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Originally Posted by redflamesfan08
Or even just the general mindset of people.
I've seen so many comments here and in other places about the attitude that running stop signs is OK if "its almost always safe" or some such nonsense. Its a stop sign. Stop. That's it. In bike terms, an Idaho stop is one thing, but running it at 80% of full speed is entirely different.
Seriously, the industry might have its own issues, but the population at large is more at fault, in my opinion.
Throw the book at the driver, and actually start ticketing the morons that run stop signs, urban, rural, whatever.
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The problem isn't always with the drivers. You have to understand these guys are dispatched, limited to constraints given to them by people in the office. Sales guys make promises to appease clients and boost revenue, pressuring everyone down the chain of command.
I'll give you some examples. Guys are given time to conduct proper pre-trip inspections. But then I've seen it where a HUGE client is waiting on a load and pressures a trucking company to hustle up. So what happens? The manager is yelling at drivers to get that truck on the road, forget about the pre-trip and cargo checks. I remember one inexperienced heavy hauler not knowing how an excavator should be loaded on a low boy and then hit a bridge. That excavator was needed on site for the beginning stages of construction. The driver just took the load and was told to get moving.
I remember our company couldn't get permits in Ft. Mac, but promised the client an immediate start date for construction on site. What happened? We subbed out the mobilization. I know for a fact that sub couldn't get permits either because we tried everything but it wouldn't fit within the timeline. The sub got it there on time and rolled the dice on not having the permits.
Here's another scary example. One time I needed to find a driver who can pass a 6-panel piss test by the afternoon for a load promised to a big O&G company. Out of 10 drivers I asked, only one could pass. Were any of them fired? No. That's a huge part of your labour force and screws your committments up for at least a month. They all clocked in the next day and drove a 40,000 kg vehicle on public roads, with who knows what lingering in their system.
I've met very few drivers who fully know the HOS regulations for each jurisdiction because like what was mentioned already, the Class 1 program doesn't teach it. Do you think sales guys or dispatchers know it? They're the ones telling drivers to be "here, here and here within X amount of hours" and did so using Google maps alone. Whenever a hiccup happens like a driver refuses, they come to me ask me to "find a loophole". When I tell him it's not possible, they go around and look for a driver to roll the dice, whether internally or to sub it out, thereby squeezing a good family man out of working hours because he refused unsafe work. So what happens next time? The driver just accepts the job.
Its for these reasons the trucking industry has special regulations that enforce vicarious liability; meaning both the company and the driver can be punished.