Time Flies: 0903 - 0916

The last time I turned around I was in Edmonton.  That's the way it seems.  A two week period has slipped away before I could get my head around it.  It's odd the way we perceive time.  On the third and fourth I reset my hours of service in Edmonton.  For three days after that I spent my time straight lining across the prairies.  I recall those days as been very long.  On one hand time seems to pass in the blink of an eye and on the other it seems to drag on without end.

On those long days when time seems to be dragging it is difficult to stay in the present moment.  You don't have to be a long haul driver to experience this feeling.  When driving I'm sure most of you have experienced the sensation of looking in the rear view mirror, seeing a red traffic light behind you, then having to ask yourself the question: Did I just drive through a red light?  That is an example of not being in the present moment.  Your mind is elsewhere.  This is most definitely a job hazard long haul drivers experience.  When the weather is clear, the road is straight & clean and the traffic is light - that's a recipe for the mind to take a little detour of it's own.  Many driver's call this boredom.  It's a feeling that seems like it's never going to end.  It often leads to feelings of angst.

Most of the time your days are the opposite of those uneventful days that are dragged out.  They are filled with deliveries, pickups, bad weather, bad roads, bad drivers and too little time to accomplish too many tasks.  Your mind does not have time to be elsewhere, it is focused on the perpetual task at hand.  Many driver's call this stress or tension.  It's a feeling that seems like it's never going to end. It often leads to feelings of angst.

Talk about duality!!  On one hand the time available in our day bores us.  On the other the same amount of time stresses us out because there is too much to do.  On one hand we drive because we enjoy the freedom of the open road.  On the other hand we spend so much time driving it infringes on our personal lives and limits our freedoms.  We are gluttons for punishment aren't we?

Life is difficult!

HOS: Duality & Delusion

"There is the ministry way and there is the industry way."  How many times have you heard that, or a similiar version of that, over the course of your driving career.  There is no doubt that the hours of service rules (HOS) are the most controversial and widely debated issue in the trucking industry.  Certainly from a drivers perspective.  They are the central pillar that our income and home time revolve around.  You would think that these rules would provide consistency and a level playing field across the industry.  But this is certainly not the case.

For years I have operated with the opinion that the HOS regulations are a set of guidelines that are open to my interpretation.  I can stretch them out to maximize my income and available work hours as long as I don't cross that line that sets off alarm bells for an enforcement officer.  An example of this is logging at the speed limit of each jurisdiction you travel in or logging the minimum amount of on duty time that is required for a pre-trip inspection, fuel stop, or pick up.  The net result of this approach is that you actually end up working well in excess of the hours that are mandated in the HOS rules.  Of late I have been asking myself what the personal cost of this approach is.

There is a physical cost.  Drivers are allowed to work up to 70 hours in 7 days.  Think about this.  This is close to the equivalent of 2 weeks work in most other industries.  Issues of fatigue, sleep debt, sleep apnea, poor eating habits and lack of exercise are some of the major factors that contribute to the high stress levels many drivers experience.  The health risks are high and underrated across this industry.  Yet as individuals we compound these issues by operating under the belief that the only way to get ahead is to work longer and harder.  The HOS rules, in the mind of many drivers, become an inhibitor to your productivity rather than an asset in managing your health and well being.  I have subscribed to that belief for most of my driving career.  I believe the 70 hour week is necessary in this industry to look after the needs of the customers we service and keep our employers healthy and on firm financial footing.  This is sensible.  I no longer believe we need to exceed those limitations in order to meet our personal goals and the goals of the employers we work for.

There is an emotional cost as well.  We (drivers) are well aware of the laws we must operate under.  Most of us work for companies that have policies in place that are punitive if we are caught working outside these laws.  Finally we must operate within our own value system.  We seldom discuss our own values of honesty and integrity and how operating outside of these value systems effects our own mental state of well being.  The emotional cost of operating on the outer fringes of compliance while compartmentalizing our integrity at the same time gets little, if any, attention at all within our industry.

We must deal with the duality.  There is the ministry way and there is the industry way.  It is time, as individuals, we found a unified path.  We need that level playing field.  We don't have to agree with all aspects of the HOS rules but we should be able to find a way, as individuals, to work within those rules.


We must deal with the delusion.  Does the only way to earn a decent living in the trucking industry involve working outside of the rules?   I don't believe so.  I believe that approach to be more herd mentality and group think than reality.  I have chosen to work within those rules over the past year with great success.  As I have stated in previous posts, we all have the ability to choose our own path.

Kelowna to Edmonton - 09/02/09

Woke up to clear blue sky in Kelowna.  I headed down to Westbank to get off my last delivery then straight back up through Kelowna to Winfield where I picked up my load for Edmonton.  By the time I was halfway to Kamloops I was into the smoke from the fires burning in the Kamloops area.

It has been a bad year in British Columbia for forest fires.  Very little rain combined with the heat and add to that all of the standing dead wood resulting from the pine beetle infestation, the result is a deadly combination.  Yesterday I was talking with Jack, a receiver at one of our regular deliveries in Salmon Arm.  He lives in the Sorrento area, another area hit hard with fires.  He told me he, like his neighbours has a little bit of acreage to his property.  The authorities have put 2500 gallon inflatable pools (as he described it) in their front yards.  Every day they come around and soak down the area all around the homes.  They have hoses running off the pools around the houses.  They then pump the pools back up to capacity with water tankers.  He doesn't see any end in sight to this until the first snow flies.

The smoke was quite heavy around Kamloops and was in the air all the way up to Clearwater.  That's 125 kilometers.  The picture I have taken is looking south from a rest area on the bank of the North Thompson river, just south of the town of Avola.  This is about 180 kilometers north of Kamloops.  It gives you an idea of just how smokey the province of BC is right now.

Here is a link to CBC news and dozens of pictures of the fires if your interested.

I managed to make it into Edmonton by 02:00 my time at any rate.  A long day.....a long 5 days since I left.

Calgary to Kelowna - 09/01/09

Holy cow!  It's September already. Lot's of chasing around today.  Still have a drop left to do in Kelowna tomorrow, then a pick up the road  in Winfield and then it's off to Edmonton where I'll take a couple of days off, well at least one anyway.

I'm already thinking about getting home again...ahhhh...home.  It seems as soon as I'm there I'm leaving again.

Too tired to write tonight.  Can't seem to hold a thought.  So, goodnight.