Quote:
Originally Posted by dre
This is not a typical day of a truck driver but it does happen. Sometimes regulations do more harm than good and force the driver to complete their day.
Most drivers are paid by the mile. You are on the clock as soon as you start your pre trip. That means the government has set a window for you for your work day. You have 16 hours to do what you have to do. Let's suppose your load is to be delivered in Vancouver the next day. It takes about 12 hours to get there. Pre trip is 8:00 am. Minimum of 15 minute pre trip on the truck. 8:15 you drive to warehouse to pick up your trailer. You get there at 8:45 and after the paper work and locating your trailer it's 9:00. Trailer pre-trip so another 15 min. You finally start your trip to Vancouver at 9:15. You haven't been paid yet. Everything is going great until you get to Revelstoke (4h30 min). They started avalanche control at Three Valley Gap. It takes 2 hours off of your day. So your up to about 7 hours on your log book. Almost a full working day for most you guys. You still have a good 6 hour drive to Vancouver. You get to Kamloops and you hear that the Coquihalla (the smasher) is getting a bit of snow. Do you risk it or do you take the canyon (highway 1). But if you take the canyon it will add about 2 hours to your trip and you are paid by the mile, but the company pays the shorter distance. So you are not paid for that extra distance by taking the second route.
Anyway it's around 6:30 or 7 in the evening in Kamloops. You have 6 hours before your 16 hours has elapsed. Plenty of time to get to Vancouver, but you are tired and would like to take a nap, but you can't because in order to make it before the 16 hour window you need to reset by taking 8 hours off. You decide to go through the smasher. Everything went well and you get to Vancouver around 10:30. 1 hour and 30 minutes of the 16 hour window.
Now an example of how log books do not prevent you from driving tired.
Let's say the morning went well you did your delivery and you are ready to come back to Calgary. There is no load until 10:00 that night. So you sit in your truck because you are well rested form sleeping the previous night. 10:00 comes and you get your load. You are legally able to drive all night back to Calgary tired as hell. What do you do? You quit.
|
I would not wish trucking on my worst enemy. Companies are getting cheaper and rarely pay a living wage by the hour. Furthermore, they don't want to pay WCB, commercial insurance, and be subject to statutory liabilities, so they only hire "contractors" and make full-time drivers pay that.
Furthermore, the system punishes drivers. If you have a license plate light out, your subject to a pre-trip fine, even though the company knows about it and pumps out kilometers rather than shutting trucks down for maintenance. Drivers need money because they're paid like crap, so they roll the dice. They get fined, try to get the company to pay it, but the company refuses.
By law, the driver is supposed to refuse to drive a truck with any major defect and refuse to drive if a minor defect has been reported over 24hrs ago. If the driver refuses, the company calls him a "defiant" worker who's not a team player. So the driver is eventually fired after taking more than 15 minute smoke breaks. Driver wasn't given proper cargo straps, they face a fine (despite it being the companies responsibility). And worst of all, companies won't hire drivers who have a poor commercial abstract. But nobody cares if a company has a poor R-factor on their carrier profile.
Sure, carrier services conduct investigations, and there's the odd NSC audit, but it's way after the fact and highly reactive. There's like 30K Carriers in the province and only a handful of investigators.