[Home] [Headlines] [Latest Articles] [Latest Comments] [Post] [Sign-in] [Mail] [Setup] [Help]
Status: Not Logged In; Sign In
|
Dead Constitution See other Dead Constitution Articles Title: With New Federal 'Rest Rules' Taking Effect July 1st, Feds questioned on why they already violate existing rules With New Federal 'Rest Rules' Taking Effect July 1st, Feds questioned The Federal Government is enacting yet more rules that commercial truck drivers must comply with beginning on July 1st, 2013. The first new rule states that a driver must take a mandatory half hour break after a maximum of eight hours of driving. As noted on their website, the feds had no prior "rest break" rules other than existing sleeper berth provisions. As is stands today, property carrying commercial drivers are allowed to drive 11 hours at a time (14 hour shift maximum) with a mandatory 10 hour break afterwards, eight of it in the sleeper berth. If the eight hours is interrupted for any reason, FMCSA rules mandate that the driver begins the ten hours all over again. For a list of the rules, see the FMCSA website here. [PDF here.] The new rules were entered into the Federal Register in December 2011, but take effect next month, on July 1, 2013. This means that the laws will have 'teeth'; drivers and companies must comply with the new rest rules. This is done so that drivers will get the rest they need. As the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration has documented in their meticulous report Fighting Fatigue, The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's extensive in-depth Commercial Motor Vehicle/Driver Fatigue and Alertness Study notes The DFAS was initiated in 1989 by the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) Office of Motor Carriers (OMC) in response to a Congressional directive contained in the Truck and Bus Safety and Regulatory Reform Act of 1988. Field data collection was conducted in 1993 and the project was completed in 1996. The overall cost of the study was US$4.45 million." As you can see, the government take this stuff very seriously. Or at least that's what it appears on the surface. But after spending untold millions of dollars ($45 miillion on one study alone), how well are all the sleep rules being complied with? The truth of the matter is that law enforcement officers throughout the nation are violating these rules purposely, flagrantly, with impunity. They are waking up sleeping truck drivers every day in every state, in complete violation of state and federal laws. They have no legal justification or probable cause to wake up the sleeping co-driver who is in his 'OH-SO-IMPORTANT!!' 10 hour sleeper berth time. Truck drivers are hard working regular folks who really don't want any hassles. They don't appreciate being woken up anymore than you would if some insane jackboot with a gun pounded on your bedroom window every night at 3am and demand you wake up and show him your ID under threat of arrest. But this is literally exactly what happens every day. The offenders are law enforcement officers working at weigh stations, checkpoints, port of entries, as well as U.S. Department of Homeland Security officers at warrantless internal checkpoints. This happened to me in 2010 while I was sleeping when my partner was ticketed at a weigh station in Devine TX. The police forced me to wake up, get out of the sleeper, and show them ID under threat of arrest. I filed a state and federal civil rights complaints within a week. In this case, both officers were recorded and the Texas Department of Public Safety admitted wrongdoing in writing on behalf of the two officers only one month after an internal affairs complaint was filed against the officers in November 2010. The admission letter, dated December 20, 2010 and signed by Captain Kenneth Plunk of the Waco Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Division, stated that "corrective action was needed" against both officers and that "additional training has been taken." [Here is the postmarked envelope the letter came in.] I then filed a 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 Federal Civil Rights Lawsuit against the troopers for damages, permanent injunction, and to dissuade them from continuing this blatantly illegal practice. One of the documents released in initial disclosures was an internal POLICE MEMO in which the Texas Troopers officially admitted that "The passenger is under no obligation to comply with request" for ID. As I stated, this is not complicated. Truck drivers need to get the load to its destination. If they don't do the job they're hired to do, they can be fired. Truckers also aren't likely to resist demands because of their fear of being arrested or detained and held up for hours at a time. Truck scheduling is generally pretty tight and we don't have a lot of time to spare. Many truckers, according to the feds themselves, also feel pressured to drive when they're tired because of company deadlines, family obligations to earn more money, etc. That is precisely why the feds enacted all these rules about getting rest. Personally, I think it's an outrage and disgrace that these petty, vile, amoral power-abusing officers wake up decent people "because they have the badge and the gun." And that's the NICEST way I can put it. (Trust me, it's not always easy to be polite.) Personally, for me this is not only a safety issue, a health concern and a legal issue, it is also, first and foremost, a distinctively moral issue. As the Catholic Church explains, The Cathechism of the Catholic Church states So it's time for the U.S. government and the various police departments to stop violating their own rules. Below is a copy of the letter I recently sent to the Dept. Of Transportation's FMCSA and Federal Highway Adnministration regarding this matter: [ARTICLE CONTINUES HERE.] Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread
|
||
|
[Home]
[Headlines]
[Latest Articles]
[Latest Comments]
[Post]
[Sign-in]
[Mail]
[Setup]
[Help]
|
||