Sherry Ann Smith - Comments

I currently work for a company that works a 6 day on and 2 day off schedule. I run mostly Texas however I do run some interstate loads. I'm highly opposed to the idea of only allowing a restart after seven days. I can use up my seventy allowed hours by the end of my six days, what do you propose I do for the full seventh day that I'm not allowed to drive because I'm out of hours? Usually that would be my first day off at the house.... Are you proposing that I stay out an extra day longer away from my child and family? Just so I can only have shorter work days? I live in a smaller area than convicted felons, have to provide my own meals and nobody has provided me free cable TV. Why am I being punished here? How about this..... I have obviously been certified many different ways to make sure I'm fit to drive an 80000 lb tractor trailer down the highway. CDL, medical card, hazmat endorsement, employer background checks, etc. Truck drivers might be insane to put up with getting regulated by people who have no idea what it's like to live in a truck cab for weeks at a time, however most of us have enough sense to lay down and sleep when we are tired. The reason you have more people going to sleep now while driving is because they're trying to be in compliance with the rules you have already made. Why penalize a driver because it takes someone too long to unload their truck or because they get hung up in horrendous traffic situations caused by lack of regulation in other areas? Let me do my job as safely and quickly as possible and get home to my child who spends enough time without me already. A truck driver told me one time that you can go down a mountain hundreds of times too slow but you'll only go down one time too fast. Let the strong survive in this industry to make it safer on the highways. The FMCSA regulations encourage the weak to prevail and discourage the strong to even be in this industry. It's sad to pave your own way to hell and not know.