About time
Maybe just maybe the court decision throwing out most of the “new” Hours of Service (HOS) regs now in effect for truck drivers will lead to real reform of those dreadfully outdated rules.
And maybe we were on the right track with our April print-edition cover story titled “When to Drive, When to Sleep” in which I argued rather forcefully that placing simple limits on hours will never fix the very real safety problem truckers face– fatigue at the wheel.
Today’s HOS rules are incredibly divorced from the workaday world of truckers engaged in serving a 24/7 service economy. For one thing, the scary truth is that if drivers did not fudge their logs as much as they do even more of them– and more of the motorists sharing the road with them– would wind up in crashes. And let’s face it, forcing drivers to drive while fatigued or pressuring them to cheat the law doesn’t do much to make trucking an attractive career choice, either.
I said it then and I will say it again here: Does trucking care enough about the safety of its 3-million plus drivers and the millions of its ultimate customers its drivers share the road with to do the right thing and work for meaningful HOS reform?
Indeed, one way to look at this latest court decision is to view it as giving the Feds and trucking interests alike one more golden opportunity to step up to the plate and work together to usher in real regulatory reform that puts safety first and foremost.
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Related Topics: Heavy Trucks, Regulation, Midrange Trucks, Light Trucks, David Cullen, Drivers, Trucking
October 30th, 2007 at 11:31 am
Dear Mr. Cullen,
I just discovered you blog through a co-worker and I find myself agreeing with your opinion on the HOS issues for professional drivers…
I am VP of Public Relations for Effective Control Transport (ECT) we offer fleet managment solutions for the Transport industry. One of our products is the Folo CRAM ( Cognitive Resources Availability Manager) part of the Folo suite of products and services.
The Folo CRAM is a system that can detect the signs of fatigue and lowered cognitive resources up to 2 hours prior to falling asleep. Thus, we have the ability to help the driver and fleet manager or despatcher manage the fatigue by issuing a mandatory rest period or working out the schedule.
This way, we can prevent accidents without cutting back hours of prodctivity… Each driver as an individual has different performance abilities, therefore a tailored aproach is the most efficient.
This system applies to all drivers because even if a driver only does short runs doesn’t mean that he or she hasn’t any sleep debt (for some reason they only slept 4 hours or on medication making them drowsy).
Drowsy driving is an important issue that the motoring public is unfortunately not aware of. There is a code of silence among the leaders of the industry and very few are open to talk about it publicly. My opinion is that they simply dont have a workable solution to this problem and not a lack of caring.
Thank you for writing this article! It would be a pleasure to further discuss this issue with you. We are slowly but surely knocking on the right doors with our solution; we have approached Transport Canada, SAAQ (provincial government entity on transport fo Quebec) and the DOT in Washington, on the 26th of July, 2007. These meetings were successful and to my suprise, our governments (Canada and US) have been looking for a solution for drowsy driving for years.
Awaiting your response with sincerest of regards,
Selam Tewolde
VP Public Relations
Effective Control Transport LLC.
(514) 940-7587 ext.221
s.tewole@econtroltransport.com
www.econtroltransport.com
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