Comments on: When would it take effect?

By: Trucking

Trucking — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 02:23:49 +0000

You just sent a question that stated that six months is all that is needed to put the black box in all the trucks.Theirs primarily only one company that are making this black box, there are roughly 2.5 million trucks on the road, and for argument sake lets say half have been made and installed leaving 1.25 million to manufacture and install in six months I think not . Unless somebody knew before this was made law ,and had up their manufacturing which makes more since. Being that the EOBR came out of nowhere was made law and before it could be applied they amended it from 10 percent to 100 percent.So yes now at least leave it stay in that 3 year compliance. The powers that are pushing this want it done before the next election, so that way it is not easy to over tuned when totally implemented and the powers that are would not like that.

By: Curious

Curious — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 20:26:23 +0000

In response to fairgov:

The very same thing will happen to EOBR’s as to what happened with TWIC. Oh, there was a big oh effort made to encourage us to get TWIC. We still don’t have it, and never will.

So those who spent the $132.00, really have no better option of getting loaded than we do. (We stay loaded, and I’m not talking about drugs/alcohol either.)

Their money was spent merely as the result of a scare tactic that you will not be able to make it unless you have it.

Well, when enough of us say: “Enough is Enough”, the message will hit the American Taxpayer’s pocketbooks by paying excessive freight costs for the loads that do get delivered, and the store shelves will be much less stocked. The absence of desired items to purchase will make everyone holler!!!

We’ll be WAITING to answer their needs when they realize they DO need us. And if they find they don’t need us, all I can say is Adois Amigos!

TWIC, EBOR’s, and any other brilliant idea that some desk jockey can come up with, is merely another ticket for someone to make money from us.

What they need to do is let the government pay to install these EOBR’s, and then lay-off the law enforcement that will not be needed as a result thereof.

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 20:42:43 +0000

What do you think about thewanderer’s experience that having EOBRs has made work easier for drivers? If EOBRs are required, what can FMCSA do to make sure all drivers see the benefits thewanderer talks about?

You bring up a good point about Mexican trucks and U.S. safety rules. FMCSA wants to use electronic recording devices to make sure Mexican drivers are following U.S. laws. (You can read more about it here.) How do other users think the proposed EOBR rule will affect American drivers’ ability to compete with Mexican drivers?

By: troller

troller — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:29:28 +0000

First of all, I woulod like to say I am sick and tired of trucking, it has become a overegulated, idiotic, bs filled profession where people get punished for profits. I agree with the wanderer about these eobors, I don;t want them on the trucks and all. drivers today don’t make enough money to sit and wait around for slow *** shippers to get freight off our trucks. and then when we have to pick up and deliver these hot loads we got dot sitinng around taking our salaries in the name of safety to put in their pockets. Now we gotta have computers telings when you are legal. I know the best way to be legal is don’t drive at all. then you won’t have a load to deliver, a company shorting your check, and dot officer screeening for violations, and being blackballed by dac/usis and hireright with flase info the you have to fight like a creidt report tha takes forever and keeps you out of work for a long time. All the big carriers run rookies like **** then fire them for everything they do wrong that by the time the learn how to drive they are gone with a one shot one kill mentality. Now eobors are being mandated for all cmvs. Sounds to me like the goverment wants everybody to be broke and not making money. Do you think shippers care about safety? All they care about is getting their freight delivered. And Now mexican trucks will do that for cheap without the slightest bit of compliance. But we american truck drivers have to comply. OOida is right the government wants to wipe out small business and cowtow to big fleets. that’s wrong. simply put you cant deliver freight legally with all the uncertainty out there on the road, there’s too much to account to just run so many hours and ensure so much deliver. the driver pay has to go up. we cant go around being legally poor. yes we’re saf and legal, but we broke cause nobody’s paying decent rates to have anything hauled anymore.

By: Moderator

Moderator — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 10:50:32 +0000

Thank you for your comment, thewanderer, and welcome to Regulation Room! Because you think that three years is too long, how long do you think that the proposal should be? Do you think that all carriers should be required to comply by the same time, or should larger carriers be required to install EOBRs sooner than smaller ones?

You also raise a lot of interesting points about Hours of Service noncompliance, and FMCSA must determine whether the costs of an EOBR rule will outweigh the societal benefits. Hours of Service noncompliance and driver fatigue as they relate to costs/benefits are a part of another discussion on Regulation Room, so perhaps you would like to contribute to the discussion of “What will this cost?” (http://archive.regulationroom.org/eobr/what-will-it-cost/#3)

By: thewanderer

thewanderer — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 00:30:25 +0000

Three years is too long. 1. Any and all carriers that do not have EOBRs have a distinct advantage over carriers that are already using EOBRs. I have a friend working for a company and his company can make promises to customers about delivery times that our company can not because those drivers still have more flexibility in being able to turn in log sheets that look legal even though they do not match the exact schedule that they operated. On the other hand, having EOBRs has taken all the pressure off the drivers where I work to meet impossible scheduled delivery and pick up times and put that responsibility back in the office where it belongs and has forced the company to talk to shippers and explain to them why we couldn’t run the way we used to and to get better flexibility from the shippers and then it was up to the office staff to run the trucks efficiently so the trucks would pay for themselves and as a result, more often than not now I am making bigger pay checks than with the old operating system and I am getting more rest than ever. My friend can not always say the same. By the way, what is driver fatigue?
All carriers should be required to comply within 6 months. Reason: See Above. The only reason that the FMCSA needs is SAFETY. I used to be a miss-used, used, and abused driver by several companies that I have worked for. And although I always passed every DOT logbook inspection, I had many times been running so illegal it was ridicules. I did get fired from one job after I refused to run illegal anymore. Then I reported my getting fired to the Whistle Blower Program that turned out to be OSHA. A lot of good that did me. OSHA doesn’t do logbooks. So the next company I went to work for, it was business as usual. If you want to make a decent paycheck, then run. What ever it takes. Now I run out of hours for any reason: breakdown, traffic, construction, accidents, etc. not my problem. Amazingly enough, I still have the same problems on the road today but now I am not stressing over still making my pick ups and deliveries on time. And rarely does the company have to reschedule. It took them a while to acclimate themselves to a new way of doing business and some people had to be replaced because they could not adjust, but I would rather go to work for McDonald’s than go back to the old way of doing business.

By: fairgov

fairgov — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 15:39:13 +0000

If this rule won’t completely go into effect for 3 years, what happens if better and/or cheaper technology comes out in the mean time? Electronics technology changes rapidly. Is there any way to have this rule take the possibility of technology change into account?