jon f mn Peoplenet question

john in la · Mar 29, 2014

Jon
I will explain this a little better than you need so others can follow along.

Peoplenet is a time tracking devise for truck drivers that tracks your every move. A onboard log book. We are not allowed to work over 14 hours from the start of our day. So if we start at 6am we can not work past 8pm. We need 10 consecutive hours off to reset our 14 hour clock.

Now that others can understand what we are talking about; I was talking to a wrecker driver this morning about several tows he has made.
Perfectly good truck towed from the truck stop to the unloading dock (wal mart) because the driver was out of hours and the truck had peoplenet.

Seems these guys come into town and can not go to unload because it is not their appointment time so they go to the truck stop.
The problem is their appoint time is past their 14 hours and before their break is up so the company is paying a wrecker to tow the truck from the truck stop to wal mart.

Lets use a for instance.....
A driver has a appointment in Houston to load at 8am. It takes 1 hour so he leaves Houston at 9am and drives the 6 hours to southeast Louisiana. He has worked 7 hours today and it is 3pm. But Wal Mart gives him a appointment to unload at midnight. He can not go to Wal Mart before his appointment time so he goes to the local truck stop.
Problem is his 14 hours was up at 10pm and even though he started a break at 3pm his 10 hour break is not up till 1am.
So he can not legally work at midnight and with peoplenet recording his every move he can not move so the company calls a wrecker to meet the appointment time.

While all this could have been prevented with drop and hook some companies do not have that option. We could also blame the driver. He should have loaded; took a break in Houston or so where on the way to where his 10 hour break would have been up and he could arrive in town just in time for his appointment. But I do not see drivers thinking that far ahead.

I can see major repercussions coming once this happens enough to the same driver and/or company.

Is Dart having these kind of problems??

Mo 1032D · Mar 29, 2014

Company I work for uses peoplenet also but ours are set up with the off duty Pc which means we can run a few miles off duty that doesn"t get logged. For instance if you cant find a parking spot you can go to off duty Pc and get to a place to parkif not too far. Have heard of a few drivers using it to make drops after hours run out cause of late appointment time or wasn"t allowed to park at receiver till appointment time. But like you said some drivers don"t plan ahead.

dustycoal · Mar 29, 2014

Is dispatch making the appointments or are the driver's doing it? Why didn't the driver ask for a 2 am dock for unloading? Just wondering?

john in la · Mar 29, 2014

Yes we have 30 miles of off duty PC. We use it to cover miles from the terminal where we drop our trailers to the motel or from the motel to a place to eat.

I guess this is more of a question of how could you do this legally because using off duty pc to go from a truck stop to a loading dock is not legal.

While I do not deal with this because I do local deliveries by the hour or terminal to terminal drop and hook I can see it becoming a problem for some. Heck they are making it to where a driver needs a ride along secretary just to keep track of his paperwork.

On the other hand a nice looking ride along secretary might not be a bad thing.
LOL.

john in la · Mar 29, 2014

I really can not answer your question as this did not involve me.

But that is what it will involve in the long run better planning.
Not getting big mega places like do it my way or hit the highway wal mart to go along with your plans is a different story.

I have seen signs at a wal mart store that stated if a outside carrier was in a door unloading; Even though this carrier may be LTL with only 2 pallets to unload; If a wal mart truck shows up this outside carrier should move; let the wal mart driver do his drop and hook; and then and only then would the outside carrier back into the new open door to finish his unload.

mmfan55 · Mar 29, 2014

Just another case of the idiots in government; that have no idea how to drive a truck; dictating the "one-size-fits-all" perfect rules in an imperfect world.. Truck drivers are no longer humans; but; ROBOTS. Someone decides for us when we are tired and not; sleepy or not; sick or not; etc..... No "human" factor exists now. Just what some "wanna-feel-good" because I did something jerk got a law passed. (I have been driving for 38 years. the gov't keeps applying "band-aids) to the symtoms instead of addressing the problems. I will shut up now)

Mark-Ia · Mar 29, 2014

You're also required to take 30 minutes off duty in the 1st 8 hours of service.

jimg.allentown · Mar 29, 2014

You are only partially correct. We can work as many hours as we want. Just not allowed to drive after 14 hours working time.
You do not differentiate between WORKING hours and DRIVING hours.
The rules as last written allow a driver to drive up to 11 hours before requiring the 10 hour break. The 11 hours of driving are usually mixed in with some "ON DUTY NOT DRIVING" time. After 14 hours of combined driving and on duty not driving time, we are not allowed to drive until we take the 10-hour break. We ARE allowed to WORK over the 14 hours - just not DRIVE over the 14 hours.
Also, the rule writers in all of their infinite wisdom will no longer allow us to split our sleeper berth time.

Wal-Mart needs to pay more attention to their scheduling, to accommodate drivers that are running continually on the edge of running out of hours. Perhaps they need to do things more like K-mart. When delivering to K-mart, the driver checks in with the guard. The guard then tells the driver where to drop his trailer and where to park his tractor. The yard jockey then comes out for the trailer when the receivers are ready for it, takes it into the dock, and unloads it.
Once the trailer has been unloaded, the yard jockey brings out the empty trailer and notifies the driver. The driver then picks up his paperwork and continues along his way to the next run.

jimg.allentown · Mar 29, 2014

That 30 miles PC is not necessarily illegal.....
There is an exception in the hours of service rules for personal use. For example, if I were to use the tractor as my personal transportation to a motel, that would be legal regardless of hours. The one thing about personal use is that you CANNOT carry a load of any kind while using a CMV for personal use. BTDT. the DOT cops have no sense of humor.

john in la · Mar 29, 2014

I was only partially correct because I was not trying to explain log book rules. I was only trying to give those that do not know the rules some back ground so they could understand why said driver could not DRIVE from the truck stop to the unloading spot.

Yes the main rule change that will effect some is the no split sleeper berth time.
I know years ago when I ran teams we worked 4 on 4 off so one driver did not have to work all night long.

Anonymous-0 · Mar 29, 2014

What about camera's in trucks, they show every move. Some every focus on the driver. The co can watch it live. Hope I don't ever have to deal with that.

jon f mn · Mar 29, 2014

I have to say that is a very rare problem for me and I think as t dart as well. The thing with the peoplenet is dispatch knows what your hours are and keeps track of it. If I'm tight to deliver legal it sends me warnings and if I get to close dispatch calls me snd we make what ever arangements are necessary. We sre not allowed to use pc off duty for that. Dart
does allow for some minor extentions over the log hours as long as you don't over do it. For instance, if I was 15 minutes from delivery I would just run over to get there. Then after if I couldn't stay there is what's called the "safe haven" law that means you can drive to the nearest safe parking without violation.

jon f mn · Mar 29, 2014

I have to say that is a very rare problem for me and I think as t dart as well. The thing with the peoplenet is dispatch knows what your hours are and keeps track of it. If I'm tight to deliver legal it sends me warnings and if I get to close dispatch calls me snd we make what ever arangements are necessary. We sre not allowed to use pc off duty for that. Dart
does allow for some minor extentions over the log hours as long as you don't over do it. For instance, if I was 15 minutes from delivery I would just run over to get there. Then after if I couldn't stay there is what's called the "safe haven" law that means you can drive to the nearest safe parking without violation.

JD Seller · Mar 29, 2014

IMO the driver had two major problems:

1) Delivering to any WALMART facility!!!! They are the WORST place in the world to deliver to if your not a Walmart driver. They put the distribution centers in the middle of no where and then do not let you in sooner than one hour before your unload appointment. For those that don't know this WALMART decides WHEN they unload you. You do not request a time. WALMART dictates when you unload. IF you miss it, you can have to wait 24 hours or more until the next time WALMART (feels) like unloading you.

2) The drivers second issue is driving for a company that uses this type of tracking/log book computers.

When I first retired I drove in the winters for several local companies. I might do a trip each week or maybe one a month. The 10 and 14 hour rules that went into effect in 2005 are a JOKE. You are just about NEVER legal. There are few factories/shippers where you do not wait for hours to load and unload. So your eating your 14 hours onduty time up. The opposite is true too. I just don't think any driver is safe driving 10 hours straight. It is much better with breaks but if you unload and reload in that 14 hours you will not have the time for any breaks.

I will/would NEVER drive for any company that uses these type of systems. They actually create a more unsafe environment.

T in NE · Mar 30, 2014

I see one problem with your scenario. There is no way the driver can legally make that load. -Legally- He has to log his time waiting for the dock, and waiting at the dock, "on duty not driving". So yes, he could show that time as off-duty, as part of a break, but not legally. I showed 9 hours waiting for and 2 hours on the dock on duty one time when I had a dispatcher tell me it was my fault I couldn't make my next delivery on time because I should have shown that as a split break. Then spent 2 days at home for a reset because it was nearly impossible to get a full day off at that time.

I could have shown the time waiting as off-duty, if they would have come to the truck to get me, but I had to listen to the CB for my dock assignment. That wasn't a very nice place, the people were buttheads.

john in la · Mar 30, 2014

The driver had a appointment. He was not at a unload location but at a truck stop in route to the location.
He can legally log off duty or sleeper berth at this truck stop.
The problem is the new 14 hour rule and no split 10 hour off duty rule.
The driver arrived into town (by bad planning) where his appointment was after his 14 hours and before he could take a full 10 hour break.

I can understand the rule. It is to try and make a driver work all days or all nights. A driver that works all days has problems when he works overnight one day every two weeks or so.
But some appointments are in the middle of the night so the driver is in a catch 22 situation.

john in la · Mar 30, 2014

1) True very true. Read my post about the wal mart store. The DC here is worse. The company I drive for does drop and hook at Wal-Mart dc and one Acc Grocery DC we deal with.
The Acc Grocery we deal with we do interline because we will never go there again.

2) Be glad you are old because peoplenet is the way of the future. Young drivers will have to get use to it or get out. All the big companies are going to it for insurance and driver/truck performance tracking.
Peoplenet allows companies to discipline things like idle time; sudden stops; while also giving real time location of the truck.
There is no more of giving a driver a cross country load and then wondering for 3 days where he is at or when he will get to unload spot because the driver refuses to call in daily.

jerrybigrig · Mar 30, 2014

So what's the big deal....us tow truck guys like your co. rules ..haaa

T in NE · Mar 30, 2014

The appointment times, preclude his making the delivery on-time and legally.

jennifer408 · Mar 30, 2014

(quoted from post at 10:40:49 03/29/14) Jon
I will explain this a little better than you need so others can follow along.

Peoplenet is a time tracking devise for truck drivers that tracks your every move. A onboard log book. We are not allowed to work over 14 hours from the start of our day. So if we start at 6am we can not work past 8pm. We need 10 consecutive hours off to reset our 14 hour clock.

Now that others can understand what we are talking about; I was talking to a wrecker driver this morning about several tows he has made.
Perfectly good truck towed from the truck stop to the unloading dock (wal mart) because the driver was out of hours and the truck had peoplenet.

Seems these guys come into town and can not go to unload because it is not their appointment time so they go to the truck stop.
The problem is their appoint time is past their 14 hours and before their break is up so the company is paying a wrecker to tow the truck from the truck stop to wal mart.

Lets use a for instance.....
A driver has a appointment in Houston to load at 8am. It takes 1 hour so he leaves Houston at 9am and drives the 6 hours to southeast Louisiana. He has worked 7 hours today and it is 3pm. But Wal Mart gives him a appointment to unload at midnight. He can not go to Wal Mart before his appointment time so he goes to the local truck stop.
Problem is his 14 hours was up at 10pm and even though he started a break at 3pm his 10 hour break is not up till 1am.
So he can not legally work at midnight and with peoplenet recording his every move he can not move so the company calls a wrecker to meet the appointment time.

While all this could have been prevented with drop and hook some companies do not have that option. We could also blame the driver. He should have loaded; took a break in Houston or so where on the way to where his 10 hour break would have been up and he could arrive in town just in time for his appointment. But I do not see drivers thinking that far ahead.

I can see major repercussions coming once this happens enough to the same driver and/or company.

Is Dart having these kind of problems??

why didn't the company call wallmart for a unload schedule before they sent the trucker out in the first place ?

jon f mn Peoplenet question

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