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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On one hand, I wouldn't be surprised if electronic logs were mandatory at some point here, but the industry would push back hard. The reason being: a commercial vehicle is anything with a GVW of 4500kg (federal) or ~11,600kg (AB). Thats every 1-ton truck or more on the roadway. That's a buttload of costs imposed onto the industry.
The majority of the issues I've encountered are stemmed from the fact that you can buy a big cube van, pick-up truck or otherwise commercial vehicle and aren't given an education in the trucking industry regulations. You could be a painting company or furniture mover, and go about your business not knowing you're actually a trucking company. Hell, I've seen companies buy a big rig and 50ft trailer and simply lean on the driver to "manage" the trucking side.
You apply for a safety fitness certificate, it comes with a hand-out that people toss away about trucking, and now you're good to register and insure your big vehicle. You buy a vehicle thinking about business related aspects, such as expanding or cutting costs, not thinking about public safety and adding more safety programs to your organization.
For these reasons, I think even with electronic logs regulations, companies will still skirt the rules. Unless you blatantly can't insure a truck without an electronic log, companies will roll the dice until they come across a CVE officer. That will never happen because insurance companies aren't vehicle enforcement officers.
I think the industry needs a type of COR program strictly for safety fitness certificates, related to vehicle insurance. I've seen what COR has done to improve worker safety and think the same could be applied to Transportation.