10 years on...

Back in 2013 when the Revised HOS rules, general EOBR mandate was a big talking point, I penned the following for our executive team based on my experiences from the late 70's and 80's in the U.K. I just came across the document again and noticing that it's nearly 10 years to the day since I wrote the paper, I thought I'd throw it out there and ask... Was I close in my predictions or has the US adapted better to EOBRs than we did back then on the other side of the pond?

While this bill will definitely give us some more business down the road, I believe it will also dramatically alter the trucking landscape of the US forever if events follow their current course.?The devil is, as I love to say, definitely in the details and the devil in this bill is electronic logging (EOBR's) or as they're called over the pond "Tachographs".?If you want to blame something for me being here and typing yet another long & boring essay, then you could blame this as much as anything else and not be far from the truth… I'll list below the sequence of events that I foresee happening here in the US. I will also add notes or firsthand experiences as needed on how those events may well impact us, our vendors, dealers, and end users.?I know I sent something out quite a while ago predicting this possibility and unfortunately so far I've been on the money…?

? Electronic On-Board Recorders (*EOBR's) are mandated.?This happens initially because there are concerns about driver fatigue and the impact that has in fatal crashes etc. The 34-hour rest rule is implemented and the EOBR is considered the perfect tool for policing this requirement.??

Notes: However, EOBR's are also very good at recording speed, braking, impacts and other job associated activities. In the US the OOIDA and the ATA (to a lesser extent) are really opposed to the implementation to this measure with good reasons. The obvious objection is cost, especially if the implementation is retroactive and requires EOBR's to be installed in older vehicles (as was the case in Europe). However the real reason is the 400 lbs. Gorilla in the room and that's the fact that a good proportion of freight in the US (especially truckload) freight moves ILLEGALLY… whether that be due to speed or working more hours than they should the current system is rife with good, hardworking truckers driving faster or working longer than they should do to get the job done… I believe this measure will be the death knell for smaller operators or owner operators unless they're **team drivers as they will not be able to get the job done in the same amount of time as they do now.??

Example: a trucker currently runs 700-750 miles in day (impossible to do legally, but it’s done, especially in the summer) for 2.5 days.?He unloads and then runs a few miles for a backhaul. He then runs for another 2 to 2.5 days, tips his backhaul and reloads his next load for the following week. Now imagine doing that trip with an EOBR, no stretching of hours, no going over the speed limits… the truck could not legally get back home before the driver needed to take the mandatory 34 hour weekly rest period, imagine what that would do to the job rate, infrastructure usage or even the number of drivers willing to be away for that length of time… by the way, what I just described was a load from Wisconsin?to Nevada…

*EOBR's are so advanced in Europe now that basically a driver carries a digital one with him 24 hours a day, seven days a week that connects wirelessly to any truck he gets in and records his movements. Authorities are now considering a device that will not allow the truck to operate if the driver is infringing his driving hours in any way. Trucks are also fitted with speed limiters that are connected to the EOBR to govern speed, again, the greater good being that this really does maximize the fuel economy of a truck (currently around 8-9 miles per gallon in Europe) but trucks run at a maximum of around 55 mph to achieve this which again exacerbates the hour’s issue.

**Team drivers may still be able to run large distances in a relatively short time. In Europe however the politicians mandated that a driver could not be considered to be at rest if the engine was running and the driver was "at rest" within so many feet of the steering wheel…

? Once the full effects of electronic logging devices start to become apparent the need for other measures to counteract the negative effects of EOBR's will be needed.?The first one of these will be the introduction on the higher weight limits that Bill referenced in his synopsis. Beside the fact that we will hopefully see an increase in t/scale sales the other benefit for us would be that we'll be able to start shipping 2 of our larger products on one truck again which will help offset some of the dramatic rate increases we may well be seeing down the line.

Notes: The higher gross weight was the first thing to be changed in the UK after EOBR's were mandated where the maximum permitted gross weight has been 44,000 kg (97,000 lbs.) since the late 80's as long as both tractor and semi-trailer both have 3 or more axles each. Also, since 2009 there have been ongoing studies into "Longer Heavier Vehicles", and the consequences of increasing the length of semi-trailers in the UK & mainland Europe are being considered, with options of up to 11-axle, 34m long, and 82 ton road trains studied. The need for this was in part due to rising fuel costs but also just as importantly it was due to not having enough drivers to fill the increase in job openings that came about due to the two-fold effect of drivers quitting the industry and the need for truck operators to increase their work force due to the short fall in man hours to cover existing workloads.

? While the adoption of these new weight limits will certainly help they will not eradicate the real issue.?Smaller carriers and O/O's will soon cease to exist unless they can either find a niche (that's what I was able to do in the midterm) or merge with former competitors (that's what I had to do in the long term) because they will not be able to get the return out of their infrastructure due to the restrictions placed on them individually.?

Notes: From memory in the case of my company we had to add 4 extra members of staff just to maintain our existing contracts without being able to increase our infrastructure usage. As a for instance you (unfortunately) can't just turn off a truck in the same way you can a lathe because the lathe will never be 500 miles from home or a certain delivery point will always be 5 hours away when you driver only has 4 hours available driving time left…

? So, in time these newly formed companies transform the whole landscape of the trucking Industry. They will look for new equipment with which they can obtain maximum I/U. They will change their distribution models so that FTL's will move across the country like a baton in a relay race or be put on rail cars for the cross-country section of their journey. National LTL brands like Con-way may see competition from independent operators banding together under a common franchise brand.?The OTR trucker will become an endangered species with companies having specialist needs being their only paymasters. Companies will come up with different work schedules for their drivers that match the nature of their customer's business model and truck users, like us, will set up their manufacturing plants, warehouses and DCs to make the most of the "brave new world".

Notes: The continuing shortage of drivers combined with the hour limitations pushed carriers to find ever more innovative ways of increasing I/U.?The ultimate manifestations of this search are semi-trucks similar to the one in this picture. High cube close coupled tear-drop trailers with full air dam systems, second floors with side and overhead access coupled to 2 or 3 axle configuration tractor units with multi geared semi or fully automatic transmissions.?As an example, in my case when the new laws first came into being we ran a fleet that consisted of 90% flatbeds and 10% vans. When we finally sold the company, our fleet was 100% curtain sided vehicles.

Concluding thoughts:?

Obviously, all of what I’ve related above did not come about overnight.?The Tachograph became mandatory in 1985 and we sold our business in 2003.?There were also some other factors that played a hand in bringing about these changes with the EU maximum working hours directive, the high cost of diesel and the later introduction of speed limiters, another result of all the above (at less than the national speed limit for trucks) being the main ones of those.?However, I believe it is undeniable that the seminal reason for the remapping of the trucking industry in the UK & mainland Europe was due to EOBR’s and many of the other factors that aided that change are already at play in the US.??

As an example of this “freakanomic” I could point to our own county… we are doing great business because of the sand industry but in the bigger picture this is already having a serious effect on the trucking companies that haul our products the ability to retain drivers because drivers can now earn the same and be home every night and our long-distance rates are suffering accordingly.

I personally feel we’re quite well placed to cope with these changes should they indeed come to pass. We may well need to rethink how we distribute our palletized goods, but we do have facilities in very good geographical locations that we could leverage for this if we wanted to.??