Letters: Hours of Service, Surety Bonds, Fair Fuel Surcharges

These Letters to the Editor appear in the March 7 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

Hours of Service

I would like to add my 2 cents to the hours-of-service discussion.

First, let’s talk about safety. It is my humble opinion that the 34-hour restart should indeed stay the way it is. I have been trucking for 34 years, and I know that I can log everything the way I run it now — unlike in the years before the rule.

And please think about the parking problems the new changes will cause.

Also, and I am speaking for myself only when I say this, giving many drivers more empty time on their hands just tempts them to do things we all would rather they did not do.

I could go on about a lot of things that are bad about the HOS, but it is my opinion that if safety is not what you want, then anything I might add will do no good.

Dennis Conant Sr.

Driver and Owner-Operator

Transport America

Calhoun, Ga.

I am a veteran of 25 years in the trucking industry, and I have an opinion and a question regarding the new hours-of-service rules.

First, the opinion: I compare the new HOS requirements with the way my wife makes spaghetti. You need a lot of heat to boil the water, and I liken that to the special-interest groups on both sides, i.e., Parents Against Tired Truckers, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Citizens for Reliable Safe Highways, American Trucking Associations and trucking unions. I understand that these groups are putting the heat under the pot called the U.S. Department of Transportation.

When the water is boiling, my wife adds the spaghetti — in my analogy, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. However, to keep the pot from boiling over when the spaghetti is added, she removes most of the heat under it. I feel that FMCSA is in the hot water in order to fix a problem that hardly exists now, but special-interest groups with little understanding of the entire trucking process are keeping the heat on and demanding that it be fixed.

Not all truckers are the longhaul, cross-country, gone-way-too-long operators everyone seems to see in their mind’s eye. However, the proposals FMCSA has had to come up with now to fix a system that works well affects all drivers.

My question is: When will the special-interest groups be held accountable? Are they somehow above reproach? (We don’t hear much from them now, do we?)

John Osborne

City Driver

Cincinnati

Please tell the folks in charge of changing the hours-of-service rules just to leave them alone. The HOS rules work now.

Our earning potential as drivers already is limited by the hours we can work. The more limitations they put on our ability to generate revenue, the more we senior drivers will just give up, and the trucking industry will be left with more and more incompetent drivers.

Bill Burch

Driver

Portland, Ore.

Surety Bonds

This comment is directed to all shippers, carriers and brokers regarding surety bonds. The so-called presence of the surety bond poses no secure recourse for the shipper, carrier or broker.

When you issue a claim to the surety company, you will receive only a portion of the amount owed to you. Anyone who forwards a claim will get a piece of that bond. If a broker owes a carrier/shipper, say, $100,000, and there are 100 claimants, the maximum you will receive is $1,000.

What I think should be proposed is a default insurance policy to protect everyone, in addition to cargo insurance.

This is my opinion. I know surety was intended to protect, but I think it is not sufficient, and increasing the amount of the bond produces only the same result: You receive only a portion.

Al Martineck

President

All-Together Transportation Inc.

New Lenox, Ill.

Fair Fuel Surcharges

I am responding to the editorial “Keep Fuel Surcharges Fair” (2-14, p. 6). They do need to be kept fair, or delivering freight is just not worth it.

I am an owner-operator who is leased to a company that delivers domestic containers in the Midwest. I was looking through my permit book and found a fuel surcharge schedule from 2006. We are receiving 6% to 8% less now than we were then.

I know there was a recession, and I know I could change companies or do something else, but I get home every night and that is important to me — I have young kids — so I will keep doing this.

There are other intermodal companies that haul mostly import and export containers, and they are getting 6% to 10% less in surcharges than we are — or at least they are paying the drivers 6% to 10% less. I have called them on it in the past, at another company, and they were keeping part of the surcharge.

The thing that really upsets me is that in January 2010, a well-known, large freight transportation management company dropped what it would pay for surcharges by 1% to 1.5%. This year, I notified the company I am leased to that we are coming up short on surcharges. My company looked into it and found that the freight transportation management firm in question dropped the surcharge ½% again without letting anyone know. The company I am leased to has been making up the difference, which in my opinion it should not have to, but it is greatly appreciated by the drivers.

Both the firm that lowered its surcharges and a major third-party logistics provider keep part of the surcharge.

I know what you’re going to say: “Don’t do business with them.” But that’s hard to do because they handle what is probably the most intermodal freight.

In my opinion, if the companies would quit doing business with brokers like these — and they are not the only bad ones — and look at doing business with the customers directly, the companies would do better. The other thing would be to stick together and not haul cheap freight. Let it sit.

Freight levels seem to be picking up, so now is the time at least to stick together on the surcharge. If you must negotiate something, negotiate the rate. The fuel surcharge can break you if you allow them to keep dictating what they will pay. I have yet to see a truck get better fuel mileage than an office chair.

Rick Crosby

Owner

Tykatie Transport

Anoka, Minn.