Truck Drivers do not know the power they actually have

Today I read an article in "The Trucker" that talked about the fact the the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Agency had completed and submitted for review one day ahead of schedule new hours of service rules for drivers. This article, and the four other articles pertaining to the monumental announcement failed to list what the new rules will be. One of the accompanying articles speculated that if the 11 hour rule, or the 34 hour reset rule was still in the rules that there would be more court challenges.

Truck drivers should think about something. What would happen if they complied 100% with every rule? What would happen if they all suddenly just parked their truck? One of the current rules states that if a driver is not comfortable with the road and weather conditions it is the driver's responsibility to park the truck.
We should all be pretty uncomfortable with the fact that four groups and the teamsters union have the power to limit how much money we can earn. These groups want to make it the law that drivers can only drive 8 hours a day, and combined with wait time for loading and unloading they can only be on duty 12 hours a day. This is wonderful for teamsters that get paid 3 and 4 times minimum wage. But then of course these groups also want to limit drivers to 40 hours a week total work time. Careful there Teamsters you may get what you ask for. That would me that you, the Teamster could not legally work overtime. It would also mean that there would be more, not less accidents involving trucks. You see there is no place to park now, imagine if after 8 hours every driver had to park. Where are they going to park?
Not to mention that if the shippers and receivers continue with their current practices, such as unloading a truck and then taking 6 hours to count 5 pallets of freight, no one is going to have anything to put on their shelves.

Go ahead drivers think about this. What would happen if one morning every Commercial Drivers License holder decided that there were too many cars on the road driven by people that have worked more than 70 hours in 8 days. What if every truck driver in the country just stopped his or her truck? How long would it take before factories would be shut down? How long would it take before grocery stores had empty shelves? How long, not long at all, you see the same receivers that waste your time at the dock unloading their freight, are on a just in time schedule. They cannot afford the space needed to store a months worth of product, so they store it in trucks that are rolling to distribution centers.
We the drivers have the power to change things, and we would not have to do much more than comply. When driving in California drive at 55 miles per hour, stay in the right lane, and stop yielding to traffic entering the highway, after a week the laws would change.
Start logging 100% compliant, park your truck and refuse to drive on the weekends when 90% of the drivers on the road are fatigued under the rules we follow because they have worked more than 70 hours in the last 8 days, do not do this as a job action do it in the name of safety. How long would it take for things to change?
Probably less than a week. As for the excuse of "I can't afford to shut down, I will lose my job." What kind of a job will you have when you can only drive 8 hours a day? When your work day is limited to just 12 hours a day? or your work is limited to 40 hours in 8 days (this would mean instead of 8.75 hours a day to have hours available on the 9th day, you would only be able to work and drive 5 hours a day)? and then the cap on all of it would be 48 hours off duty to get a reset of that 40 hour clock.
How long will you continue to drive a truck when you are only earning $640.00 a week? Instead of $1032.00 a week? I am an owner operator, and if the rules the teamsters have proposed go into effect I will file bankruptcy, give my truck back, and try to find a job that pays minimum wage, which would be an increase in pay.
Think about this under the current rules we as drivers can drive 11 hours a day, how many of you actually do that? I do it once in a while, but it does not pay to do it all the time, because I am limited to 70 hours and I run out of time and have to sit.
We can do nothing or we can agree to do something. We as drivers have the power to stop this nation in a day. We need to get organized and demand that Safety not stupidity rule the day. If the Teamsters only want to work 40 hours a week, then let them. Most of them go home every night and spend weekends at home. Over the Road 48 state drives do not. 10 hours is hard enough to stand, imagine 16 hours trapped in your truck, that you cannot legally idle to keep warm in the winter or cool in the summer, imagine trying to find a place to park if every truck is parked 16 hours a day. Comply 100% would be a good start. Stopping every truck in the nation would be a good second step, but it won't happen. We will be forced to work 40 hours in 8 days, and park 16 hours a day in the interest of safety, and cars will still drive under DOT bumpers, and drive into the side of trucks on the highway when coming the car us coming down an onramp, and more people will die needlessly all in the interest of fattening Teamster leaderships wallet, and Safety.