEMS FROM THE RIGHTS OF ENGLISHMEN UPON WHICH OUR OWN BILL OF RIGHTS IS BASED

We did not make these mandates that are issued against our freedom, our economic well being and our safety.  The ELD is a perversion of law, a set of chains imposed upon us truck drivers by those who will use the law against us and for their own enrichment.  This is not the way of America.

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http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/servlet/DCARead?standardNo=076152553X&standardNoType=1&excerpt=true

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The legal security that the poor share with the wealthy is based on a set of principles known as the Rights of Englishmen. These rights serve as armor against capricious arrest, confiscation of property, and deprivation of life, limb, and liberty, and they protect every "Englishman" against predatory actions of government. The rights flow from a unique conception of law, but they were not handed down from above as natural law carved in stone. Rather, they are human achievements, fought for by those who believed in them.

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Between each Englishman and the government stand a few basic legal principles that prevent the government's use of the law as a weapon for oppression.

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The most essential protection is the precept that there can be no crime without intent. But the opposite is also true,  The fact that the HOS recorder of record is the ELD, which operates as warrantless surveillance, is the proof of the opposite, that the ELD is a weapon of oppression.This foundation of a just legal system is based on the presumption that people have a moral compass that allows them a choice between violating the law and obeying it. To make it easier to ensnare people, Caligula, the Roman tyrant, wrote his laws in small print and posted them on high pillars to prevent ordinary people from knowing the law. In contrast, basing crime on the accused's intent guards individual liberty by ensuring that people cannot be convicted for offenses that they did not intend to commit. By the same token, this law should ensure the ordinary people that the FMCSA committees need be held liable for their intended violation of our liberty by mandating this ELD device. As eighteenth-century jurist William Blackstone wrote in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, "An irregular act without a vicious will is no crime at all." And Qualcomm, the carriers and vengence committees have loudly and regularly declared their ill will towards truckers.  Economic surety and safety are not sought after with evil intent but are a law of survival that supercedes any law crafted by those predators, who intend to profit from our digital thralldom.

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TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION IS THE APT METAPHOR FOR THE PROTEST OF THE ELD MANDATE

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Previous and continuing into now, the FMCSAs advisory committees are adversarial to the population that they are empowered to oversee.  Mega carriers, vendors and vengeance groups occupy 17 out of 20 seats.  Making a show of getting input from drivers, FMCSA offers an open comment period, where tens of thousands drivers expressed their dissatisfaction with the FMCSA mandates.  Expressions that were as effective with this adversarial committee as trying to blow out the fire of the sun with a few strong breaths, because of their agenda of power over and profit from us all.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/house-arrest-surveillance-state-prisons

Few think of it this way, but the ankle bracelet is a constant, warrantless surveillance, which violates the constitution..

ELDs' 24 hour surveillance of your location, movement and actions are also, by definition, a violation of the constitution.

To sum up, the ELD dilemna is more than the sum of its parts, including:

monitoring your working time but still not providing the force of law to ensure that you are paid for all that time.

monitoring your actions necessary to do your work, like avoiding accidents, and harassing you and forcing you to endure censure and forcing you to travel to a certain site to be subject to training films, demeaning your professionalism.

monitoring your eating times, insisting you only eat at their discretion

monitoring your bathroom breaks, the most personal action a person can take, which should not be anyone's right to know

exposing you to coercian to run past your legal time window by carriers who can actually change these parameters

OOIDA has it Right - ELDs violate the constitution for unwarrranted surveillance

Five unintended consequences created by the willful ignorance of FMCSA, because they did not consult their attorneys.

1. ELDs automatically create employees of independent contractors in direct violation of  IRS rules.

2..ELDs create an opening for carriers to adjust drivers logs, adding more hours and harassing drivers to run them.

3. ELDs create a back door for remote takeover of a trucks operating system by hackers, as proven by UMI. 

4. ELDs create even more restrictions on a driver's ability to earn a living by forcing them to eat non-driving hours.

5. ELDs create an atmosphere of greed, where the vendors and carriers earn obscene profits at the expense of drivers.

The ELD Solution

ELD profiteers spun the lie of safety and the Fed's, like the Emperor, clothed their mandate in its fragile virtual weave. Never the less, we call the ELD by it's proper name, digital slavery.  The garment of  safety quickly unravels to reveal an illegal unwarranted surveillance device, forcing drivers to drive faster and more carelessly because of the loss of elasticity inherent in paper logs; a device that reduces drivers to machines, replacing their professional judgement with algorithms.

From The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey says, "Our basic nature is to act, and not be acted upon. As well as it enables us to choose our response to particular circumstances it empowers us to create circumstances.

2017 by She, who nevertheless, persisted

The ELD solution begins with the current HOS design.  A drivers week is defined as 70 hours of driving in 8 days, with a maximum of 14 hours on duty, not driving and driving, for the whole day. It is further defined as up to 11 hours of driving per day.  Doing the calculations for one week, the driver has the potential of driving 11 hours for 6 days, 4 hours for the 7th day, and no hours on the 8th day.  Coupled with the ability to carryover unused hours of one day onto the next, and you have a constantly changing and constantly recalculated HOS, which in itself can lead to errors in arithmatic.  

Without going into the history of the reasons for this convoluted design, the first, quickest and simplest upgrade to HOS recording is to specify equal hours every day, 10 hours a day, every day, with no carry over, just the same 70 hours in 7 days as the current HOS design has, but without an 8th day.  This will make for a more regular and even HOS day..

Second, all hours on duty and not driving need to be paid for by the hour.  This calculation is easily done by using the rate per mile for driving and calculating this to a rate per hour.  Depending on the drivers mileage pay, this will vary by carrier, but would still be based on income already being earned.  Introducing this hourly compensation into a drivers work day will make sure that they are paid for all hours on duty, which will, of necessity, reduce the pressure on the drivers to adjust their logs in order to earn a reliable income each week to support their families.

These two adjustments alone would nearly eliminate any perceived need to adjust hours to make a viable living.

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LETTER TO DOT SECRETARY CHAO

The Honorable DOT Secretary Elaine Chao May 8, 2017

 

Dear Secretary Chao,

There are moments when problems enter our lives and we can do nothing to avoid them. But they are there for a reason. Only when we have overcome them will we understand why. We both know that you must accurately define a problem or your solution will fail. The ELD Mandate is a failed solution, a punitive and expensive tourniquet, further restricting a drivers ability to prosper. But it’s also a golden opportunity to address the real reason drivers adjust their logs: the inadequate HOS.

FMCSA is in the uncomfortable position of outlier. No one in FMCSA has any hands-on experience in operating a semi truck over the road in America. None have lived the life. It’s no wonder that the golden voiced lobbyists and marketers are being relied on to formulate a mandate for ELDs. Our voices now need to be heard, to tell the truth in plain and simple words, of how it really is for us who are the real face of trucking, who know the challenges, who know what it takes to be successful, safe drivers, who know the reason that HOS doesn’t enable us to do so. It’s all about time and money.

The FMCSA has issued a mandate for electronic logging devices to be used in every commercial vehicle in America. The reason offered is safety. The dissension surrounding this mandate suggests to us that this solution does not create conditions for safer driving nor does it meet the real needs of American truck drivers. On the contrary, it creates more pressure for drivers to engage in unsafe driving habits like speeding and aggressive driving. We should like to offer a better way.

The above facts and many published statements lead us to conclude that FMCSA does not have a clear understanding of the problem they are proposing to solve. Because FMCSA has not asked us, who make our living as truckers, the ELD has been drafted as a rigid, control-focused solution, which has resulted in the following claims against it: The claim that these ELDs are unwarranted surveillance without a court order; the claim that this restricts a drivers ability to earn a sufficient living; the claim that carriers can harrass drivers and falsify ELD records so as to push them past their legally alloted work hours; the claim that the forced installation of these devices renders all independent contractors as employees without benefits of law per the IRS; the claim that ELDs endanger drivers by preventing them from exercising judgement in critical situations, like braking, exposing them to unnsafe parking, to operating in severe weather events and preventing them from taking normal food and rest breaks.

The claim that drivers adjust their logs to increase their work hours is what FMCSA uses as justification for imposing this mandate. The reason drivers do this has never been established. The motives have always been explained as cheating by outlaw drivers. Talking one on one to drivers will quickly show that the reason why logs are adjusted is strictly economic survival. So if the problem is defined as economic survival then the solution is revamping the HOS to guarantee a steady livelyhood for drivers and their families, instead of the current ELD solution which is punitive and costly.

Examining the current HOS, one discovers a convoluted and irregular schedule for a driver’s work day, plus a huge inequity in that it allows a driver to work up to 14 hours per day while getting paid for only one of the tasks worked. This alone creates an unstable, unreliable and frustrating income situation for a driver. Revealed as well are the irregular hours available for this one kind of work, which is driving. This compromises a driver’s ability to earn a steady income. Imagine for a moment your employer gives you an erratic schedule which varies by the day and the week. You have bills, kids in college etc. Some months you make your mortgage, other months you do not. This is the economic predicament of most truckers under the current HOS rules. Some days, drivers are on duty all 14 hours without driving. We can personally testify to this. That results in a zero payday.

The inadequate HOS need to be rewritten. Instead of irregular days and hours to drive, the work day should be set as 10 hours driving each and every day, instead of 70 hrs in 8 days, creating a simple, reliable work week. In addition, the non-driving hours worked per day, no matter how many, need to be paid, by the hour, the particular hourly rate to be determined by the rate per mile for an hours travel time divided by 60 minutes. Then all hours worked in a driver’s 14 hour day, are paid for at the same rate. Combined with the same hours set for driving each day, this makes logging clear and simple for the driver, offers a steady income and eliminates the pressure to adjust logs for survival.

Accepting this solution will allow FMCSA to step back and evaluate the ELD concept from a new viewpoint, that of a driver’s unique perspective, because who knows more about what it takes, mentally and physically, to succeed safely, than they who do the work. A wise man observed that “by three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” Reflecting on these real world reasons will lead to this sought after paradigm shift, which will enable FMCSA to redesign HOS from a wisdom standpoint rather than a confrontational and punitive paradigm. And safety will be the winner after all.

Currently, FMCSA allows two electronic versions of ELD as their solution to HOS adjusting: a new smart phone app and an ECM device. Our research shows that the earliest version of an ELD was a simple and inexpensive USB and flashdrive combination that independent auditors and the regulatory enforcement community supported and approved as meeting their basic needs. See FMCSA’s website.

However, the major vendors objected on the grounds of vulnerability to tampering. This claim has also been publicly denied by independent auditors, as also shown on FMCSA’s website.

Engine connected ELDs are profit making devices for vendors and offer 24 hour scrutiny for carriers. They are falsified by carriers and are a back door for remote control by hackers. All this is already posted online. The paper logs are completely under control of the drivers. Smart phone apps are too, and they’re easily accessed by law enforcement. FMCSA’s acceptance of the claim that log adjusting is economic, leads us to believe that the inexpensive smart phone app would suffice as the simplest and cheapest recording solution for the new HOS hours. With the new HOS providing a stable income, there would be no reason to adjust logs and no justification for the coercian, tracking and cost associated with much more expensive engine connected ELDs promoted by the vendors and carriers. Rejecting these ECM/ELDs would also result in a saving of over $3 Billion Dollars to the industry.

With the acceptance by the FMCSA of redoing the HOS for regular days and a stable income, this will eliminate the reason for log adjusting. Rejecting the need for the costly, intrusive engine connected ELDs would also eliminate intervention by the IRS, from the the illegal downgrading of independent contractors to employees that engine connected ELDs have automatically created.

Drivers surveyed do like the simplicity of ELD smart phone apps, which they say are just a modernization of record keeping, similar to seguing from a manual typewriter to a keyboard. The smart phone has been universally adopted because of its extraordinary abilitiy to better our lives. This suggests to us that the smart phone app would be easily and quickly adopted by drivers, if the HOS provided the economic stability we suggest it be redesigned to do, because it will also better our lives and encourage safer driving.

And thus, with a few simple strokes of the pen, the ‘problem’ of safety will be resolved.

We anticipate strong resistance to these sensible changes to HOS and the use of Smart Phone apps, by the vendors who will lose the profit from engine connected ELDs and from the carriers who will see this as losing the 24 hour surveillance of drivers that these expensive and invasive devices provided. In spite of this resistance, FMCSA’a new HOS will lead to safer driving and better economic conditions for all drivers, at little cost, and will truly be the correct and elegant solution, because it is a direct result of correctly defining the reason for the problem, HOS.

We urge FMCSA to resist every single effort to allow trucking regulations in America to demean truckers and reduce their work and lifestyle to a small and spiteful occupation. And we urge FMCSA to resist every single step toward the takeover of our government and industry by vendors and carriers. And finally we urge FMCSA to fight for a future not just for the rich and powerful, but a future in which all American drivers will succeed and thrive…..safely. Such a future is within our power.

Secretary Chao, you have a rare opportunity to make things right in an industry that is the life blood of America but regulated with a total lack of understanding of the work and those who perform it. With your success in the Dept of Labor and your revamping of United Way, we believe with this additional understanding of the true issue of trucking, HOS as currently written, you will be able to transform these guidelines to better reflect the true needs of truckers and to better insure their safety.

It is our pleasure to offer this brief summary to help you to create equitability in our industry. At present, FMCSA has degenerated into the issuing of punitive and on-again and off-again regulations which have never addressed the true heart of the challenges of HOS, the HOS itself. Changing the HOS will create real world safety conditions that are simple, inexpensive and workable. Isn’t that the goal?

Addendum: It has been estimated that the cost to the industry to purchase and install over 3 million ELDs is initially over 2 Billion Dollars and the cost for air time fees will be over 1 Billion Dollars per year, whereas smart phone apps are simple, free, hackproof and driver and DOT friendly.

In mathematics and engineering, the term Elegance refers to a solution, like shown above, where the maximum effect is achieved with the smallest or simplest effort.

Current HOS rules lack applicability, regularity and predictability for the very people they are alleged to serve. Redesigning HOS so drivers are paid for all hours worked and to create regularity in a drivers work day is a perfect example of Elegance. The cost to FMCSA to rewrite HOS and implement these new and easily compliable standards will be minimal. The savings to the industry will be huge,$3 Billion dollars. And it supports the President’s goals of reducing the regulatory burden.

Solving problems, creating Elegant solutions while saving $3 Billion Dollars – what a legacy!

 

NEXT? Driver Training: Hairdressers in Wisconsin have more stringent training than drivers. http://fleetowner.com/management/feature/fleet_safety_bottom_line. A Liberty Mutual Insurance Study concluded that “the safest action plan for a trucking company to initiate was to hire good drivers.

Good drivers perform the safest.” Well trained drivers and upgraded HOS, a double safety legacy.

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STORIES ILLUSTRATE TRUTH FOR MILLENIA

Hey Daddy, can I come along with you on your trips this week? It’s vacation time and I’d sure like to.

Sure Honey.

OKAY

Done with breakfast, Angel, then let’s roll.

Hoo hoo, you got it Daddy.

Be sure to buckle your seatbelt, dear. We’re going to have a great time this week, aren’t we?

Yes!

Man starts punching buttons on little gray box on dash.

Daddy?

What honey,

What’s that? You didn’t have that in your truck last summer.

Oh, that is an electronic logging machine.

Why

So Daddy doesn’t have to write down his time anymore, see, just punch a button

Is that better

Sure

Why

It saves Daddy 5 minutes so he can drive more

Oh

Daddy

Yes

I gotta go pee

Oh, honey, you’ll have to wait

But Daddy

My company won’t let me stop to go pee any time I want to. They say I gotta drive 8 hours before a break

Oh, but Daddy, oooooooooooo

OK ok, here’s a rest area, hurry now honey

Thanks Daddy, I just made it, what’s that noise

That’s the company wanting to know why I stopped

Are they mad at you Daddy

Yes, honey, they are

Why Daddy

Well, honey, they set the rules

Can’t you call a policeman?

No, the law says the company can do that.

Oh

Watch out Daddy, that car just pulled out in front of us

Dang it

What’s the matter.

Well, I just had to hit the brakes hard

But you had to Daddy or you would have hit that old grandmother and she could have got hurted

You’re right honey, but…

Oh Daddy there’s that noise again.

That’s the company again, wanting to know why I braked.

Oh, Daddy make it stop

I can’t honey, and the traffic is so thick I can’t take my eyes off the road to answer

Daddy, you just ran a red light

Well, honey, I wasn’t sure when the yellow light would turn, so instead of hitting the brakes hard again I took a chance.

Daddy, we could have been hit

I know honey.

Ring ring ring

Mumble mumble mumble, ok, sure, ok, bye mumble mumble

What’s the matter Daddy

We have to go over to the company building now

But Daddy, we’ll be late for your delivery

I know honey

Then the company will be mad and yell at you again

I know honey

Why do we have to go to the company Daddy

Because they want me to watch a video on how to drive

But Daddy you are a good driver

Not according to the company

Daddy,

Yes honey

I don’t want to ride with you anymore

Why not honey

Because it’s not fun when the company yells at you all the time

I know, it makes me so worried that I can’t concentrate

Then let’s go home and you can come to work with me, Daddy

Oh?

Yes, you can help me at my lemonade stand and I promise I will never yell at you either

You got a deal, darlin’!

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THE REAL WORLD

http://www.overdriveonline.com/tired-truckers-back-in-the-headlines-and-the-limits-benefits-of-safety-technology/

I. wrote a little about Landstar-leased owner-operator Gary Buchs’ thoughts on TuesdayWhen Buchs and I talked, he mentioned his own opting in to such hard-brake monitoring after Landstar began requiring electronic-logging platforms for new contractors and pledging to then upgrade existing contractors on their dime to the platform if they chose to do so. That particular monitoring feature of the electronic system was optional, he says, and after a time he came to the conclusion that it was more of a deterrent to his own safe operation that the latter.

Remember, we’re not talking about an active safety-assist feature here, just an ECM reader, essentially, that communicates hard brake events to the back office for purposes of coaching. “It caused me to run a red light,” says Buchs. “I was worried about hitting my brakes too hard. I had gotten a call a week before” after a car made a rolling turn at a stop light and I had to hit the brakes too hard. They called and said, ‘What’d you do?’ I knew I’d done the right thing.” He asked the person on the other end of the line, “How fast was I going?” The answer — 28 mph. The speed limit on that road was 35.

In this case, the conversation didn’t have the intended effect, which is to put safety in the front of the mind, to keep keen awareness on-highway awareness sharpened. “A week later, I got caught on a two lane with a light where it turns yellow,” without enough time to make it through the intersection. “I hesitated,” says Buchs, worried about registering a hard brake, “and it caused me to run the red light.

“I went in and said, ‘You’ve got to turn that thing off on my truck.’ They didn’t want to – but they said, we’re glad you told us.”

Ultimately, the incident suggests, there can be no substitute for situational awareness on the road for highway safety. Whatever comes of active driver-assist safety technologies in the near future, it will remain an aware driver that is the bedrock of all trucking safety.

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It’s a Crazy World Alrighty …another story

It’s a crazy world, alrighty. In fact even my normally sweet tempered Granny just slapped me upside the head for talkin funny, what with Eldees, and hacking (what, your truck’s got a bad cough like Gramps? ) Granny says, tain’t hardly a body knows what you modern days’ younguns are talking about, so talk in good English, or I’ll whup you again, Sweetums ( that’s what she calls me). So, OK!

Those newest “safety” devices called ELDs the gov’ment wants to make you put in your own truck? You know, those little tiny gray boxes with the little tv window they hang on the dash of your truck with stickin tape or a tiny hook? They call them Eldees, you know like Eddie’s or Bobbie’s or some such name. Now you ain’t gonna believe this, and thank goodness my sweet Granny ain’t here or I’d get whupped side of the head, again!
Some Russians can sneak into them Eldees, over the internet and make your truck crash, did ya know?
Yup, just like that telephone on the wall is a two way street, so is that pesky “safety” device a two way street. It’s true! And it must speak Russkie too, which is kinda funny the gov’ment would do that, eh?

You know how some folks say ‘if two aspirin is good, then 5 or 6 must be better”?
That’s kinda how those gov’ment folks think too. So besides logging, they check your oil, change your wipers and wash your winders too. Actually they act like a little leprechon in your engine. Just picture one of those little fellers, sitting on his toadstool with a set of earphones, giving his best OO7 impression, checking your movement with a gps scanner, triangulating on the moon phase and then sending all this vital info by way of Russian hookers or something like that. And that ain’t no lie, hardly. But safety kinda don’t come into play here, you know, ‘cause I know that too many cooks spoil the broth, thanks to Granny for that one, and it’s the same here, dontch know. Now my mechanic down the street here abouts, always works by hisself, too many tire thumpers clog the carburator, or something like that. What I’m atrying to say is that this here Eldee is overkill and they’s gonna get someone kilt with it. Somehow or other, this little leprechon can yank on your steering wheel or pull down on your brakes and you just gotta go along for the ride, short as it may turn out to be.

Personally, what I see ever’ morning in my shaving mirror is the best ‘safety’ insurer I got.
Now I hear some of these drivers give high marks to their Eldees, because it satisfies their idea
of letting a machine do their thinking for em. Well, these folks can have their cake and eat it too.

Those Smart Phones that are permanently attached to their thumbs (that’s a bit of trucking humor, dontcha know), these Smart Phones can do all that with Apps like BigRoad, that hardly cost a dime and keep those pesky Russkies’ paws offin your equipment.

So let’s vote them Russkies out, and Eldee too. And we’ll use those itty bitty cute little Smart Phone Apps, and I’d kinda like to change their name from Eldee to maybe perhaps Sweetums, no that’s MY name, or Sugar Pie or maybe Elvira, ‘cause I’m kinda partial to that song dontcha know. 

Now, I’m a going back to my sweet Granny and read her this here letter and I’ll betcha she’ll be so proud of me for listening to her that she’ll probably haul out some of that there homemade bread pudding for me and maybe even gimme an extry glop of that there sweet cream whippin cream I love.

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HOW THE POPE HELPED RUBE GOLDBERG FIX THE ELD’S

Mitch McConnell’s wife needs to do some housecleanin’.

Hey, y’all, Betsy Mae here, thinkin’ about them e-Ldees that’s got all my CB buddies all so hoppin’ mad.

Seems that Mitch McConnell has hisself a wife who’s got herself a new sekritary’s job in the dot up there in that Washington DC. But she ain’t awrittin’ nothin’ yet, which is kinda puzzlin’ ‘cause that’s what my first job was, way back when, before the chitlens and all.

Anyway, that there Mitch McConnell’s wife, she needs to do some house cleanin’ before she can get down to business, dontcha know. There seems to be a fox in her henhouse and her boss, the Emporer ain’t got no new clothes even tho his kissy uppers keep tellin’ him he do. Can ya tell I’m kinda partial to them Aysupps Fables and all. They is a lot to learn from them funny stories. They kinda get ya to laughin’ and learnin’ at the same time. Kinda easier to swaller’ bad news if you can’t help a laughin’

Anyway, that there Mitch McConnell’s wife, she is gonna need a pretty doggone big broom to skoot them money grubbers outa her baileywick.

S’pose I oughter start at the front part of all of this here story.

Seems them money grubbers started in on my CB buddies years and years ago. ‘Bout the 1980’s, the gov’ment decided to bop the trucker unions up side the head ‘cause they was gettin’ too uppity and holdin’ folks for ransom and all. They also had ever’thing all their own ways, bein’ the gov’ment had to ask the union folks, kinda pretty please, if another truckin’ company could do some truckin’ in their neck of the woods, and a’course, the union folks said uh uh, and that was that. So some a these wanna be truckers got real cozy with the gov’ment and got a law made that let just anybody with a big ole truck to get in the truckin’ business. Oh, how they crowed that the truck drivers was gonna get real rich what with all the trucks that were gonna be needin’ drivers, dontcha know. But, and this here is a real big but, these new truckin’ companies got the gov’ment to let them give the drivers pay only for steerin’ even tho someone had gotta get the loads onto the trucks and then get them self same loads offin’ the trucks. Oh, boy was them new truckin’ companies rollin’ in clover. Free labor and all, shucks they hada go to the Farm & Fleet store ever’ week, just to keep gettin’ new wheel barrows to cart all their new found wealth to the credit union vault. Them was high flyin’ times alrighty, for the companies, that is.

Now what’s sauce for the goose turns out to be used motor oil for the gander. The more drivers worked, the less greenbacks they got. It all got pretty tough, so the truckers figured out that as long as no one was a lookin’ over their shoulders, they could do some fancy arithmatic  and etch a sketch line drawin’ and get themselves more earnin’ time.

Trouble is, a bunch of them new drivers started gettin’ mighty tired and runnin’ into things like other truckers and summa them 4 wheeler, from bein’ up too long some days.

The gov’ment started to catch on, and kinda invented a electric time clock the could be run sorta like a two way radio. Now don’t ask me how that could work, ‘cause I don’t know. I just know 10-4 and that kinda talk. Anyhow, that there electric time clock was workin’ overtime keepin’ track of some of the truckin’ companies drivers, so the driver’s couldn’t get creative anymore. Oh boy, now comes the good part.

Since ever’body didn’t have to have one of these electric clock radio’s, the rest of the truckers just kept creatin’ their drive time like before. Now that kinda ticked the big companies off, losin’ money and all, so they came up with their own Aysupps Fables.

They called it a Safety Mandate. Suddenly, them there radio clocks was the next best thing to sliced bread, dontcha know. Kinda like the Emporers New Clothes. They figured since they used the magic word safety, they could put one over on the gov’ment, and they were right. The gov’ment, dontcha know is not made up of smart folks. But they sure like to look like they know what they is a doin’, primping and preening and sending out new releases, shaking hands and looking like the cat that swallowed the pigeon.

With all their struttin’ and with their fingers crossed behind their backs, these here rich truckin’ companies started usin’ big technical words, talkin’ like a cross between the preacher and that there cure all salesman that shows up once a year at the county fair.

They impressed the dickens out of them permanently grinnin’ baby kissin’ politicians, you know the ones who accept flattery by the gallon, who invited them into the henhouse, oops I mean onto the committee that makes truckin’ rules. Oh, by the way, said the politicians, you all know anyone who can make us up some of those electric clock radios? Now these here truckin’ company guys on the committee were related to some old guy named Rube Goldberg. That old Rube made summa the funnest puzzle machines ya ever saw. A whole lotta rigamarole for doin’ the simplest things.

So the truckin’ companies on the committee invited Rubes third cousin twice removed to the committee room to show them politicians his stuff. Hey, said a little professor who happened to be passin’ by on the way to the little boys room. That’s kinda overkill. I betcha I could make a little bitty doo-hicky that would plug into a thingy and it wouldn’t hardly cost nothin’. Well, that didn’t go over well, so the third cousin twice removed gave the professor a boot in the behinder and said mind your own business 4 eyes, or somethin’ like that.

Then all the politicians and the truckin’ committee and the third cousin twice removed all agreed they really had somethin’ now, and boy would it make ever’ trucker safer than a OSHA poster. And they figured out a price and made it a law and called it an ELD Mandate. Just about got themselves a national holiday like Easter outa that, but thought it would be a bit over the top.

Some of them their politicians was so proud of theirselves, a bunch of them had to be taken over to the clinic to have their arms fixed, since they strained them, pattin’ theyselves on the back so much.

Funny thing, though, and it ain’t really ha ha funny, the truck driver kinda missed all the fun of goin’ to the bank with his own wheelbarrow, ‘cause that there mandate put the kabosh to his creatin’ drivin’ time. Another funny thing, no one on the committee even thought of changing the rules so the drivers would get paid for all their time. The only reason the truckin’ companies got theirselves to Washington DC was to make ever’one else suffer like they did.

And the biggest funny of all? The third cousin twice removed and the truckin’ companies could make that there electric clock radio show any time they wanted, so if a driver was up before the chickens and they wanted him to keep drivin’ after the owls went to bed, they could sneak into the back of that clock and move the hands so ever’one thought the sun kept shining longer than it really was, and the driver still ended up runnin’ into things and them little cars and not havin’ anymore fun than a scalded cat, dontcha know.

Remember that little professor? Well he got to thinkin’ about all this and he got to studyin’ on all the troubles his own cousin 4th removed was havin’ in makin’ a livin’ for his family as a trucker, so he started composing a Ex-posy, and no one wanted to read it ‘cause they was bedazzeled by the smilin’ politicians and the dancing girls with the letter signs readin’ safety, on the tv and all. Now, I gotta admit, some o those dancin’ girls was right glittery and their singin’ wasn’t too bad either, but the professor knew there was a skunk in the wood pile.

So, he went to one of them there Ex-posy newspaper reporters and told him every’thing. And the reporter gasped and cried, forsooth, methinks we have been bamboozled, which is Ex-posy reporter talk meaning, yup, that there Emporer done got fooled and is standin’ in front of Kmart with only his skivies on his ownself. (didn’t think I could unnerstand that now, didja?)

The funny thing is, and a’course it tain’t funny t’all, is that none of them newspaper readers gave a hoot. They just shrugged they shoulders sayin’ what’s new anyhoo?

Now this here Ex-posy reporter and the professor started gettin’ a might riled theyselves that they couldn’t any of them readers to get excited, so they sat down in the professor’s basement man cave and watched some tv cookin’ shows and such to calm theyselves. Suddenly, that there Pope Francis was a talkin’ Eyetalian on the telly and all the trans-latins floatin’ down below his picture, I don’t know how they do that either, said this “How wonderful would it be if the growth of scientific and technological innovation would come along with more equality and social inclusion?” and the professor and the Ex-posy reported jumped up onto the couch and danced a jig. That’s it, they hollered, that’s it.

So, they invited that there Pope Francis to our U. S of A and got him a taxi to Washington DC. There was another electric clock radio committee meeting agoin’ on that afternoon, and they kinda snuck into the room afore anyone noticed.

Then, that there Pope Francis started strollin’ up to the committee table and shook hands with the baby kissin’ politicians and the third cousin twice removed, who for probably the first time in their whole lives, opened their pie holes and nothin’ came out. They just stared. That there Pope Francis tole them boys which way the punkin’ patch lay, and even without the tv trans-latin floatin around, they got religion.

They nodded and smiled and nodded somemore and said you betcha, 14 times at least.

Then they all called the Ey-posy reporter’s picture taker and they all shook hands again for the Ex-posy that would be on the evenin’ news, and announced that they had seen the light and without even that there Mitch McConnell’s wife, the dot sekritary, wrote up a rule where all the drivers got paid for everythin’ they did, and the committee would even throw in a new wheelbarrow for each driver.

Now, Mitch McConnell’s wife, she’s a singin’ in the shower. Tomorrow, the gov’ment is gonna put her name on the door of her new office too. Oh, by the way, Mitch McConnell’s wife is called Secretary Chao, and she is the boss lady, just like I was. But, then again, we all knowed it’s the sekritary that is the real boss, anyhow, right?. And they lived happ’ly ever after. And that’s the end of MY Aysopps fable.  It’s a good ‘un, ain’t it?

Whoee, I can’t hardly wait to check in with my CB buddies tomorrow night. They’s gonna be so happy. Might even get me a date with that one that sounds like Elvis, don’tcha know. Whoee!!

​

Gobbledegook is Alive and Well

​

We hear it all the time, the new trucker doesn't communicate his eta. Our answer, order the driver to call and TELL THEM his ETA! Makes too much sense, doesn’t it? The driver? No, no, no, we need to use our 24 hour dynamic ETA predicting hi-tech app, administered by a customer service dude in Schenectady. This will be another excuse for ELDs, won’t it? Another excuse to treat drivers like machines. Talk about another real world disconnect. Here comes that Emporer again.

I did not make this nonsense up, honest! Below is a supposedly serious discussion of the question: What’s the load’s ETA? http://fleetowner.com/fleet-management/real-time-load-tracking-what-price?

J.B. Hunt’s vice president of engineering and technology said, “We’re making big bets that we’re going to fix this [load visibility issue]. To get to higher precision delivery, you have to know where everything is in real time.”

The company has been developing its “predictive delivery” tool for more than a year. They’ve characterized it as “a new and improved transit calculator” that factors in real-time traffic, weather, and “a whole bunch of patterns and our historical data” developed by a team that includes data scientists with the IBM analytics suite at their disposal.

“I think carriers are in the single best position to make the investments and provide the functionality around dynamic ETA,” said Boroughf. “The J.B. Hunt platform is exactly what we’ve been looking for from a carrier partner: Hours of service, transit time, all of these things that factor into advising us what’s going to happen.” “There are layers. To turn that visibility over in a dashboard format to somebody sitting in customer service that can monitor all the loads for the customer they manage, and proactively communicate, is really game changing,” he added

Kellogg's Steeves suggested that "not all carriers are created equal," and the company evaluates such situations from the perspective of "a classic cost/service tradeoff. There are some people we're willing to pay a little more for service and some we're not,” he said. “Our team's responsibility is to balance that and deliver both on a regular basis. We hear from customers all the time, 'if you'd just told us it was late, we wouldn't be upset—but we've waited three days to hear from you,'” Steeves continued. “Providing this level of visibility as part of a basic-price offering is going to be a differentiator for transportation providers. It's not an add-on anymore."

USG agreed that “classic transportation management” still plays a role.

Do you have a legacy carrier or incumbent premium built in? Are you measuring specific lane premiums, such as a DC lane that is very susceptible to service issues?” he said. “There's definitely room for subjective professionalism to manage it." Sometimes we find when we come back with our proposal that the shipper is not completely comfortable with the cost, and would prefer to go down a more conventional procurement route.”Like I said, "have the driver phone ahead with eta"  OMG

Legacy carrier, classic transportation management, incumbent premium, subjective professionalism are terms I have never heard of. You see what I mean by disconnect? The Emporer will see you now.

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