Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Think Before You Post That Photo! in Kim Komando


wizardjournal.com

THINK BEFORE YOU POST THAT PHOTO!

So many social media websites, so little time. But you'd better think before you post that embarrassing photo or compromising video.  It could cost you more than just a red face.


Watching: Think Before You Post That Photo! in Kim on Komand @ TVKim:

'via Blog this'

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

What this country needs is a good $300 electronic log - Jim Park


I know this will tick a lot of you drivers off, but Jim Park makes some great points in this excellent piece. I think the upcoming EOBR requirement is going to be forced upon us one way or another, if that is the case, we need to get behind Jim's ideas ASAP! I have been living with EOBRs since 1994 with my employer, Ryder and am quite used to them. I also think what they use is vastly more expensive and complex than a smaller operation or operator needs or should be forced into. Please consider the following, and thanks, Jim!


5/23/2012
What this country needs is a good $300 electronic log
Thanks so much to:
On the Road Blog by Jim Park, Equipment Editor at Truckinginfo.com

As the House and Senate try to come to agreement on a highway bill that could include a requirement to mandate electronic onboard recorders, I want to say, I believe we're being taken for a ride on this push to mandate EOBRs. There's a really big difference between the most basic electronic logging device and the type of EOBR that it looks like the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is trying to shove down our throats.
Before the agency mandates these things, they need take a step back and consider what the vast majority of the people in this country who operate heavy trucks really needs versus what a relative handful of large carriers and few purveyors of such technology say they can deliver.
Only industry can force such a change. Silence is tantamount to approval. FMCSA's recently vacated Regulation 395.16 is a mega-carrier's wish list, and one that if left unchecked will impose a huge technological burden that the majority of the industry neither want, need, or should be required to pay for.
I should declare my position on electronic logs at this point, so there's no confusion: I see no point in mandating them, because I believe they will not contribute to safety in any additional way than the current HOS rules and paper logs rules do.
HOS requires drivers to declare a minimum number of hours off-duty or in a sleeper before they begin a day's work. Further, the rules prescribe the maximum number of hours a driver may drive in a 24-hour period, and the maximum number of hours a driver may spend on-duty in 7-day period. That's all HOS does. The rules do not require a driver to sleep during the off-duty period, and the rules provide no guarantees that driver will not be sleepy during the workshift due to any number of causes.
Should a driver elect to continue driving while sleepy -- like the driver in the Miami, Okla. crash back in 2009 -- no paper log nor EOBR (he had one in his truck) will make any difference whatsoever.
Yes, EOBRs will make it harder to get away with cheating on the rules. They will also make compliance verification much easier. EOBRs are about compliance, not safety. There's a difference. Just ask the driver in the Miami crash. (Read "When Compliance Doesn't Equal Safety," 10/18/2010)
I don't have a problem with carriers of any size or description using EOBRs for their own purposes. I can see the advantages of not having to store truckloads of log sheets for six months, or having to wade through them and match receipts to the log sheets during an audit. If carriers want to track their drivers' duty status in real time, and don't mind the cost of the telematics and GPS and satellite or cellular time, fine. For those reasons alone, I'm sure EOBRs are well worth the money.
But for a 10- or a 50-truck fleet or a single-truck operation with no need for such functionality, why should they be forced to go along with what a handful of large carriers and the enforcement community has told FMCSA they want?
The Right Tool for the Job
Back in 1988, FMCSA came up with a rule for electronic logging devices -- regulation 395.15. That rule specified relatively simple requirements for devices used to record drivers' duty-status records electronically. That rule laid out the bare minimums for what they called then an Automatic On-Board Recording Devices (AOBRD), or ELD, electronic logging device.
If you haven't already done so, I'd strongly urge you to compare the differences between regulations 395.15and 395.16. You're in for a heck of a surprise.
Regulation 395.16 was the one the Owner Operators Independent Drivers Association succeeded in having thrown out on grounds that carriers would be able use EOBRs to harass drivers. It's in limbo at the moment. FMCSA says it expects to have a new proposal in place by the end of the year, so here's the small carrier or owner-operator's chance to weigh in.
Here's the issue; the new generation of EOBRs, as defined in 395.16, would go well beyond what's required to comply with the current HOS rules. There is nothing in the current HOS rule that requires a device to transmit time and location data to a terminal at regular intervals. So why is that part of 395.16?
The current HOS rules require a location to be noted at a change of duty status, so the driver can write in the city, town, highway mile marker, etc. to describe his or her location. Reg 396.15 requires a database of information so satellite, cellular or GPS coordinates can be transposed to physical locations.
An EOBR, under 395.16, is way more than is necessary for HOS compliance as described in 395.15. Why do we need all that electronic connectivity and location coding when a driver with a keypad could easily type in a location? Why do we need any connection between a truck and a terminal?
As I said earlier, if a fleet wants to use its satellite or cellular telematics systems in conjunction with an HOS recording device as a fleet management tool, fine. Knock yourself out. But if a fleet doesn't want or need that capability, why should it be required to buy and maintain all that expensive equipment and the monthly connection fees?
Here's what I think is going to happen if this EOBR mandate comes to pass. All the so-called form and manner violations will disappear, along with the "duty status not current" violations. Together, those two violations (395.8 and 395.8F1) accounted for 342,000 citations issued in 2011. They are the top two driver violations recorded by enforcement last year.
If they suddenly disappear, EOBRs will be hailed as the greatest safety breakthrough trucking has ever seen. More like the greatest compliance breakthrough. I maintain not a single life will be spared by an EOBR, but when officials get through spinning it to the public, the politicians and the press, look out. It'll be E-everything from there on in.
The European Model
I think it's only a matter of time before some requirement emerges for electronic HOS recording. I hate to say it, but the tide of public and therefore political opinion is pushing regulators in that direction, so we might as well get used to it.
Hard-coding HOS compliance has been a fact of life in Europe for years. Mostly it was accomplished through pen and ink cards called tachographs that recorded travel times and vehicle speed. HOS compliance was derived from the number of hours the vehicle had been driven in a day.
Today, the same information is recorded in more or less the same manner, except it's now digital rather than physical. Frankly, I believe that's all we need here. Data is easily checked at roadside. The records are permanent, and can be transferred physically through a USB device, wirelessly, via email, or on the driver's "smartcard," embedded with a chip so it's portable from truck to truck and carrier to carrier, in the case of drivers who work for multiple carriers.
In Europe, location isn't recorded on the tachographs, and when you think about it, it doesn't really need to be. Location was important when inspectors had to get the maps out to measure the distance and time between two duty status changes. On a digital tachograph, it shows a line driving from one point in time to another. It's HOURS of service we're dealing with here, not MILES of service. The day's hours worked are recorded, along with vehicle speed and distance traveled. Drivers note with the press of a button their duty status. What more does an inspector really need to know?
If you spec a plain-Jane OE version of a digital tachograph in Europe, with no bells and whistles, it will cost you about $300. No monthly fees, no cellular or satellite charges, and no outward connectivity.
Here, the White House has already tossed out a cost estimate of $2 billion for an industry-wide EOBR mandate. You know already that number is wildly underestimated. Looking around the Web at several EOBR offerings, I see costs ranging from $500 to several thousand dollars, and many require monthly fees on top of that.
We don't need the cost and complexity of regulation 395.16. If a carrier wants all that, let 'em have it. For the carriers that don't, 395.15 would work just fine. I firmly believe that 395.15, as it's written today, would serve us well as the lowest common denominator in HOS enforcement. We wouldn't even need that if we were to adopt the European digital tachograph model. That's even simpler than 395.15. Let's see enforcement justify why they need more.
We've had big carriers and enforcement and the EOBR providers telling the government what they'd like, what they already have and what's possible. That's what became 395.16. It's way in excess of what's required for realistic HOS enforcement, but have you ever met a regulator who was satisfied with what is enough when what's possible is on the table?
Editor's Note: Washington Editor Oliver Patton spoke with a source who active in the ongoing discussions, who said the agency's approach is to draft a rule that will permit small businesses to use the simplest, uni-purpose device to comply, costing perhaps $300 to $500.
http://www.truckinginfo.com/news/news-detail.asp?news_id=77027&news_category_id=121&utm_source=Email&utm_medium=Enewsletter


Monday, May 28, 2012

Memorial Day 2012


Thanks for all our military heroes past and present for their service!
Including my step-dad Vic, my father Don, my uncles Clyde, Jim and Kaye, my mom's brothers and so many others.  This day is for you!


Friday, May 25, 2012

Obama's War on Coal

savethebills.com

I strive to stay away from political issues writing in this blog. Every person has a right to their own views and I'm certainly not going to change anyone's mind by being on a soapbox and proclaiming my opinions! My goal is to keep this blog entertaining for everyone.  In that light, I think the issue below is a very important one for our country and needs to be publicized. This world of ours needs energy to sustain our way of life. I can't believe our policy should be to try and shut down the coal industry, as our costs for energy will skyrocket and impact each and every one of us! I know, numbers are boring but please take a few moments and consider! Our entire economy is at risk. Thanks to Fox News.com for this piece.  Link to them below, Dan

Obama’s War on Coal has already taken a remarkable toll on coal-fired power plants in America. 
Last week the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a shocking drop in power sector coal consumption in the first quarter of 2012. Coal-fired power plants are now generating just 36 percent of U.S. electricity, versus 44.6 percent just one year ago. 
It’s the result of an unprecedented regulatory assault on coal that will leave us all much poorer.
Last week PJM Interconnection, the company that operates the electric grid for 13 states (Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and the District of Columbia) held its 2015 capacity auction. These are the first real, market prices that take Obama’s most recent anti-coal regulations into account, and they prove that he is keeping his 2008 campaign promise to make electricity prices “necessarily skyrocket.”
The market-clearing price for new 2015 capacity – almost all natural gas – was $136 per megawatt. That’s eight times higher than the price for 2012, which was just $16 per megawatt. In the mid-Atlantic area covering New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and DC the new price is $167 per megawatt. For the northern Ohio territory served by FirstEnergy, the price is a shocking $357 per megawatt.
Why the massive price increases? Andy Ott from PJM stated the obvious: “Capacity prices were higher than last year's because of retirements of existing coal-fired generation resulting largely from environmental regulations which go into effect in 2015.” Northern Ohio is suffering from more forced coal-plant retirements than the rest of the region, hence the even higher price.
These are not computer models or projections or estimates. These are the actual prices that electric distributors have agreed to pay for new capacity. The costs will be passed on to consumers at the retail level.
House Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) aptly explained: “The PJM auction forecasts a dim future where Americans will be paying more to keep the lights on. We are seeing more and more coal plants fall victim to EPA’s destructive regulatory agenda, and as a result, we are seeing more job losses and higher electricity prices.”

The only thing that can stop this massive price hike now is an all-out effort to end Obama’s War on Coal and repeal this destructive regulatory agenda.
The Senate will have a critical opportunity to do just that when it votes on stopping Obama’s most expensive anti-coal regulation sometime in the next couple of weeks. The vote is on the Inhofe Resolution, S.J. Res 37, to overturn the so-called Utility MACT rule, which the EPA itself acknowledges is its most expensive rule ever.
This vote is protected from filibuster, and it will take just 51 votes to send a clear message to Obama that his War on Coal must end. 
Of course, Obama could veto the resolution and keep the rule intact, although that would force him to take full political responsibility for the massive impending jump in electricity prices.
I have a form set up at www.WarOnCoal.com  to make it easy to contact your senators on this crucial issue.
Phil Kerpen is president of American Commitment  and author of “Democracy Denied.” 

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/05/22/obamas-war-on-coal-hits-your-electric-bill/?intcmp=trending#ixzz1veN1UXx0


Thursday, May 24, 2012

Heavy Duty Pick-ups - Car & Driver Works Them Out!


Great comparison test of the new heavy duty diesel pick-ups from Chevy, Ford and Dodge, by Car and Driver magazine.  Link to their piece follows! Also a great video link below with some beautiful desert scenery near the Davis Dam in Nevada /Arizona! Thanks Car & Driver!

2012 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 LTZ 4WD Crew Cab vs. 2012 Ford F-250 Super Duty King Ranch 4x4 Crew Cab, 2012 Ram 2500 Laramie Longhorn 4x4 Mega Cab

Heavy Lifters: We take three extra strength pickups to the Nevada desert for a heavy-duty workout.



Heavy-duty diesel pickups are the true workhorses of America, with engines making as much as 800 pound-feet of torque and the might to tow an entire fleet of B-Spec racers to the track at once.
Until recently, the towing capabilities that manufacturers claimed for each model were largely conjured up independently in a very public game of chest-pounding one-upmanship. But the Society of Automotive Engineers has lent newfound conformity to towing numbers with the creation of its J2807 recommended practice, already adopted by the players here. SAE J2807 adds credibility to tow ratings by clearly defining the procedures used to determine them.
The key element of J2807’s various tow-vehicle acceleration and climbing requirements, which the SAE modeled on real-world roads, is the so-called Davis Dam test, an 11.4-mile ascent near the dam on the Arizona-Nevada border. Here, a truck has to climb 3000 feet without dropping below 40 mph. Averaging a five-percent grade on Arizona’s Highway 68, the desolate mountain route combines challenging inclines with scenic vistas of the Colorado River, the Davis Dam itself, and the snowbird gambling retreat of Laughlin, Nevada. Along with the surrounding desert roads, it’s the perfect setting for evaluating the latest crop of modern-day draft horses.
The top-spec rigs on these pages start at about $50,000 in four-door, four-wheel-drive luxury trim and, with diesel engines and all the extras, surpass the base price of an Audi A7 luxohatch. More than just work trucks, these overachieving cowboy Cadillacs embody the bigger-is-better ethos, heaping on extra helpings of attitude for their devoted followers. The stakes here are high, the bragging rights incalculable.
Last year saw a wholesale update of the segment, with General Motors reinventing the dirty bits of the Chevrolet Silverado (and GMC Sierra), including a stronger, boxed frame and fortified underpinnings, as well as revisions to the Allison six-speed automatic ($1200) and the 6.6-liter Duramax V-8 turbo-diesel ($7195), now good for 397 horsepower and 765 pound-feet of torque.
Not by coincidence, Ford gave its nearly four-ton F-series Super Duty a new 6.7-liter Power Stroke diesel V-8. That engine—a $7835 option (along with its six-speed automatic)—features a lighter, compacted-graphite-iron block, outboard intake ports, and a novel twin-compressor-wheel turbocharger in the cylinder valley. An even 400 horsepower and 800 pound-feet are the results. Ford also modified the frame, suspension, and steering, and fitted a new chrome face bearing a blue oval that may or may not have started life as a serving platter.
Chrysler, to keep up, also boosted the torque of the venerable 350-hp, 6.7-liter Cummins diesel inline-six ($7195) in its big Ram trucks to 800 pound-feet in late 2011. Featuring an upgraded six-speed automatic ($1100), it is the only powertrain here to use an NOx adsorber rather than urea injection in its exhaust to meet current federal emissions regulations.
To make the trucks actually break a sweat, we enlisted the help of  Titan Trailers of Waterville, Kansas, which graciously
supplied us with three tandem-axle, hydraulic dump trailers. We then loaded them with crushed rock for a gross trailer weight of 12,000 pounds each.
Hitching up was easy with the trucks’ integrated trailer-brake controllers and rearview cameras, so we hit the Davis Dam, the open desert, and Las Vegas Motor Speedway to see which pulled best.


2012 Ram 2500 Laramie Longhorn 4x4 Mega Cab

Third place: Heavy Lifters.


Having two fewer cylinders and the lowest tow rating (12,000 pounds) from a conventional frame-mounted hitch (these trucks can handle much more with a fifth-wheel hookup in the bed) put the enormous Ram Mega Cab at a disadvantage. Whereas the Ford and Chevy were barely fazed by their trailers’ weight, the Ram’s Cummins six would occasionally groan under the load and labor to accelerate on steep grades.
The 7950-pound Ram’s 8.5-second run to 60 mph and its 16.7 in the quarter-mile were each more than a half-second off the pace of the second-quickest Ford. To see how the rigs performed when caned, we repeated acceleration tests with the trailers attached, and the Ram again trailed the Ford, by 0.9 and 0.4 second, respectively.
The Ram also brought up the rear in observed fuel economy over 600 miles (9 mpg with the trailer, 12 without) and lateral grip (0.68 g), and it elicited moans from test drivers for its slow, cumbersome steering, stiff ride, and the occasional harsh shift.
But the Ram is unfailingly honest about its mission. “It sounds like it belongs at a truck stop,” noted senior editor Tony Quiroga. “The other two seem to hide their diesel sounds like they’re ashamed of their truckishness. Not the Ram.”
Despite being quieter than previous examples and generating the same 67 decibels as the Ford Super Duty at a 70-mph cruise, the Ram’s noise levels at idle (50 dBA) and wide-open throttle (72 dBA) were each several ticks higher than the muffled Ford’s and noticeably louder than the Chevy’s. It made all the classic diesel sounds, too, including an authentic Class 8 truck growl with the exhaust brake at work. Depending on how much you embrace the rest of the truck’s over-the-top vibe, the experience can be either grating or enticing.
The Mega Cab Ram’s comfort and convenience, however, were universally praised, from its limo-sized cabin (despite oddly low official interior measurements) to its Laramie Longhorn saddle-leather seats with a reclining rear bench. The Ram also brings great ergonomics and storage, including the handy RamBox bed compartments ($1295). Country-western detailing abounds, but we could live without the decorative filigrees and buckles on the seatbacks. Your fondness for the Ram’s interior will exist in direct proportion to the size of  your belt buckle.
Despite feeling strained at times by the heavy load, the Ram revealed strengths in other performance metrics. The brakes hauled this truck-and-trailer rig down from 70 mph in a best-of-test 315 feet. And the effectiveness of the exhaust brake and the transmission’s tow-haul mode meant that we rarely had to tap the brake pedal to maintain a safe speed down the steep descents near the Davis Dam.
Fans of the Cummins and long-haul luxury will find the Ram more than satisfactory, but it needs more muscle under the hood to excel in this company.


2012 Ford F-250 Super Duty King Ranch 4x4 Crew Cab

Second place: Heavy Lifters.


The first thing we noticed about the Ford F-250 was its quietness. In fact, this diesel monster is more hushed at a 70-mph cruise and wide-open throttle than the last Lexus ES350 we tested.
Our second observation was how strong the F-250 King Ranch felt on the move. Under full boost, the 7950-pound Ford repeatedly blasted up the grades on par with the Chevy.
The numbers tell the story, with the 340-pound-lighter Silverado consistently ahead at 60 mph and the more powerful Super Duty narrowing the gap considerably by the quarter-mile mark—both with and without the six-ton trailer along for the ride. In 30-to-50-mph and 50-to-70-mph acceleration, the two came in dead even at 3.9 and 5.1 seconds, respectively.
Backing the new Power Stroke V-8 is a revised TorqShift six-speed automatic and an exhaust brake that engages only when the tow-haul mode is activated (the Silverado and the Ram have dedicated dash buttons to enable exhaust braking). The transmission works well: It holds the proper gear while climbing and helps to slow the truck’s mass on downgrades. However, we noticed we had to apply the brakes often on descents to keep a steady speed.
The towering Ford impressed us by returning the best skidpad figure (0.73 g) at the track and tying the Chevy for fuel efficiency at 15 mpg unloaded, 10 mpg with the trailer. It required, however, a shocking 242 feet to stop from 70 mph. That’s two truck lengths plus about six feet longer than the Chevy. Not good.  And that’s before we hooked up the trailer.
The rest of the truck exhibited a solid balance of capabilities, including the best visibility, the lowest tailgate height, and the only bed with a retractable step ($375), a grab handle, and a factory-installed fifth-wheel mounting accommodation ($370).
Inside, there’s ample storage, a comprehensive information screen in the cluster, and enough rear-seat space for three Carhartt-clad roughnecks. Our full-fancy test example, with its King Ranch package ($4765) plus the King Ranch package with Chrome ($695), had enough open-range glitz and cowhide to almost justify its near-$65,000 asking price, the highest in the test. Noticeably absent was a navigation system, which would have added a larger monitor for the rearview camera and another $1875 to the sticker.
The F-250’s overall blend of grunt, civility, and usefulness indeed deserves a tip of the old Stetson, but it wasn’t enough for top honors.


2012 Chevrolet Silverado 2500 LTZ 4WD Crew Cab

First place: Heavy Lifters.


None of these trucks is remotely sporty, but the Silverado was clearly the most energetic of the group. At 7610 pounds, the Chevy was significantly lighter than the two others and was the easiest to maneuver in tight quarters. Plus, it offered the best ingress and egress. The Duramax V-8 and the Allison six-speed automatic transmission worked together to amazing effect, never seeming out of breath or in the wrong gear on grades.
One of the quickest GM diesel trucks we’ve sampled, the Silverado walked away in the unloaded-acceleration tests, hitting 60 mph in a carlike 7.1 seconds and the quarter in 15.7 at 89 mph. Those figures grew to 15.0 and 20.3 seconds, respectively, with the trailer attached, but the second-quickest Ford was still in the Silverado’s mirrors.
In the mountains, the Duramax always had power in reserve, as well as the best transmission programming and exhaust-brake setup for controlled descents sans wheel brakes. It was, ­however, the only truck to exhibit any untoward bucking movements from the trailer’s inertia.
The Silverado was also the only truck to pull a sub-200-foot stop from 70 mph (196 feet), and it teetered through the slalom more quickly than the others, at almost 40 mph. It was aided in this endeavor by the quickest and most responsive steering, as well as the only independent front suspension. Stopping prowess from 70 mph with the load (325 feet) and overall noise levels were midpack, and it tied the big Ford for best fuel economy.
Where the Chevy disappointed was in the area not addressed by the most recent update, namely the cabin, which has changed little since its 2006 debut. “This would be a cheap interior in a $30,000 truck,” noted one test driver. Compared with the others’ opulent fittings, the Silverado was a dismal place to sit: an expanse of chintzy, dark plastic; the least comfortable front seats; and the tightest rear quarters. While it was the only truck here with a back seat that folds up to make a flat load floor, it received additional demerits for a lack of clever storage, as well as a comparably small, low-res information screen in the gauge cluster. A detailed touch-screen navigation system ($2250) was its primary saving grace.
But those shortcomings didn’t overshadow the truck’s great drivability and pure brute strength. Moreover, the ­Silverado carried the lowest base and as-tested prices by a couple of grand and the least flash, which is nice if  you happen to be put off by the rhinestone glint of the other trucks.
Given each brand’s historically loyal tribes, most buyers will make up their minds regardless of how things play out on paper. And the segment’s fierce competitiveness won’t let one player get too far ahead for too long. But right now, in this class of high-end haulers, the Silverado gets our nod for the best of what matters.


Wednesday, May 23, 2012

When Compliance Doesn't Equal Safety!

truckinginfo.com

On the Road Blog by Jim Park, Equipment Editor
Jim Parks of truckinginfo.com has a great blog that I link to at the bottom. Here is a great piece from 4/18/2010 that is definitely worth taking a look back. Fatigue management versus compliance. This is a tragic story, when are the Feds going to get it? Probably never! Thanks Jim!
4/18/2010
Finally, a fatigue-related crash has come to the forefront that exposes the chasm that often exists between safety and compliance.
The National Transportation Safety Board last month released its report on the tragic truck crash near Miami, Okla., that claimed 10 lives in June 2009. It cited driver fatigue stemming from acute sleep loss and circadian disruption as the principal cause of the crash. There was no mention of hours-of-service violations, falsified logs, speeding, substance abuse, or any other illegal activity. The driver, Donald Creed, age 76, was totally compliant at the time, and had been since he hired on with the company in 1992, company and DMV records show.
NTSB found no fault with the truck, the carrier's safety record, or Creed's driving history, yet 10 people died because of a simple failing of human nature: Creed apparently became unaware of his surroundings for a brief instant because he was sleepy. The crash showed the classic signs of an asleep-at-the-wheel scenario: no skid marks prior to impact, and many witnesses say he took no evasive action and made no attempt to avoid the crash. NTSB stopped short of saying he was asleep at the wheel, because that cannot be proven, but Creed was obviously oblivious to the developing situation.
Accident reconstruction evidence shows that Creed, traveling eastbound on I-44 between milepost 320 and 322, would have had line-of-sight view for about 1.5 miles of a previous crash that occurred minutes earlier at MP 321.76, and a clear view of that accident scene from about one-quarter of a mile away. It's hard to imagine any task inside the cab that would have occupied the driver's attention for 15 seconds or longer, distracting him to the point that the previous crash scene escaped his attention.

ON AUTOPILOT?

If Creed wasn't technically asleep at the wheel, he was certainly on autopilot - a situation I'd bet a lot of drivers have experienced but would be loath to admit. It's a sort of semi-asleep/semi-awake condition where time and miles pass that cannot be recalled. Many will have had moments where they realize they are at a certain place but can't remember getting there, or passing a certain landmark. I'm unaware of a technical definition for this condition, but I've been there, too.
I once worked for a carrier that regularly ran me on a grueling rotation of four 15-hour shifts (under the previous Canadian HOS rules) beginning at 4 on Thursday afternoon, ending at 8 on Monday morning. I'd stay awake the night before I began the rotation and sleep late trying to advance my circadian clock. I often grabbed a nap in the afternoon prior to beginning work, as well. Still, I started my week's work without the benefit of a solid period of core sleep, and as the workweek progressed, it got worse. Commuting to and from work, and trying to sleep during the daylight hours, left me with no more than 4-5 hours of decent sleep per off-duty period.
In many ways, that scenario was alarming similar to Creed's situation.
He had worked 23 days in 60 days prior to the crash, and was off the three days prior to the crash shift. On the day of the crash, Creed began work at 3 a.m., after what NTSB describes as no more than five hours of sleep. He had just came off three days at home, where he presumably would have slept at normal times during the night and remained awake at normal times during the day. He was just getting back into the nightshift groove.

The crash occurred at 1:20 p.m., 10 hours into his workday, and after fewer than eight hours behind the wheel. By hours-of-service standards, he was well within the law. However, a more immutable law was in effect here: Creed's circadian cycle. This is my supposition, not NTSB's official version of the story, but it seems likely that he was at a low point in his circadian cycle, and on a flat, straight, and featureless stretch of roadway with the cruise control on under hot sunny skies. With little in the way of external stimulation to keep him focused, Creed when into what I call autopilot.
My workshift, as described earlier, was worsened by the fact that the company frowned on napping during the shift. We had a 16-hour window in which to work 15 hours, and I usually worked every minute of those hours. Company policy prohibited drivers from exceeding 16 running hours in a shift because trucks were scheduled out with another driver, so whenever I napped and exceeded the company's 16-hour limit, I got a letter for violating company policy. That happened a lot. I kept napping and the letters kept coming, but for some odd reason they never fired me. Nor did the company adjust its policy, or my workshift.
I know what it's like to drive tired, and I'm not unique in that regard. Most drivers have been up against that wall at sometime in their careers. If Creed's situation played out as I described it, I'd have a hard time faulting him entirely for what happened.

MANAGING FATIGUE
Fatigue is a very insidious thing. We tend to think we can stay awake even though all the cells in our bodies are screaming for sleep. We push on, turning up the radio, slapping our faces, doing mental arithmetic, whatever, to stay awake. Eventually, if pushed far enough, we fall asleep. As sleep experts and scientists all agree, it can happen in an instant and we won't even be aware of it, despite our efforts at staying awake.
Simply having available hours is not a good hedge against fatigue. One can be dead tired, but perfectly compliant at the same time. Unfortunately, available-hours means good-to-go, and that's just what most drivers do. Current HOS rules discourage napping, and missing an appointment or refusing a dispatch can have expensive and career-limiting consequences.
Fatigue management, in the truest sense of the word, would be a far better crash mitigation tool than HOS could ever be. Allowing drivers to govern their own work lives according personal needs for sleep, and arming them with a better understanding of the causes and effects of fatigue, would go a long way toward reducing incidents like the one at Miami, Okla. But fatigue management layered on HOS is kind of redundant. Legally defined minimums and maximums tend to become standards. Work shifts and delivery schedules are built around maximum driving availability and minimum rest periods. Turning from that to a program where drivers are encouraged and empowered to manage their time according to personal needs would could cost millions to implement and billions in lost productivity.
Still, I've been on aircraft where, following an unplanned delay, the crew has walked off the plane citing potential conflict with aviation HOS rules, leaving several hundred very angry passengers stranded while a replacement crew was found. Aviation regulations grant pilots the authority -- in fact, pilots are compelled to act accordingly -- to ground flights that may exceed their available duty hours, and they are protected by the regulations against company retribution.
I wish trucking regulations afforded drivers similar protection. It doesn't seem from the NTSB report that Creed was under any pressure to continue his run despite his tired state, but had he known more about the effects of fatigue and the physiology of sleep, he might have recognized an impending disaster and taken steps to avoid it. The only known cure for fatigue is sleep, and sleep is better taken in the bunk than behind the wheel.
May those 10 souls rest in peace.

Read more about fatigue management in the November issue of Heavy Duty Trucking magazine.

http://www.truckinginfo.com/on-the-road/news-detail.asp?news_id=71940&news_category_id=121

Monday, May 21, 2012

CSA Score - Be Completely Without Fault and You Still Get Hit!



Guest Post by and thanks to Jeff Head. Friend him on Facebook!


I checked my CSA 2010 points yesterday. I was hoping that by now that I would have zero points showing. Not that I ever had any kind of big number, twelve being the highest it had ever been. No such luck though this time around. Remember that accident that I was involved in about a month ago. You know, the one where no one received any kind of a ticket because an object came out of nowhere, sailing through the air, taking out the windshield of a car. Once it hit the car and that driver knocked silly, lost control and in turn hit me in the rear and then another vehicle. You know the accident that the police report said that no one at the scene was at fault; no tickets issued. Well, just for the fact that I, an honest hard working person holding a CDL was there and while involved but not in any way at fault, I get six points added to my CSA record.

I do not get it, why would they want to do this to a person. Do they not know that we safe and legal truck drivers take great pride in keeping a perfect record? Do they not understand that they might just as well have keyed my brand new car and have received the same reaction to my moral, my pride? Why should I or anyone else give one flying flip about even trying to run legal if no matter how safe and legal we drive, they are going to ding us anyway. I did everything right that day including maneuvering my truck to save further damage and lives and they whack me with points against my record.

Now, for the umpteenth time, they are trying to force each truck on the road into using Electronic On Board Recorders again. So all they do with them as far as I can see is use the information to make even more safe and legal drivers into renegades. Maybe it is just me but the authorities have done a very poor job of enforcing needed regulations on the folks that continue to break the rules. All they are doing is creating an environment in which if you even so much as sneeze, you are in some way breaking some trucking rule and therefore should be treated as a killer trucker. I have news for them, I will run safe and save lives long before I run legal and kill someone. If that puts me out then so be it.

As things are now no one, not even God himself can maneuver through the minefields of this over regulated yet poorly enforced trucking hell that our government has created. They have slipped deep into a scorched earth policymaking mentality that they in some way hope will catch enough bad actors and remove them from the industry. Instead, all they are doing is destroying the moral of hard working safe and legal drivers like me. The renegades continue on ignoring the rules, nothing changes.

Maybe it is just me. Maybe I am a little off my rocker in this, but do you not think instead of dinging a driver for doing nothing wrong it might be an idea to maybe say, "Hey driver, great job handling you rig in a safe and professional way the other day." Heck, I would have been happy if no one said or done anything at all. That would at least have kept my perfect record intact and my moral as a driver on the up and up. People work hard to achieve these sorts of goals and to have that destroyed really kind of sucks. It will take three years to clear those points and at this point, I no longer really care. Why should I? If all it takes is for someone else to involve you to destroy your perfect record, then you have no control whatsoever. You cannot win; they will take you out regardless of how hard you try.

So I would like to thank the FMCSA and all their great work tonight for their efforts and their moral destroying regulations. I am quite sure that if they continue on this present path, that it will not be long at all before any reasonable person that wishes to stay within the law will realize that a trucking career will only destroy that goal. That no matter how hard one might try, that you will be dinged for following the rules even faster than if you just ignore them.

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