Here is a blog post to share. You can't have too much Rona info so take a few minutes to read this good information.
Key Takeaways Introduction WHO guidelines for long -haul truck drivers About Matrack COVID Heat Tracker How to use the heat tracker Benefits of Matrack COVID Tracker Bottom-line Introduction The United States of America has recently seen a deadly rise in the case of affected Coronavirus patients with more than 69,000 deaths in the last few weeks. The daily life and businesses in America have shattered, and people are on the extreme verge of fear and anxiety with chaos all around. During this terrible pandemic, the nation’s truck drivers are among those who risk their lives and personal health to ensure that products and freights are carried and reached. Today, truck drivers earn huge respect who equally join hands with the doctors and nurses to serve the nation. WHO guidelines for long-haul truck drivers The recent studies of WHO indicate that Coronavirus can be spread by people who don’t even show symptoms, which is a serious concern. As truck drivers spend long hours driving from one place to another, meeting truck stop attendants, store workers, dockworkers, and other truck drivers, they must protect themselves and slow the spread of the virus. Wear face masks, especially when you are in the affected area. Wash your hands thoroughly and frequently using a hand sanitizer. Clean and disinfect your truck, especially on surfaces where you often touch. When you start showing symptoms, notify your supervisor and stay home. Keep track of activities you do while driving so that you know where you got the disease, in case you are affected. Make a plan with your employer and your family to let them know what to do if you become sick while driving. Include where to stop and where and how to seek medical advice and treatment. This way, the employer can make necessary plans for the smooth flow of freight delivery. If you are sick, make sure you follow the guidelines and recommend steps. You should not return to work unless you have completed home isolation in consultation with health care providers and local health departments. Strictly maintain social distancing of at least 6 feet when possible. And limit close contact with co-workers and people as much as possible. Go for paperless documenting and invoicing for fuelling, deliveries, and other tasks. Carry home-made food or self-prepared food, water, and supplies instead of halting in the hotel or restaurant. Avoid shaking hands and keep your truck well-ventilated. Once the drivers are back from the service, they must complete their self-quarantine period and get temperature checks daily. About Matrack COVID Heat Tracker GPS fleet management solutions provider, Matrack Inc, has developed a COVID tracker that notifies the hotspots and areas which are worst affected by the virus. As the truck drivers need to cross the state and national borders, it is imperative that they know the intensity of the virus spread in the cities, states, and counties they are or need to travel. The Matrack COVID heat tracker is available at the FMS portal. It comes with an easy user interface that helps the truck driver get segregated data on COVID-19 updates. The Matrack COVID Heat Tracker provides the following information: The total number of Coronavirus confirmed cases in the U.S, which keeps updating regularly. Total number of cases per million residents Total number of deaths throughout the country Color-coded key to helping you identify the profoundly affected areas. State-wise and county wise information on COVID affected and death rates. How to use the Heat tracker? The Matrack COVID tracker is available at free of cost. The updated current information about the total number of confirmed cases and death rates can be seen in the top-left corner. This data keeps changing with updated figures to give you exact facts. For state-wise and county-wise data, the driver can browse through the geographical location in which they want to know the details. You will get information about confirmed cases and death cases, both state-wise and county-wise. The color-coded key in the map shows how severe that location is. The darker the color- codes, the higher the risk is. The COVID tracker by Matrack also allows the truck driver to fetch data by filtering county-wise and save locations for future use. Benefits of Matrack COVID tracker The introduction of the COVID Heat tracker by Matrack provides many benefits for both truck drivers and fleet managers. Amidst the global pandemic and lockdown, many industries, including fleet management, logistics, and supply chain management, have lost their consistent income source. Many companies have also laid off their 30% workforce due to zero business. Now that the government has eased the restrictions, businesses are gearing up to resume its operations. So does the COVID tracking tool by Matrack benefit you? Through this COVID tracking app, the truck driver and fleet managers can easily find out the low-risk areas and keep their drivers safe from not getting novel coronavirus disease. The tracker also shows areas where there are zero affected cases of Coronavirus. This way, the fleet manager can assign travel routes for the driver that is safe to go. Bottom-line Having a good CSA score attracts additional new businesses. Even during this world crisis, Matrack keeps track of your fleets and trailers by reducing cost and increasing revenue. Ensuring driver safety with sophisticated GPS tracking software and systems to give 100% visibility for the clients - is what Matrack serves to achieve. Be it in a distant location or at storage, Matrack has DOT compliant tracking devices to track your assets. Although the global Coronavirus has paused the supply chains and businesses, this same public health crisis will also be remembered as a time when the trucking industry acted as the front-line responders. Get the tracker HERE. See you on the road!
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The DOT is back at work and Operation Safe Driver this year is July 12-18. Are you ready? This year they are going to focus on speeding. I wish they would focus on following too close. That is what I see violated most often. I guess speeding is a part of that as well. Many of these violations would be cured by simply paying drivers by the hour. Employees, that is. If you were getting paid by the hour, would you be speeding? I doubt it. The reason Lytx and all these other obnoxious cameras are around are exactly the things the po po will be looking at during the blitz. Professional drivers should not really need to change the way they drive next week or any week.
See you on the road! The southeastern US has seen several trucks get shot at in the last few weeks. What? Is that the solution to the problems you think are happening? So, I hear about someone being killed by the police, someone I don't know in a city that I don't live. I am mad about that and I naturally go out and shoot at a semi near my home. Is that how that works? Also today there was to be a slowdown in I-40. People were supposed to drive at 10MPH for about 9 minutes. How exactly does breaking the law and being a huge safety problem solve anything? It doesn't. You have to change people's minds. That is difficult to do and breaking the law is not going to help that process. You want change, be the change you want. EVERYONE needs to stop being a color, race, sex or anything else that identifies a group over another group. You are not an -American, you are just American. Act like it. Any organization that discriminates on the basis of race is inherently racist. The past of someone else, maybe someone who lived 200 years ago, is not your future. We all control our own future. The book of your life is being written by you, don't give anyone else the pen. Do you not take a trip because 45 years ago your dad ran out of gas? No. You know that you can learn from that and be better. The struggles, difficulties and treatment of others does not have to be your life as well. You cannot be upset about others success. You also should not be proud of something you did not have anything to do with. If you are born a certain way, so what? Be proud of your own achievements. That is harder though, isn't it? You would actually have to work hard and achieve something. The fact is that if you feel that going into an area is unsafe, don't go. If people want to shoot at trucks and don't want their deliveries, so be it.
See you on the road! If you have been running any of those emergency loads, today is the official last day before you need to dust off those ELDs and start logging again. Sure, there are a few exceptions but the majority of drivers that were running logless will now need to be back in compliance. In the last few hours you can look back and see if you made any extra money. I know this was generally limited to owner operators as many companies did not allow their drivers to run over hours, mine included. Did we hear about horrible accidents? No. Was there death and destruction on the highway? No. Were loads delivered safely? Yes. I doubt there will be another time like this although who knows what will happen next. I am still waiting for the murder hornets.
See you on the road! Yes! I am in the hot seat of the Safety Dawg for an interview. You can view it HERE and check out the website HERE. They have a unique take on safety and use their years of experience to reduce accidents. All drivers should be interested in being as safe as possible. Not just to keep your driving record but as a professional in the industry. When Chris Harris asked me to be on the PAWEDCAST I agreed because we have the same message. BE SAFE. I hope you will check it out and tell me what you think! Check out the other safety pawedcasts as well. See you on the road!
As I am sure everyone has seen or heard, there are multitudes of protests over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis by a police officer. Many CEOs have been falling all over themselves to say how dismayed they are and how they will do better. Some have even apologized. I am not here to do that. Do you know why? I haven't done anything wrong. We cannot visit the sins of the fathers upon us today. Looting, rioting and other lawlessness done today in the name of the past is wrong and changes nothing. In fact, it likely has the opposite effect.
Aside from trucking, one of the things I do is help people bring forth their unique talents to the marketplace. There are about 4.5 Billion people on earth with internet access. You don't need to find that many to make a living. I know this works as I have helped numerous people change their lives by using their knowledge and abilities to help others. Those protesting lack of opportunity in America are sorely mistaken. They are blinded by rage and a mob mentality. A mentality of poverty that will prevent opportunity from enriching their lives. When we oppose each other based on color or any other identifying trait we lose all perspective and we lose the ability to make rational sense of an argument. To dislike me because of things that happened to someone you never met hundreds of years ago is absurd. To loot a Best Buy changes nothing. I see Wal-Mart is reducing their hours to keep their employees safe. This has the ironic effect of putting out of work those that may need work the most. As long as people are identified as a color, race, ethnic background, sexual preference or any of the other ways we separate each other into groups we will never advance as a country. If you hyphenate yourself you separate yourself. We are all people without a hypen. Injustices done in the past to a group are not cured today by injustice done to a different group. An injustice is cured by equal opportunity. Don't try to tell me there is more or less opportunity for someone based on their physical appearance. I've helped all kinds of people change their situation for the better no matter their race. Let me know when we are all just people. As protesters clog the streets it may be more important than ever to have evidence of exactly what happened outside your truck. THIS dashcam is what I use and you should, too. See you on the road! After driving locally in Chicago for a few months I had gotten a raise to $275/wk salary but I just wanted more. I wanted to see the country and be on the road. You know, like that guy with the monkey. I started getting the Sunday Hammond Times and the Chicago Tribune. I found this place called Regal Transportation in the want ads and they were located in far north Hammond, Indiana near the skyway. The was a flatbed OTR company that mainly concentrated on loads east of the Mississippi river. I did get a longer load from them but I will get to that later. I applied and was accepted. I sadly departed my local job at Economy Transport and moved out of my room at the rooming house. I was now going to be a "real" trucker!
Starting at Regal if you had no flatbed experience like me you had to do a week of local work with an experienced driver. This consisted of taking loads to the steel mills in Chicago, getting unloaded and then reloading loads that were heading out and dropping them in the yard in Hammond for OTR drivers. The local trucks were GMC Astros. Like driving a fishbowl around. Still, it was trucking with a sleeper. A couple of days we stayed in Chicago loading and strapping and chaining and tarping. It was actually good experience for what was to come. That Friday I got assigned a KW T600 with a 36 inch sit-in sleeper and a load to Chattanooga for Monday. It was in the yard and it was a load that I had brought down. The local week was unlogged. That would not happen today. I think I made $400 that week locally. I could not believe how much money I was making! The road paid 23% if I remember back that far. Empty miles paid 23% of 0. I left Sunday to Tennessee with a Radio Shack 23 channel CB, a paper motor carriers road atlas and a desire to see the country. Delivery went smooth, no problems. Steel plates went down there and you almost always got a load at US Pipe coming back to Chicago. Pipes were not tarped so that was also nice. Regal had the chains welded to the rub rails so no one could steal them. This also was annoying as you could not use them in the places you might need and could not use the amount of them you might want to use. The KW T600 had recently come out and was very futuristic looking at the time. They had max speed set at 61 which was very annoying and would be annoying today also. No APU yet, it was 1988. The truck would idle all night no problem. These were 9-speed trucks with maybe 350hp. NO jakes! Monteagle was very fun my first few times as I had no experience and no training on hills at all. During my time at Regal I got to travel through most of the eastern states, unfortunately. One day I called in and they had a special load for me, if I wanted it. It would take me to the edge of the world and I will have more on that in another installment. See you on the road! As you know, I get tens of thousands of emails a week and the tone is changing. OK, maybe not that many but people like you regularly write and what used to be totally bad news is now beginning to get better. Drivers are reporting increasing miles. Not from 1000 to 3500 a week but miles are on the upswing. Some of the hardest hit segments are still hurting but those that are rolling are seeing a mileage increase. This translates to a pay increase. That is good news. States, like my state of Indiana, are releasing their unconstitutionally imprisoned citizens to begin commerce. As they butter themselves up to fit out their doors and reacquaint themselves with daylight they will be purchasing items and more drivers will be needed. This won't happen overnight but it will happen. Trucking is still and always will be a good career well into the future. If you are thinking about truck school, now is the time to get started and get that license going. As the economy picks up there will be spots open from drivers not returning to the industry. Go to a local truck school even if you have to take loans for it. Let's get this country moving again!
See you on the road! I get asked all the time how I got started in Trucking. Well, it is not a dramatic story or anything like that but here goes.
In the spring of 1988 I was just a kid, 20 years old, and the night manager of an Arby's. The Arby's at Torrence and I-94 in Lansing, IL if anyone is in the area. I was making $4.35/hr which was a dollar over minimum for being the manager. So, that is not great money even then and I was always broke. I had a second part time job at Sears in River Oaks Mall to help with the cash flow but it seemed I was always working. I would come home and see these commercials on TV advertising truck school. How much money you could make and see the country. I like to drive and this seemed like it would be a good fit. I went over to Professional Truck Driver Training School to see what it was all about. It turns out you could get your license in just 3 weeks! I borrowed $500 from my Grandfather as the down payment and they financed the other $1095. This was the middle of June 1988. I had not even turned 21 yet but would before the school ended. In three weeks I had my Illinois Class D license (no CDL yet) and off I went. We tested on Thursday of week three so if you failed you could retest on Friday. I passed as most did. On Monday I started my new job in Chicago as a local driver at a small place called Economy Transport. 2 semis and 2 straight trucks. The semi I usually drove was a GMC Brigadier single axle with a 5+2 transmission. It had an electronically controlled 2 speed rear end. If the loads got too heavy there was also a Ford 9000 daycab tandem axle. It had a front brake limiting valve which I will get into in another blog. No training, right to work first day making stops in Chicago. That job paid $250/wk salary and I worked about 40-45 hours a week. I eventually moved to Chicago where I rented a room for $45/wk from a nice old lady who told me not to look at anyone sitting on their porches because there were gangs and they might kill me. Nice. I did this for some months until the urge to hit the road got the better of me. This is why I am not sure about all the training people are pushing. I had no training at all as many "older" drivers and although it was scary, I had no accidents. Coming soon I will go into my time on the road. See you on the road! Today a number of trucks are lined up the DC to protest the low rates currently seen on the spot market, increasing insurance costs, over regulation and vehicle automation. They are apparently honking SOS in morse code on their horns to the 32 HAM radio operators and a few in the general public that still understand morse code. OK, wonderful. I fully support under the first amendment the right to protest by peaceable assembly. I just think they are wrong. Under that same amendment, I am going to tell you why. Rates are what they are because GOVERNORS have put citizens on house arrest without charges. GOVERNORS. So, when people can't work they don't buy things. Less freight moves but there are the same number of trucks in the market. Rates fall. The drivers are asking for fair rates on loads. Who determines that? Would they like the government to set a fair rate of say $1.30/mi? Is that fair? This is the problem, isn't it? In America, things sometimes aren't fair. You want higher rates, tell the GOVERNORS to open up the states for business. Ironically, there is no national shut down, it is state by state. They are protesting in the wrong place.
Increasing insurance costs are the same. Free market. The costs go up as the risk goes up. It is the same as car insurance. Each company sets its rates on what it believes the risk is. Are insurance costs up? Yes they are. What should the government do about it? NOTHING. Over-regulation is brought up every time there is a regulation. While the industry is highly regulated, it is to be expected. We, for years, got away with running 20 hours a day and now we are paying for it. I constantly see drivers speeding and following to closely. Stop it! Seriously, we dug this hole ourselves. Vehicle automation is coming, no denying that. You can't stop progress nor should you want to do so. Why doesn't anyone protest the loss of jobs at car makers or farmers who use automation and robots? No one says a word. I am writing this on a computer. Nearly everything can be done on it. Like looking up a phone number. Why are we not protesting the loss of jobs of operators? It will be many years before automated trucks take jobs in any large quantity. That day is coming, though. I see spotters being taken as they are working on that now. A closed system. Also, long distance runs across the south will go. Interstate drop yards will pop up and local drivers will be on each end to start and deliver the load. The long part will be done without a driver. Yes, it is coming. Living in a truck takes away a person's humanity as the head of TuSimple said. I say 10 years to spotters, 10-20 years before really widespread use on southern highways and we see jobs being taken away, 15-30 years for nationwide adoption of driverless trucks and 30-40 years before the truck goes dock to dock. In fact, the dock to dock part may be so cost prohibitive that it is never done and some local jobs always remain. I believe that someone starting today can still have an entire lifetime career in trucking. Be tech savvy, though as the trucks get more advanced. Keep up with the times and you will keep your job longer. There will likely never be a day when there are not drivers. Specialized loads and some other loads will always need a driver. The bottom line is this: If a load does not pay enough, do not take it. Simple. If someone offered me $11/hr to drive, I wouldn't take that job. I would not take the job and then complain about it. The loads pay so little because someone, somewhere is taking the load. A driver sent me a screen shot of a load from NJ to CA at 78 cents TO THE TRUCK. That is crazy? Who takes that? Apparently, someone. Right now there are just too many trucks for the freight available. When this changes, rates rise. See you on the road! |
AuthorHi! Welcome. I'm Mark and I've been a professional truck driver for over 33 years, the last 19 years at the same company. It is time that drivers got paid for every minute that we work and we are treated like the licensed professionals we are. Archives
February 2022
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