If the wheels aren’t turning, truckers aren’t earning. As cliché as it sounds, it’s the prevailing truth in the trucking industry.
Wasted time at the dock waiting to load and unload is a drain on a trucker’s available legal time to make money – and FMCSA is studying just how bad the problem of detention time is.
Approximately 45 percent of owner-operators indicate that they spend more than 11 hours a week waiting to load and unload. Unpaid detention time is not only a financial burden on small-business owners and professional truck drivers, but it also has a negative effect on safety, as detention time strains a driver’s hours-of-service limits.
So here’s the chance for truckers to let FMCSA know just how bad the problem is.
The agency is currently working on a study proposal to assess truck driver detention times and their direct operational impacts on safety.
Truckers are asked to take a few minutes to complete a 10-question survey.
