Actually, I do see a problem with it: especially for people in jobs where the public's safety is concerned. For example, nurses should not be working twelve hour shifts. I know that nurses do work twelve hour shifts, but they shouldn't be. The last thing I would want is some stone-tired nurse administering potentially deadly medications to me.
I have my Class 1 (Class A for Americans I guess) license with Air. I have driven large trucks and as far as I am concerned driving them has as much in common with driving a car as piloting a small plane has with piloting a 757: not much.
A driver has shown up. I just didn't feel the need to mention it. Two points that the majority of you seem to be missing, it's not 12 hours, it's 11 driving, and the 16 hour period includes a 2 solid hour (minimum) break.
The benefits of extending a single workers hours should be pretty obvious. The cost of having an employee is much greater than just their salary, meaning the more work you can "squeeze" out of a single employee the better.
Of course we're talking about truck drivers here, and I bet most of them leave the loading and unloading up to somebody else, so basically they drive the same hours and get to sit a couple of hours extra for a "day" while people load/unload their trailer.
belive it or not, this will also benifit the drivers to some degree. It's frustrating to be 2hrs from home, and because you've been in a traffic jam, held up loading/unloading, something broke on the truck, if you hit the current 14hr limit, then that's it. You need to pull over and rest for 10hrs. Not only does that frustrate the driver, but the business on the other end doesen't get their product for another day, which means they need to carry more inventory, which means higher costs to the consumer
Yes, but then it's 16hr time limit that will do the same. Wouldn't it be just as frustrating to be 2h from home and then hit the 16h time limit? I doubt that 2h extra is being lobbied there for extra overhead. Even if it is will logistic people see it as that?
I doubt an organization such as Walmart would spend the money to lobby something like this if they didn't think that extra 2hrs was worthwhile. I bet somewhere they have a study showing that some large percentage of missed deliveries are falling in that 2hr window of time.
But Matt, wouldn't it make more sense for the unions to let the driver decide whether to complete the run (and subtract it from the next day's time?) or pull over to rest?
As Sami said, whether you add 2 hours or not to the total time is sort of arbitrary as to whether you'll need another 2 hrs or not at the end. You can't control when you'll get a flat tire or have other problems, it can just as easily happen on the 15th hr as the 13th.
I'm just not understanding your arguement, explain it to me.
Here's my take on this, I'm in CA so keep that in mind Our drivers are required to keep a clean driving record. So it's in their best interest to keep it that way. A responsible person will know when it's time to pull over and rest. We let anybody over 16 drive a car, or a 20,000 lb pickup/trailer combo, with no regulations, no regard to driving record, nothing. Heck, most of the time an unlicensed auto driver will just get a slap on the wrist! Why is the trucking industry under the gun so much? Two words, public perception. Take a look at the following pdf, it's a bit eye opening. http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd...003/809763.pdf