Quote:
Originally Posted by OutOfTheCube
I work in office for a large national carrier and things are a lot different for our guys. Everyone is on electronic logs and if you go 10 minutes over you'll have our safety department calling you and shutting you down. Electronic logs are going to become the law for every carrier in very short order, so there won't be any fudging of paper logs any more like there was in the past. Our drivers also get paid waiting time if they are stuck in road closures/weather, layovers if they have to stay somewhere overnight due to bad weather, safety bonuses (additional money per mile) for hitting certain milestones without accidents, full authority to shut down if they are feeling too fatigued or if conditions are too dangerous, etc.
I'm sure things are very different at the small carriers, but at the big boys safety and regulations are VERY important and focused on. Probably our biggest focus.
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This is perhaps why my views on the industry are different than that guy yapping about how I don't know anything. With the big guys everything is monitored to the millisecond, electronically and no driver is getting away with fudging or ignoring anything.....internally.
But yeah, I'll concede that the small outfits likely have to bend and break rules, along with turning a blind eye to stay competitive with the bigger companies. It sucks, it's cutthroat.
I personally don't know why small long haul companies even bother operating. You're never going to make it against large carriers that have a pool of drivers ready to take a load at the drop of a single click command when you've got like 4 drivers on various points in their sleep schedule or still driving.
Either find a niche, typically with body jobs in cities, or interlining to small towns/cities within close proximity to large cities, or don't even try. And I guess the answer is; They do try and have to skirt the law to break even.