Obama does the unheard-of--passes a rule everyone likes

[jmowreader]

(No link because I read this in a truck industry newspaper.)

It has to do with stopping distance for Class 8 trucks--the big semis that ply the highways all around us. The current rule says a fully loaded tractor-trailer must be able to come from 60mph to a full stop in 355 feet. The new rule, which takes effect with the 2011 model year, requires the same truck to be able to make the same stop in 250 feet--a 30 percent reduction. The rule covers tractor-trailer combinations, not single-unit "straight" trucks.

The rule was originally proposed in 2006, but Shrub's maladministration suspended it because they had concerns about "cost."

Want to know what the trucking INDUSTRY thinks?

The American Trucking Association (trade association for fleet operators) is heavily in favor of it--anything that will help keep the accident rate down is good to them.

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (trade association for guys who own their own trucks) is also in favor of it if it doesn't raise the price of trucks through the roof; they're okay with moderate increases in cost, though.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has wanted it since 2006--of course they're for it.

The companies who make brakes say it's doable with today's braking technology. One of the big manufacturers of truck brakes--Meritor, who seems to be the major player in foundation brakes--says their brakes will already do it. Everyone thought we were going to have to change to air disc brakes to get the shorter distance, but Meritor says they can do it with the drum brakes we've got on the trucks now, which conceivably means they can retrofit the better brakes to older tractors at a reasonable cost. (You can't retrofit disc brakes to a truck that came from the factory with drums because the axles are different. Well, you COULD but a set of new axles is worth more than an average used truck.) Better: they say there's not going to be a massive price increase, which we're all thankful for; 2010 emissions is expensive enough.

International Truck and Engine Corporation says it's no problem to make a truck that meets the standard.

Volvo (who also makes Mack) and PACCAR (who make Kenworths and Peterbilts) are already making compliant trucks.

The anti-trucking groups like MADD and Parents Against Tired Truckers think it's just great.

And there's not a driver in the world who's against this--we'll have to watch our following distance a little better when we're behind another truck, but if your following distance is good you shouldn't have a problem with this.

I'm glad Bush didn't pass this--that fucker would have hemmed and hawed until the new "rule" would have required us to stop in 345 feet. "It's shorter than the current rule. What more could they want?"

[Warpy]

1. That's good news for everybody on the roads

and will make things a bit safer for us all when it's been fully phased in.

I'm glad so many in the industry are supporting it.

[Cha]

2. Sounds good..thanks

for the news, jmowreader.

[Towlie]

3. Pop quiz: Which can stop fastest?

Which can stop in the shortest distance? Which needs the longest distance? Which is in between?

1. A fully loaded tractor-trailer.

2. An empty tractor-trailer.

3. A tractor with no trailer.

[jmowreader]

5. 1 is the shortest. 3 is the longest.

This because most of the braking power comes from your drive wheels, and the less weight you've got on them the harder it is to stop.

[Towlie]

13. Which shows us that better brakes may NOT be the answer. When tires slip, better brakes won't help.

Many people don't know that an empty tractor-trailer rig takes longer to stop than a full one, and the original post doesn't point that out. Obviously, better brakes won't do anything to change that, and since there are nearly as many empty tractor-trailer rigs on the road as fully-loaded ones, this mandate for better brakes won't have as much effect as many might think.

[create.peace]

4. please remember the long stopping distance when you cut back into the right lane, after

passing one.

[kayakjohnny]

6. Assuming they're actually in the right lane.

So many of 'em hang out in the fast lane these days.

[create.peace]

8. very true! truckers used to be the good drivers on the road. i understand

a lot of the OOs- Owner Operators are under the gun financially, and the contract drivers are under the gun by the companies they work for, and a lot of the reason is 'our' dependence on cheap goods. they don't want to add much to the cost. i would like to see more goods go by rail.

[hootinholler]

7. "The anti-trucking groups like MADD and Parents Against Tired Truckers think it's just great."

MADD and PATT are anti-trucking?

Since when?

-Hoot

[jmowreader]

10. For many years now

MADD is one of the driving forces behind the current hours of service rule--the one I complain about incessantly, and every driver I meet complains about, because it doesn't fucking work.

PATT was constituted specifically to be anti-trucking.

I've talked to a lot of drivers over the past couple of months, including lots of guys who've been on the road since the 1970s--before deregulation. From the driver's seat, here is how all of us would deal with the problem of tired truck drivers.

1. Allow the driver to split up his 14-hour-rule service. The 14 hour rule says you may not drive after the 14th hour on duty; if you come on duty at 8am, you must stop driving by 10pm. This rule causes most of the hours of service violations. You're out there driving. You came on duty at 6am--fairly common. You're in Walton, Kentucky. You get a load assignment to deadhead to Dry Ridge, Kentucky, swap trailers, run to Fort Wayne, Indiana, unload what you're carrying, reload and go back to Dry Ridge. My company has two drivers who are dedicated to this run--it's light-truck axles between the casting plant in Indiana and the assembly plant in Kentucky. Theoretically it's an easy day's work--fifteen minutes to Dry Ridge, 4.5 hours to Fort Wayne, 4.5 more hours back to Kentucky, and you can make it to the Flying J in Walton before they run out of cheesecake in the restaurant. (Flying J cheesecake is really good. I highly recommend it.) Here's the problem: what if they haven't finished making your load? This happened to me the last time I went there: they were still manufacturing part of the load I was scheduled to carry. As it turned out it took them nine hours from the minute I arrived at the plant until the time I was ready to close the trailer door and scale out, and the man running the shipping department was a retired driver. "No one else is scheduled to come in for at least three hours. Just wait here an hour and you'll be ready to go again." Normally that doesn't happen; you get stuck at a shipper for four hours or at a consignee for five. I went to a food service warehouse where the lumpers were MR/DD. Lumpers are people who unload trucks for hire, and in reality it's one of the best MR/DD jobs out there. Okay, I give: It is THE best MR/DD job out there--it's strenuous so they feel like they did a good day's work (and trust me, these guys work their asses off) it pays decent and it's not really mentally challenging. "Unload that truck, and put all the stuff in this rectangle painted on the floor." Unfortunately for me, these guys were MR/DD enough they couldn't be trusted with powered lift equipment, so they had to unload the whole truck by hand. It took 'em six hours to pull all that shit out of my truck. If I could have split the 14, I could have made it to the next load, got filled up with freight and been down the road 300 miles by the time I had to quit for the evening. With a fixed 14, I got to the next load, got filled up and made it behind the building before I had to quit running. Happy birthday to Jim: I celebrated by sleeping in an alley, and no I'm not kidding. Okay, I was in my truck at the time and there were a BUNCH of restaurants on the other side of it, but I was still parked in an alley.

2. Pay by the hour, not the mile. A driver with three years behind the wheel and a good motor vehicle record makes about 49 cents per mile, if he's pulling dry van. Some guys who pull flatbed make more, guys with their own trucks make more, some companies have hazmat bonuses, there are quite a few things...but we'll say a guy is running for 49 cents per mile. $49 per 100 miles. There is WAY too much temptation to adjust your log so it looks like you ran 11 hours (legal) when you really ran 12 (not legal in interstate service most of the time). Justification? The more miles you run, the more money you make. You tell a guy, "we are going to pay you $31.85 per hour of driving time (49 cents at 65mph), but no more than $350.35 per day ($31.85 x 11 hours), plus detention pay if you sit more than three hours in one day, and you will see hours of service violations virtually disappear. I know this to be true because some trucking companies have tried it and seen their HOS violations essentially disappear. No one drives for free, which is what violating HOS would do. You'd see a little of it when guys couldn't find parking, but other than that you'd see no violations.

3. Increase the amount of parking available. There are a LOT of things like closed weigh stations sitting out there. They've got shit poured in the entrance so no one can come in--big mounds of concrete tailings and huge rocks. A closed weigh station will hold 10 to 20 trucks. Some states have opened them and renamed them Trucker Oases. Open them all. We need the parking space. Right now a very common place for drivers to park is on entrance ramps. Totally unsafe but done a lot. (Some companies tell you not to park there--you'll very rarely see a USA Truck rig parked on an entrance ramp because there's a company policy against it.

[Fumesucker]

9. I'm enough of an old car nut to wonder what the difference is?

Don't most 18 wheelers have ABS already?

What is the difference between current brakes and the ones that will do the 250 foot stop?

[jmowreader]

12. ABS is required on new trucks

Not sure when the rule was instituted, but I've driven 1980s vintage trucks that had it--they had it before cars did.

As to what the difference is, I am not sure; I think it's probably the depth of the brake drum. More friction surface means shorter stops. They're probably doing something about brake lag too--brake lag being the time from when you step on the brakes until the air gets to the chamber. At 60mph, brake lag means the truck doesn't have brakes for 58 feet.

[Sebastian Doyle]

11. I can think of someone who will probably hate it.

The same multi-nationalists who thought it was a great idea to open up the borders and let unsafe Mexican trucks onto American highways.