We are less than 3.5 months away from one of the biggest changes to potentially take place in the trucking industry in recent history. If you thought detention costs were high and driver’s patience short, wait till the new rules are implemented. The (HOS) Hours of Service rules by the Department of Transportation is to limit 34-hour restarts to once per week and will reduce a driver’s average maximum allowable hours of work per week from 82 hours to 70 hours – a 15% reduction.
I’ve always been an advocate for driver’s safety and most importantly civilian safety on the roads. I know there are driver’s out there who will take loads that are more than 750 miles long and deliver next day. I know there are driver’s out there who will take TEAM required loads and drive for 20+ hours straight to make more money. In both instances this puts a dangerous driver on the road and puts all the other drivers that cross his path at risk. I’m hoping this will deter drivers from taking these type of loads and performing unsafe trips.
With less allowable driving time under the new rules I think companies are going to implement new detention policies. I personally try to minimize the cost of detention to my customer by ensuring the driver has marked in and out times on their bills, make sure they called us when they were approaching a detention charge, and delaying the “detention conversation”. With these new rules it’s going to be nearly impossible to play hardball with detention charges and subsequently accessorial charges are going to rise.
As a shipper of product this means you’re going to have to stage your freight accordingly, you’re going to have to be more efficient at loading trucks-keeping it under 2 hours. You might want to think about setting up a delivery appointment schedule vs. First Come Fist Serve. If you’re not able to maximize loading/unloading times and fight to pay detention charges drivers are not going to take your loads and you’re freight costs will go up.
I’m interested to hear what you think, maybe this is something you’ve been expecting and have already implemented new policies. I would like to hear what you think about the new rule change.
fr8tmaster 