Goodaye all, thanks to my youngest daughter for help with airline bookings and our Rod Pilon Tpt Melbourne manager, I was able to attend my sisters’ funeral in Townsville, Tuesday. It was a long day getting back into Melbourne depot near midnight, but I was glad to be able to attend. My sister passed away after a diabetes attack, she had been dealing with it for some years, but was a no nonsense, live life woman. We had not had much time together as children, but I did get to visit with her and some of her family last trip to Townsville some months ago. They came out and picked me up, took me home for tea and a shower and I am glad I got to see her then. Sadly missed and too early departed, Love you Gayle.
I am trying to keep up with the HVNL review, paper 3 response lodged and working on 4 due at the end of this month. Safe People and Practices another 67 pages, asks some hard questions. What does the current HVNL do well, little from a drivers point of view, but it is not simple to explain. I am trying and I hear the cynicism of many drivers who have done so before, and nothing changed. Do I hope they will listen, yes, but there needs to be more voices telling them the problems and offering solutions.
The following should be read by those here who want Electronic Work Diaries here in Australia.
Dave Heller, vice president, legislative affairs, Truckload Carriers Association, speaks to The Machinery Haulers Association at its annual meeting in Fontana, Wisconsin, on July 25, 2019.
To begin with, Heller notde that love them or hate them, electronic logging devices (ELDs) are providing the trucking industry with massive amounts of real-time data about how trucks operate and how truck drivers spend their days. This data, Heller said, is now highlighting – with hard information – the need for more flexible Hours of Service rules, highlighting an “epidemic” in unsafe driving caused by smartphones as well as detention time issues and other industry problems.
“ELDs were never going to make you safer,” Heller told attendees at the conference, adding that a Northwestern University study found that accidents have not decreased as a result of the ELD Mandate, which went into effect last year. “They are a compliance tool. It is the Hours of Service which will help make your operations safer. That’s because the data they provide can be used to shape better regulations in the future.”
Those who think EWDs will stop crashes and that we can be micro-managed by those who do not have to do the job, should take serious note. Detention times were to be legislated to be paid in the USA, but the bill didn’t get up. Who do you think stopped it, not truckers, that’s for sure. The need for “FLEXIBLE” hours of service, and this not by a driver, means some are listening to drivers there, but they may well have put the cart before the horse.
Without flexible rules, rest areas where and when and the size and facilities needed, how do we manage our fatigue? The logbook will not do it for you and if you get it wrong, the penalties far outweigh the road safety risk in the majority of minor breaches, yet the cost to defend yourself can exceed the fine and the authorities know and abuse this from my point of view.
We need a fair and cheap review panel for breaches and that could well see us get a fair justice system for truckies. That is not what we have now. Safe Travelling, Rod Hannifey.
TRUCKRIGHT 