Can Electronic Logging Devices Fix Detention Time ?

Carriers should take advantage of load boards to rate brokers on issues like detention pay or someone should make a website to review practices of Shippers and receivers similar to the ones brokers use to rate carriers

July 24, 2015 20:05:50 PM

Interesting point Joey made about HAZmat. As a Canadian driver, we are required to possess a FAST (Free And Secure Trade) card to haul Hazmat in the US. It's a $80 fee to apply and it includes an interview with a Homeland Security agent after fingerprinting and a full background check is done. One would think that with the extra hassle that we would receive better compensation, but like Joey stated, rates stayed the same. Furthermore, to add insult to injury, my company would hold FAST approved drivers for the hazmat loads that seemed to load later in the day which would result in us arriving back at our Canadian terminals later than the non-approved guys that may have initially unloaded later but still were able to beat the hazmat loads, placing us lower on the power board. Lately some of us are refusing to haul hazmat until this is resolved.

July 20, 2014 13:30:46 PM

Mark, Henry and I were talking about your comment and the ELD is not what held you up. After being held up at the dock for 6 hours in order to get that $10,000 dollar load you would have to have doctored the books. If no one can run illegal look how many more $10,000 loads will be available.

May 26, 2014 7:37:05 AM

I've had all the same problems. Waiting for hours to get either loaded or unloaded at a shipper or consignee. Yes we should be compensated for our time, but electronic logs are not going to make these people do their job any faster because it doesn't effect them. If you mandated compensation, you would likely get the minimum wage. That's something, but not enough. If I lose a $10,000 load because this guy keeps me in his dock for 6 hours and you give me $100, how is that a fair compensation? No ELD's are not going to help

May 25, 2014 7:32:03 AM

An Economist's fall back phrase, is all else being equal. When the Haz Mat requirement was enacted the economy, and freight rates, were going in the wrong direction. If Haz mat rates remained stable, that was better than the rest of the economy.

I doubt that we will see a mass exodus from the industry. That story has been told before, and never came to pass. The few that will leave, will be the ones that will have left shortly anyway. The larger change in supply will be from drivers who find that an ELD does not provide " extra" hours.

May 23, 2014 1:34:01 AM

To Joe's point, I know what you mean. I hauled haz-mat only for 12 years and after 9-11, they raised the standards on us and required us to get finger printed and background checks. I assumed this would make me more valuable since some drivers would be disqualified from being haz-mat certified and the driver pool would be thinned out, but boy was I wrong. Freight rates didn't budge.

May 22, 2014 15:04:08 PM

YES I AGREE WITH EVERYTHING SAID AND MORE, LET'S FACE IT THERE WILL ALWAYS BE SOMETHING..

May 22, 2014 8:46:13 AM

I don't think that detention time is making the case for ELD's instead of the other way around. Whenever the mandate for ELD's hits I think there are going to be a lot of drivers calling that date their first day of retirement. Coupled with fewer American's viewing a career of driving a truck as acceptable, I don’t doubt that abusive shippers and receivers will eventually see the “Mother of all rate increases.”

About the only caution I tell myself about my belief in the inevitability of rate increases/detention pay requirements with mandatory ELD’s is many of us have had those type of expectations in the past related to new requirements. Rates were going to properly adjust when we went to 80K, to 48’ trailers and then 53’ -102’s, when chauffeurs licenses were replaced with CDL’s, drug and alcohol testing, reduced HOS from the latest round of changes, here in California many think banning certain trucks will eventually increase rates…none of these hopes for increased rates EVER happened.

May 21, 2014 15:25:34 PM

Just so everyone knows, Henry and I have debated this subject for years. We debate a lot of different things. Henry and Linda make some good points. Henry loves that example of the $10,000 load. It would not be difficult to portion that load out between dock time and miles. My biggest concern is that shipper/receiver that habitually abuses drivers and steals their time. Yes, absolutely I will never go back there. The problem is that there is enough drivers and companies to provide that shipper with enough trucks and companies to use a different one everyday for eternity. Everyday another driver gets robbed and that shipper never pays a dime.

May 21, 2014 5:08:07 AM

One size does not fit all and when the government tries to make one size fit all it does not work.

Mandatory Detention reminds me of arresting the prostitute and not the person who uses her profession.

The drug user on the street and not the person supplying or growing the drugs.

Law enforcement does go after the source but often it is the low hanging fruit that gets the fine and jail time. The companies have allowed the shippers to control their trucks schedule and it is them that has to put a stop to it. The companies that send trucks to these locations are the ones that need to demand detention time, refuse to go to these shippers, and no matter what their decision they need to pay the driver the time sitting at the dock. I feel as if we are putting the blame on the wrong entity, it is not the shippers and receivers it is our companies that have created this monster by allowing this procedure. We as customers would never go to a place where we were treated like this.

Another example is a doctor's office. If I make an appointment to see a doctor and he does not value my time and I have to sit to long I either walk out of the office or I never go back. If I continue to allow a doctor to treat me this way then shame on me.

With our company after two hours a call is placed and the customer is informed of how much it will cost them to detain us. Some customer’s choice to pay detention others we are immediately loaded.

Like Henry who has his own authority, he knows what his time is worth and the customer either pays him for his time or he does not go back. Companies need to act like Albert Transport and there would not be a problem.

In the end the EOBR being mandated will solve the problem instead of companies stepping up to the plate and saying our trucks time is worth something.

Very good blog Henry and Jeff's was as well. Both sides of the story discussed.

May 21, 2014 4:08:47 AM