Say What?

Question: The feds and courts are fooling around with the HOS again. What’s your take?

Patrick Kane, 44, Miami, FL 
Professional driving experience: 12 years  
“The hours of service to me are just fine. I’ve got no problem with them. You run 11 hours, you take 10 hours off. You take one day off a week if you want to rebuild your hours. It’s a 34-hour reset, but you can squeeze 10 hours from the day before and the day after. That’s fine with me.”

Jeff Jack, 37, Haleyville, AL 
Professional driving experience: 6 years 
“I don’t like them. If you ask me, I think the new Hours of Service rules are too restrictive. To be honest with you, since they changed to the new rules and regulations, I get less sleep now than I used to.”

Marvin Stewart, 57, Vinegrove, KY 
Professional driving experience: 25 years    
“I can’t sleep for 10 hours, and I don’t know many people who can. Ten hours is too long. It wastes my time each morning when I could be driving.”

Don Chasteen, 60, Toledo, OH  
Professional driving experience: 39 years 
“I don’t really care for the fact that you have to run 11 hours straight. I used to drive five hours, take a break for four hours, and drive five more hours. That was fine. I can’t sit behind that wheel for 10 or 11 hours and then sleep for eight. In six hours, I’m up and ready to go.” 

Rodney Baker, 36, Phil Campbell, AL  
Professional driving experience: 15 years  
“When they changed them a couple of years ago, it didn’t affect me that much. The way things are now is fine with me. They may cut it back to the old hours, but I doubt it. Too much money is at stake. The major companies have all this just-in-time freight, and they’ve set their schedules up so a driver has to go from Point A to Point B in 10 or 11 hours. If the hours are cut back to eight, they’re going to have to get two trucks to do that same thing, so it’s not going to happen.”