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Letter to the Editor: HOS Problems (Continued)
The problem is not with the “black box,” it’s with the 14-hour rule. We are not children, we are professionals. So why doesn’t anyone understand the problem? We are always up against the wall when it comes to hours of service.
We are expected to follow the rules, but the shippers and receivers aren’t. We lose a lot of time loading and unloading, to the point that if everyone logged all the time lost, we would have no time to drive.The black box won’t do anything but put good companies out of business, because of large fines and loss of customers.You want to change the system? Make the hours-of-service rules more flexible to accommodate real-world problems: traffic, weather, shippers, receivers, etc. Also, make the shippers and receivers honor their appointments. As professionals, we have to.I’m not a new kid on the block; I’ve been trucking for 38 years. My biggest question is who’s going to fill our shoes?Robby TrippPresidentR.A.T.T. Inc.Jackson, Ga.This letter appear in the Jan. 22 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.
