Minneapolis/St. Paul Nesties
ChelseaNelson
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Commercial Drivers Fatigue Enforcement Program.
It is slow?.anyone want to talk about a somewhat silly, but interesting case?
http://www.landlinemag.com/Special_Reports/2010/OOIDAvsMN/091410.htm
http://www.mntruck.org/pdf/fatigueflier.pdf
The Minnesota State Patrol?s Commercial Drivers Fatigue Enforcement Program. A trial started today ? the case is brought by a trucker challenging the arbitrary practices of the program. Check out the ?checklist? on the second link. There are several funny things used to decide if a driver is fatigued. Last week patrol personnel were told no truck drivers can be placed "out of service" for fatigue effective immediately until the case is resolved.
Re: Commercial Drivers Fatigue Enforcement Program.
Some funny things from the check list:
Having clothing in the berth or cab? This is extra odd when you notice having dirty clothes on is also a sign of being fatigued?
Having a video game, cell phones, computer or reading materials in the berth or cab ?One trucker was asked if he had a Playboy in his truck?.cause if you have a Playboy you are not going to spend your break sleeping.
A full wastebasket ? They want truckers to litter instead?.and they must litter, because if trash in the sleeping area it means you are fatigued and if you have too much trash in the wastebasket it means you are fatigued?better toss all the extra out the window. Oh yeah, and if you drink a soda along the way the bottle must be tossed out the window immediately?having soda bottles in the truck is also a sign of fatigue
Job or home related stress ? Know what adds job and home related stress? Losing your job because you were put out of service for the Playboy magazine you stash under your mattress.
Appearing to be or do any of these things: Irritable, overly agreeable, physical movements ? You have to mix a pinch of irritability with a dash of a smile while you complete your interview ? but whatever you do, do not move!
actually this was a HUGE screw up on MN side. They never adopted the federal regulations for the drivers until AFTER this lawsuit came about in 2009. Technically still, if any of OUR drivers would get stopped, we could fight the tickets and win also. BUT our company knows it was a missed technicality on MN side. Our drivers do not technically have to do logs for MN still, (but we require them to!) I think MOST trucking companies are in the same frame of mind as us. BUT as stated before, we could go back on the last 6 years and argue every ticket for every driver that the state of MN gave us. The driver knows they were in the wrong though so we make them suck it up.
The checklist is laughable.
I think the clothing, video games and garbage probably speak to not stopping often or stopping for sleep in a bed vs in the truck seat. Like not having clothing in a bag in the back because you just change in the truck or not having anywhere to stop other than the truck so the games and trash pile up.
I think determining who is fatigued and who is not is a wide grey area. I know that when I'm over tired I'm antsy and can't stay still so I look like I have energy to burn. DH on the other hand looks like he is going to fall on his face and his eyes get red. So for an officer trying to figure it out, it's got to be hard. I'm assuming that the check list is based on things from studies about fatigued persons, not just something that someone made up.
I will say that my neighbor drives for the company that was involved in the death of the 2 women on 35W south of the cities this spring. The one where the semi driver likely fell asleep while at the wheel and never even tried to stop when approaching stopped traffic. He says that it's a regular occurrance to have drivers working local (within 200 miles) routes, working 12-14 hours a day. He's done it himself. He said that he'd come home after the 14 hours and literally fall asleep on his bed/couch and only get up to several alarms all over the house. He survived on 5 hour energy drinks and lots of sugar to keep him up during the day. Add that up and there is certain to be accidents that not only effect the driver, but the drivers around them.
My dad was a commercial truck driver until the very morning he died. He was just finishing up his paperwork in the office at the distribution center he delivered to.
The checklist is weird and I don't know much about that suit, but driver fatigue isn't funny at all.
The sad thing is that even with national standards for how many hours a driver is allowed to be on the road without a break, the rules get broken.
Owner-operators who depend on getting a load will take it, often at the urging of the company they are contracted to. Logbook "altering" is not unheard of. The bitter flip side to this is that if a driver follows the rules to stay off of the road for a certain number of hours, he may miss a load - which may be the only one available for days.
Half of my extended family drives trucks. There is a sleeper area in the trucks I have been in?.almost like a camper. If a cousin drove through town they would sometimes stop to see us and when I was little I liked to crawl around in the trucks. Knowing my cousins, they probably had lots of Playboys, pop, garbage and electronics in their trucks so those parts of the checklist are kinda funny.
Guess they all work for a smaller family owned business so things maybe different. They didn?t really complain and they didn?t seem overworked (unless they worked in the office) or tired all the time.
It is odd that there are rules and ?process? for evaluating tired commercial drivers when there are so many drivers on the road. It is odd you can be forced to stop driving if it is your job and you are suspected of being too tried, but not if you are driving you own vehicle to get somewhere. I am tired just about every morning since I am a night person?and I would be pretty POed if I got stopped every day on my way to work because I couldn?t be driving when I was tired.