The self serving lies of industry and the spinelessness of our government have led up to this abuse of American's drivers by the ELD
"To me the worst thing seems to be to have to work under fear, force and artificial authority.
Such treatment destroys the sound sentiments, the sincerity and the self-confidence of men and women
and produces a subservient subject. Albert Einstein
Reality Chek is a site to collect the real world experience with the eld, from the payoffs to government agencies, to profiteering by manufacturers, to defective equipment, to the exposure to hacking, to unwarranted government surveillance, to the cheating of companies who pay by a fake mileage chart, to the shippers and receivers that have no responsibilities to minimize our time, to the government allowing paying us for only part of our work hours and finally to the dehumanization and disrespect felt by drivers that are being spyed upon, undervalued and lied to.
A PROBLEM, WELL DEFINED, CONTAINS WITHIN ITSELF ITS SOLUTION
Drivers are only paid for driving, so are challenged to create as much driving time per day as possible. This entails recording minimum loading/unloading times to leave a maximum of driving time
The solution to drivers' adjusting their logs to max out their driving time is
PAY FOR ALL HOURS WORKED
Carriers would avoid "overtime" and drivers would too.
So how did we come to this and why isn't this solution obvious?
FMCSA is staffed by profiteers, like the equipment manufacturers and the mega-carriers, and vengeance groups that have a grudge against the industry and by career bureaucrats who are in and out like a revolving door so have no incentive to learn their job so leave themselves targets for the squeekiest wheels on their committees; meanwhile those of us who have to live and work under their watch, are jacked around by the rule of the week mandates.
FOLLOW THE MONEY
The FMCSA has given us the profit angle when they estimated that forcing drivers to purchase the elds would cost the industry over $2 Billion dollars upfront. What this doesn't show, is that 300,000 independent drivers have to spend their own money, just to be spied upon and tracked by our own government. Since the bureaucrats never do something for nothing or because it it the right thing to do, the Benjamin's land near their bank accounts as well.
The human cost has been conveniently ignored. Instead the ELD was sold by slick Madison Avenue ads, double speak and ignoring the history of man under the lash of slavery. Albert Einstein said it best: "To me the worst thing seems to be to have to work under fear, force and artificial authority.
Such treatment destroys the sound sentiments, the sincerity and the self-confidence of men and women and produces a subservient subject."
The pleasure of being necessary is profound and by destroying our value to our work, the ELD is destroying pride and initiative.
1984 predicted the ELD and it's scamming of society to accept controls of the pols. The ELD is the worst kind of law, because it is a law that violates the deepest tenents of a free society: It mandates unwarranted surveillance of 3 million Americans just because of their jobs. Some have interpreted the surveillance as inhouse by carriers on their own equipment. This is false for several reasons: it is a Federal Government mandate for use by Federal and State law enforcement to constantly track and trace a driver. Surveillance by the government is illegal unless a judge orders it because of suspected criminals. The ELD declares us criminals?
TO WORK UNDER FEAR, FORCE AND ARTIFICIAL AUTHORITY, WHILE MORALLY REPUGNANT, ALSO CAUSES SEVERE BURNOUT
A TRUE STORY: George woke up in his cab one morning and didn't feel like driving. "I was exhausted, so I just sat all day in the TA and drank coffee, played some video games. I told my dispatcher that I had been throwing up and couldn't drive. I didn't like lying, and it made me feel like a deadbeat, but I didn't have a choice. I was so tired. Truth be told, I didn't really give a crap about the load anymore, or the job. Nothing really mattered."
The third-year driver, who asked that his real name not be used, wasn't just tired, bored or unhappy about his job, he probably was suffering from 'burnout,' a difference that eludes and confounds both drivers and their companies – even some doctors – but is a serious and explicit malady from which recovery is more than a solid night's sleep away. While the term burnout often is used incorrectly to describe everything from exhaustion to hating your job, those who have studied the subject say it encompasses specific criteria and, unfortunately, is extremely difficult from which to recover. Many sufferers must quit their jobs to do so.
Nobody knows how much industry turnover, which is 95%, is attributable to burnout,
but driving a truck almost seems like a job made to order for the problem.
Michael Leiter, who recently joined the faculty at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, has been researching burnout for 30 years. He is one of the editors-in-chief of the peer-reviewed journal Burnout Research. According to Leiter, the current research shows that burnout has three components.
The first is physical and mental exhaustion. "Some people say burnout is just exhaustion, which is silly, since you could just call it exhaustion,” he explained. “It's clearly more than that, but exhaustion is definitely a piece of it. Exhaustion is when you say 'I feel tired when I start my work day.' Feeling tired at the end of your work day is not so bad, but when you feel tired at the beginning, it means that it's chronic. You're not really getting the rest and recovery you need, so that's one dimension, but still it's exhaustion. It's not burnout."
The second is cynicism about the job and distancing yourself from it. "For example," said Leiter, "you used to think you had a neat job, but now
you say, 'I really don't give a damn anymore,' and part of that is often tied with being miffed at management and government, for interfering with
things they know nothing about. You find yourself saying, 'I just want to get away from this.' It's a kind of distancing and cynicism."
The third component is losing confidence in your abilities and skill. "Your sense of efficacy drops," Leiter said.
"Ideally, you once felt like you were doing important work, and were good at it, but with burnout,
you start doubting whether your work is important and that you're good at it."
This combination of exhaustion, cynicism, and a lack of efficacy defines burnout."
Enter, the autonomous truck, whose sole purpose is to throw us out of the driver's seat, adding to the growing cynicism & lack of efficacy.
ALL FOR A FEW MORE BILLION DOLLARS IN THE OFFSHORE ACCOUNT OF SOME CEO
When told of these criteria for burnout, driver George said a resounding, "Yes. I felt all of this."
BUT BE OF GOOD CHEER
THIS IS - A BATTLE FOR THE HEART AND SOUL OF THE GREAT AMERICAN TRUCKER
THE MEGA RICH PLAY A LONG GAME; SO WHAT? NOW WE KNOW WHAT WE'RE FACING, NOW WE HAVE THE PROOF - WE ARE IN THE GAME, TO WIN!!
“Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come
can depend on what you do today.It's been that way so many times. All of war is that way.” ERNEST HEMINGWAY
https://nomdplume.wixsite.com/safer-highways https://americanhero168.wixsite.com/never-the-less
https://gypsyrollers.wordpress.com/2018/03/25/gypsy-rollers-the-lure-of-the-trucking-life/
https://eldwronganswer.weebly.com/ https://nomdplume.wixsite.com/cybercrime
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