The new (2003) Hours Of Service Regulations weren't even in effect a full year before the various truck-hating groups began crawling out of the woodwork. The re-revised rules go into effect October 1, 2005. A grace period will extend thru December 31, 2005. Starting January 1, 2006, citations for violations will be issued.
I've written this so that "civilians" as well as truckers can fully understand the new rules and the impact they have on highway safety and the economy.
-Alan
Driver's Daily Hours...
First, you need to know what "Duty Status" means. When I'm on the road I automatically fit into one of the following 4 categories:
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The first graphic is the "Driver's Daily Log." Its main component is a 24 hr grid that runs from midnight to midnight. You'll note that the aforementioned Duty Status is a part of the grid. Rest your mouse pointer over any area for a brief explanation of its purpose, or just read on.
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At top left is the date, total miles driven for the day, and the trucking company's name and address. At top right are the truck and trailer numbers, driver signature, co-driver's signature (for driving teams), and main office address. The home terminal address can differ from the main office address. Most large trucking companies have multiple terminals situated near their busiest customers around the country. So, the main office address would be the home office. The terminal address is the location in which a driver is based. In my case they are the same because I work for a small company with one facility. And no, I don't work for "ABC Trucking," and to my knowledge there is no "Yonderville, MS." At one time I actually had my boss's company name on the graphic, but some mental midget took issue with what I had to say about the regulations and actually called my employer to try making trouble for me. I changed the graphic out of courtesy to a very good employer, and did not, by the way, get in any trouble from the complaint. The grid in the middle of the page is the principle part of the logbook. This 24-hour grid runs from midnight to midnight and it's where I chart what I do all day. In the case of the one above, I started out in San Antonio, TX at 5:00 AM. I drove to Houston, TX, picked up a load bound for Jonesboro, AR, stopped for fuel in Shepherd, TX, and stopped for the day in Prescott, AR at 2:00 PM. At the right of the grid you'll see the Total Hours for each "Duty Status" line, and below that a line to write in the total hours of the four lines, which of course must add up to 24. I'm allowed to be On-Duty a total of 14 hours from the time I start the day. I'm allowed to drive 11 hours within the 14-hour period. I'll explain the new limits on working hours in detail shortly. Below the grid is the "Remarks" area. In this section I note the location of each change of duty status in the grid. By looking at the grid and the Remarks, an enforcement officer can see where I was, what I was doing, and when I was doing it. Also in the Remarks you'll see "B/L ABC123". What izzit??? This would be the "Shipper's Number" or "Bill of Lading Number." Each freight bill has a unique identifying number. This is how shippers and receivers track loads, do their accounting, etc. At the bottom of the page you'll see "Origin" and "Destination." Simply put... it's where I came from and where I'm going.To sum up the rules governing my daily hours...
The Sleeper Berth Exception... The sleeper berth exception has been removed as of October 1, 2005. | |
The 70-Hour Rule...
**Note that carriers that do not operate 7 days per week are on a slightly different set of rules... 60 hours in 7 days. Most long-haul drivers like myself work on a 70-hr / 8-day time frame. The structure is the same for both.**This form is on the inside cover of each log book. The example here is somewhat abbreviated so you don't have a lot of clutter to deal with. Here is where I keep a tally of my weekly hours. This operates on an "8-day floating window." I am allowed to work no more than 70 hours in any 8-day period and still drive. I can work as many hours as I wish, but I cannot drive a Commercial Motor Vehicle if I hit the 70-hour mark in an 8-day period. As is typical of anything dealing with government, this is more complicated than it appears, and certainly more complicated than it needs to be. I'll explain how Uncle Sam wants it done...
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In the illustration above, I have worked 67 hours in 8 days, and 57 hours in 7 days. Seventy minus 57 is 13. I therefore have 13 hours available for tomorrow. Remember... I can legally work MORE than 13 hours, but I cannot drive after working more than 13 hours, and in no event may I drive more than 11 hours without a 10-hour break. Here is one of the many pitfalls of the regulations... I'm allowed a maximum of 14 hours per duty shift, but I also have to be sure I stay at or below 70 hours total in any 8-day period. In the scenario described above, I'd have to be sure to get my driving done within 13 hours instead of 14 to avoid being in violation... pure mathematical madness. If I get caught driving while having over 70 hours on-duty, I'm in big trouble. I can work 100 hours per week if I wish, but I can't drive. Under the new rules, I have an option... I can take 34 consecutive hours Off-Duty and "restart" my 70-hour clock. So, if I start on a Monday at 6:00 AM and log 14 hours per day for 5 days (6:00 AM to 8:00 PM each day), I'll run out of hours at 8:00 PM on Friday (14x5=70). I can at this point take 34 hours Off-Duty and begin driving again at 6:00 AM on Sunday morning with a fresh 70 hours. Alternatively, I can continue to operate in the manner described with the illustration above as long as I remain at or below 70 hours. The logic behind the length of the break, 34 hours, is a combination of a 10-hour break plus an additional 24-hour period. This provides 2 opportunities to sleep. The downside of the 34-hour option is that if I continue to work PAST 70 hours (working, not driving), I can't immediately use it to pick up a new 70 hours. I first have to go Off-Duty until enough hours "drop off" that my 8-day total is at or below 70. Each time midnight rolls around, a new "floating" 8-day period begins, so if I take a day off, I have a "zero" day in which no hours are added to the total, while the 8th day back is subtracted. If, for example, I have 80 hours in 8 days, and 8 days back I worked 14 hours, at midnight my 8-day total would drop to 66 hours at which point I could employ the 34-hour break. CHEATER!!! One of the biggest concerns of many people involved at various levels of the rulemaking process is that truckers will find a way to cheat and drive more hours than they're supposed to. Let's get real about this. I've been driving trucks for well over 20 years... I've traveled over 3 million SAFE miles behind the wheel of a semi, so I believe I'm qualified to discuss safety. Hang on tight, because reality and politics don't mix. Ninety-nine percent of us CHEAT ON OUR LOGS. I do it every single day. I'll do it as long as I drive. Before you call nine-one-one, read a little further. Does this mean that I'll be driving while I'm bleary-eyed and sleepy? No... I plan to live a long, long time and I have no desire to trample a Volkswagon or kiss a bridge pillar. All those tabloid-grade talking heads like Connie Chung and Dan Rather love to portray truckers as dangerous, uneducated farmboys operating an 80,000 pound big rig while simultaneously being half-asleep and wired on methamphetamines. This is completely false. Most truckers are regular, everyday people. We do what we do because we love it, even when we occasionally hate it... if that makes any sense. Admittedly, a few people out there actually do drive when they shouldn't. Driving while sleepy is no different from driving while intoxicated. Fatigue is a form of impairment, and driving while impaired is a horrifically dangerous thing to do. I don't do it, nor do I condone it. Hm... I've just said that I cheat on my logbook, but I've also stated that I don't drive when I'm sleepy. How is this possible? First you must get beyond the notion that the new rules (or the old ones) are completely effective in their intended purpose. They're not. Uncle Sam gave it a helluva shot, but once again he stopped short of the goal line. The new rules are better in some respects, worse in others. Anyone whose work requires actually producing something, be it a product or a service, knows that government regulations often create more problems than they solve. The new rules are no exception. When faced with making an honest living and feeding your family, or obeying a bunch of rules that don't fit your industry, what would YOU do? Here are two examples of how I "cheat" on my logs: Cheat #1 I get up about 5:00 AM every morning. I'm on the road by 6:00 AM. I stop once or twice during the day (fuel, lunch, etc). My stops for the day rarely total more than an hour. If I stop to fuel, this will generally take about 30 minutes by the time I pump 150 gallons of diesel, pay the bill, visit the men's room, and hit the road again. Almost no one logs a full 30 minutes to do this. I log 15 minutes. Why? Because it saves one and a half to two hours per week of available working time. And please don't try to tell me that one and a half to two hours per week will make me a menace on the highway, okay? A mindless D.O.T. officer would call this "cheating." I call it "conserving resources." Cheat #2 It isn't unusual for loading and unloading to take HOURS. Technically I'm supposed to log all of those hours as "On-Duty-Not-Driving" since I'm on the dock and expected to be ready to work at any given time. Under the new rules, my day stops 14 hours after it starts regardless of how much of it is logged Off-Duty. But... trimming the loading / unloading time does save me working hours in regards to the 70-hour rule. I generally log 15 to 30 minutes for loading or unloading, and if I'm confident that I'm NOT going to encounter a logbook check, I don't log the other hours spent sitting on a customer's dock. Instead of taking away needed work time, I just don't log it at all until the end of the day, at which time I do what I call "logging while living in a perfect world." According to my log, loading and unloading never take more than 30 minutes, I never encounter traffic jams, and always refuel in 15 minutes or less. The result of this is that I save anywhere from one to three hours per day, depending on what I was doing. This also means that I can "legally" get a normal amount of sleep... 6 or 7 hours... even though I've logged a ridiculous 10 consecutive hours off-duty because I can log the end of my day a few hours earlier than it actually ended (assuming that I don't get caught by an enforcement officer). What in blue blazes am I supposed to do with myself for 10 hours?! How many people do you know who actually sleep 8 hours every night? I don't sleep 8 hours even when I'm at home! Hello? Reality? The important (for you) point is, I'm not out there driving after already being awake for 15 hours. I'm getting a normal amount of sleep every single night and making sure that I have hours available to do my job. You can feel safe while sharing the highway with me, and at some point in time, we will quite possibly encounter one another even though we'll never know it. The two "cheats" I described above are but two of the ways we manage our hours. This becomes even more important under the new rules because there is a net loss of available driving time. And... that lost productivity has a direct impact on YOU. Here's how... The New Rules and Your Wallet... Technically, I guess you could say that the above admissions make me a law-breaking renegade trucker. If you're tempted to say that, first consider this: You do not own anything that wasn't at some point transported by truck except for the dirt under your feet (which could have been brought in by a dump truck). Look around you... I or someone like me delivered your clothing, your food, your car, the gas in your car, your computer, your furniture, the materials to build your home, the tools the capenters used to build your home, your mail, your phone, the gun in your bedside table... do you get the picture? You depend on ME for virtually every material item you have. Try to imagine the gigantic responsibility the trucking industry has on its collective shoulders. We feed and clothe a nation. Then think about us trying to work around a set of rules that hinders our ability to be productive. If our productivity goes down, our operating expenses go up. That means YOU end up paying more for retail goods due to higher freight rates. One major retailer, which has its own private fleet of trucks, has already stated (2003) that it would be forced to add 300 new drivers and 275 new trucks to its fleet to make up for the lost driving time (6% on average) caused by the new rules. Would you care to speculate how they'll make up that added expense? If you guessed "Higher Consumer Prices," give yourself an A. The math is fairly simple. Let's say that this company (it's one we all know... but I haven't asked permission to name them) gets a fair discount for buying trucks in large quantities. You can still figure that each truck will cost right around $75,000 each. And... those new drivers will each be paid in the neighborhood of $40,000 per year. Add insurance and vacation benefits for the drivers... cargo and liability insurance for the trucks, and about $1000 each for license tags for the trucks. The chart below includes the purchase price of the new trucks, the yearly salaries for the new drivers, and related expenses. These figures are approximate since costs can vary greatly from company to company, but they're close enough to effectively represent reality: 
This is just one company. Think about all those major retailers like Target, Wal-Mart, and Sears. Also consider that most grocery retailers have private fleets as well. Companies like Winn Dixie, Brookshires, Food Lion, and so on. Imagine the added cost of the new rules to all of these companies. Then think about it hitting YOU right in the back pocket. The new Hours of Service regulations could easily end up costing consumers billions of dollars over the next few years. By conserving my available hours, I am literally saving YOU money by being more productive. So... do you still wish to call nine-one-one? Go ahead... it's your checking account. By the way... the above numbers do not take into account the cost of maintenance and repairs for those additional trucks, and I didn't attempt to figure out how many additional trailers would be needed. Most private fleets do a lot of "drop and hook" with trailers, and as such I've no no way to figure the cost. But you can bet it'll be substantial.The Bottom Line... In closing, let me add this little tidbit: There are indeed drivers who habitually drive while sleepy, and there are companies that attempt to push drivers beyond reasonable limits. Those companies are rapidly being weeded out through law enforcement as time goes by, as are the irresponsible drivers. The actual number of truck-related accidents nudges upward from time to time, but this is due to the fact of huge increases in the number of trucks on the road. These increases in fleet size are directly due to increased consumer demand... in other words, the large number of trucks you see on the road nowadays is the direct result of you spending money. The trucking industry logs more total miles each and every year, while our accidents per million miles traveled continue to drop. Trucking is getting safer, but we need your help and cooperation to continue the trend. You can do your part by...
For more information on the Hours of Service Regulations, visit the following websites...
Driver's Daily Logs (a software company)
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration FAQ Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Home Page Thanks for visiting alanburkhart.com, and for taking the time to read this article. Your comments and suggestions are welcome. |
Disclaimer:
The information contained within this article is correct to the best of my knowledge. It does not, however, constitute legal advice nor do I claim to be an expert on any portion of the Hours of Service Regulations. I have studied the new rules and communicated with law enforcement and safety personnel. This article is the result of that research. This article is in no way intended to encourage or coerce anyone to break the law or engage in unsafe activities. Your use of this information is entirely at your own risk.
The information contained within this article is correct to the best of my knowledge. It does not, however, constitute legal advice nor do I claim to be an expert on any portion of the Hours of Service Regulations. I have studied the new rules and communicated with law enforcement and safety personnel. This article is the result of that research. This article is in no way intended to encourage or coerce anyone to break the law or engage in unsafe activities. Your use of this information is entirely at your own risk.