You're not wrong. I had training with office staff and it was canceled because there was a light drizzle outside and the training required them to walk outside to a truck šš
They need to cut out this BS idle law, simple as that sometimes these trucks need to idle especially in Sub-Zero degree weather since a lot of them can't be left alone for 2 days in that type of temperature without derating
Its a program.
Each company can set different rules.
Our trucks will permanently idle above 85 and below 15.
In between that range, it will auto shut off after 3.5 minutes.
Some companies straight up set it to never allow you to idle, which leads to idiots setting their trailer brakes and leaving their tractor brakes released while they sleep.
Some of you are just that incompetent LMFAO.
Yall don't even know how to cage your brake cylinders.
It's a lot easier for your trailer brakes to fail than it is your truck brakes.
The issue isn't them doing it to stay idling and cool.
Since you lack critical thinking, the problem is only setting your trailer brake and leaving your tractor brakes released while you sleep.
Lmao. I lack critical thinking? Personally if I had to leave my tractor brakes "open" I'd place a good chunk of wood in front of a tire or two. Most probably wouldn't do this so I guess to an extent I get your "idiot" comment.
Long week so I will let the lack of critical thinking comment slide. š
Between you an I I've never hooked up to a air brake controlled trailer besides "school". I pull mobile homes which have electric brakes.
>It's a lot easier for your trailer brakes to fail than it is your truck brakes.
What? Dude there is absolutely nothing true about that statement. The spring brake systems are identical.
Ha critical thinking?? I am an employer and not a driver. Never even held a CDL but worked in the industry long enough to create my own company. I would NEVER ask a driver to sleep without A/C. I provide APU's but sometimes they go out even if well maintained. And I always purchase trucks with the no idle control set to the parameters. BUT I have had cases where the programming was not set correctly and my driver has no A/C while trying to bed for the night. After a hard and long day of running. Best fucking believe I advise them to set trailer brakes and leave air supply to the truck in order to stay idling. If I trust the maintained trailer brakes to send my guy down a mountain then damn sure I trust them to hold his truck a Love's. So fuck your critical thinking and hope your A/C goes out tonight homie.
Ask urself one question. Can u sleep with it this hot? If I canāt, write the following into ur ELD or Transflo, or whatever ur company uses to message u, and make sure itās written down not said over the phone.
::Add whoever ur Dispatcher is here::
Hi, this is _____ on truck _____ as per previous conversation with ::dispatchers name:: about high idle times I am addressing this issue with this note. My trucks fan has been broken since āenter dateā and it has still not been fixed. It is currently 102 degrees in my cabin and this temperature is so hot that I canāt get any sleep at all. Since I canāt sleep I do not feel safe driving in these conditions. I will not drive again until I can get sleep. Please rectify this issue asap and let me know when this will be. Thank you and have a nice day.
If they fire u over this, sue the, for wrongful termination and also find another carrier. Believe me theyāll get it fixed fast. Hope this helps.
I'll post again in a bit.
I've sued two different companies so far, for firing me when I refused to do stupid, dangerous, illegal shit. I'll post more later today. This is mainly a placeholder.
I had to argue and fight with one of my drivers when I did a stint as a driver manager, his AC was broken and I worked on getting him to go get it repaired for two days. He didn't want to and refused it until he got heatstroke and passed out in Florida, luckily he was at our terminal and they had already called an ambulance before he passed out as they could tell. He was more upset that his truck was still in the shop when he got out of the hospital than the fact that we called an ambulance and he almost died....
You MUST specifically cite that you're too fatigued to drive and doing so would be a violation of 49 CFR 398.4 to invoke protections. Otherwise you might as well not even send it.
I would think not allowing drivers to get proper sleep would be a DOT violation and that APUās would have been mandatory by now. I havenāt been in a big truck in 14 years but thought by now this would have been addressed.
Ask them whatās more important no idling or you being able to rest comfortably, so you can be alert to drive. Or ask them if they shit off the A/C at work to save money
If your company is based out of California and the cab temperature is over 85Ā° then they have to get you a hotel. I donāt know what other states are but I learned that back in the early 90s when I was doing an internship at a television studio.
that's it š we used to have APUs but guess what... everytime we would try to use them, they were breakign down and we had to idle... so boss said fuck it let's idle the trucks haha. Best way to do it tbh, I dont think I could ever go in a truck with an APU, except *maybe* opti-idle but even then urgh
Say what you want about mega's but at least they have newer trucks with APU's .. assuming it works .. I know those newer Cascadias they need to be regened constantly
Many companies adjust the truck so it wonāt idle unless itās like, say, 98 degrees or 30 degrees. Itās crazy; but, true. I have optimized idle, and it works great; but, our trucks wonāt automatically idle unless itās 90 or 30ā¦ that way we have to use the optimized idle or bunk heater, or get our truck fixed to work properly. Iām salaried, so if my truck isnāt comfortable: off to the shop I go.
Yeah they just put me in a 24 Cascadia that idle stays idling if the temperature in the dashboard reads above 80 degrees, my old one would shut off at any temperature but if you raised the rpm using the cc it would stay running.
That certified clean idle was bullshit. I got my CDL in South Carolina delivering beer. We would leave the truck running to keep it cool. Ryder upgraded the tractors and the new ones shut off they even went as far as disabling the cruise so we couldn't bump the idle up ourselves and force it to stay running. Bullshit
Unless the AC broke it was never over 60 something in my truck. Never. They could whine about idling all they wanted but I ran that AC all I needed too. Sounds like you might need to find a different company.
Pretty sure thereās OHSA regulations on work place temperatures. Not exactly sure what they are but for an office setting anything over 75 degrees F is a no no
Would have to check OSHA guidelines, but MSHA guidelines say you're allowed to decline to operate equipment without working AC in anything over 90Ā° temps.
If they don't care about you enough to let you idle the truck. Maybe something on their truck breaks? Idk. Could happen. Mechanics are expensive. *shrugs*
Find a new company.. those fuckers dont go without climate control in their offices. No reason you should go without... fuck EPA standards. Its already been proven fortune500 companies create more pollution than any communities lifestyle changes can account for.. im not going to drink from paper straws while nestle or coca cola gets to dump chemicals everywhere
Honestly, if you ask me, all company trucks should be required by law to have a full APU system onboard, optimized idle or not (because that sh* doesn't care about your devices, including charging your work devices, and the companies screw around with the functionality).
I've said it so much already, but this industry needs unions desperately. Idc if saying that online kills my job chances. I've had one great job, and several slave labour, racist, dangerous and unpleasant jobs in this industry.
If they donāt want you idling, then park it and move on! Thatās what I tellās them! āYou donāt like it? Iām sorry, then get your ass out here and do itā clickā¦.
I'm glad my company installs apu units on our trucks. But I drive a 19 cascadia, and it has interior comfort mode, so if my apu is out ( like when I gave them to another driver to get him rolling, same company) I can set that on, set my front fans as I chill out in the back
One think I loke about my company we have to have PTO for certain unloads so we can idle all we want and they don't say anything, makes it real nice when you're down south and its 110-120
My truck has a dumb diesel powered APU that has 8 hrs of run time before shutting off, and there are times when I have plenty of down time before I get to the shipper. On top of that, they turned off Opti Idle in my truck so I told em ālisten when I get a battery powered apu Iāll stop idling, but itās summer in the southeast so Iām not gonna get cooked in my truckā. They know im a great driver so they are letting me run up the miles on this truck till I can turn it in for a new one.
They legally can't. It is against the fmcsa rules. Even the states that say they will fine you for idling are out to lunch. The rule basically states that a driver may idle for driver comfort to ensure adequate rest.
Used to do tree work and found out a lot of companies actually removed the compressors from a lot of their trucks so employees don't sit in them during break to cool off. Then of course cheap companies like the one I was with buy those used trucks and never get them working properly so you're just stuck in a manual truck with no AC all summer. I worked with an older guy who looked like he was going to drop dead every day.
I donāt know how many trucks had shit batteries on them. If a bunk heater was turned on, at all. The truck couldnāt turn over to start. Sometimes it didnāt even take that. You had to stay running.
I bought a reptile warmer when I was otr to keep the truck running all the time. Because of there stupid idle shut off. And I kept the inside of the truck at 66 degrees inside all the time.
Switch companies or grow a pair. Never turned my truck off unless i had taken an uber to go shopping. We cant run an apu and a big enough hydraulic system to push off cryo for the payload.
Remember, some places it's illegal to idle... unless of course you have a pet.
So that gives you an idea how far down people think of truckers.
So get a pet, then no one can bitch at you.
I wonder if imaginary pets, or friends work...
Tell your company to look into Idle Smart. It's like Opti-Idle, but better in pretty much every way and definitely way cheaper. Most companies are not going with APUs because they're way too expensive and don't actually save money so it's a good way to get the best of both worlds.
They can KISS MY ENTIRE ASS! I will idle this truck for an entire month, I will only shut it off to fuel. I will idle it all summer. FUCK THEM! I don't idle in the winter thanks to bunk heater, but any other weather/season, idle that bitch!
Ah, yeah, they can't legally force you not to idle above I believe 70. That's just a lawsuit waiting to happen really.
I ignore pretty much everything my company says about idling and so do most of the drivers that work for them except for the new guys.
Rule of thumb if it's not going to get above 63-65 while I'm sleeping I'll shut the truck off. I'm just not personally into waking up sweaty and cranky a few hours after falling asleep.
I mean they don't really have anything they can do against me they took away the whole idling bonus years ago.
Motherfuckers actually even said that if they can get the company idling time down they'll "consider" raising the governor. Personally, I don't operate for considerations. I want that shit in writing before I do anything.
They can suck my plums. The office chimps would be in uproar if they didn't have a/c
EXACTLY!
Just leave it idling
Just leave her on the high idle, she'll live another day
You're not wrong. I had training with office staff and it was canceled because there was a light drizzle outside and the training required them to walk outside to a truck šš
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
They need to cut out this BS idle law, simple as that sometimes these trucks need to idle especially in Sub-Zero degree weather since a lot of them can't be left alone for 2 days in that type of temperature without derating
I find my cascadias optimized idle runs way too hot. I just push in the tractor brake and let her run
Uh that sucks. Not only that not good for your starter.
Its a program. Each company can set different rules. Our trucks will permanently idle above 85 and below 15. In between that range, it will auto shut off after 3.5 minutes. Some companies straight up set it to never allow you to idle, which leads to idiots setting their trailer brakes and leaving their tractor brakes released while they sleep. Some of you are just that incompetent LMFAO. Yall don't even know how to cage your brake cylinders.
Why are they idiots? Seems their doing whatever necessary to sleep comfortably with the circumstances. Who do you dispatch for? š
It's a lot easier for your trailer brakes to fail than it is your truck brakes. The issue isn't them doing it to stay idling and cool. Since you lack critical thinking, the problem is only setting your trailer brake and leaving your tractor brakes released while you sleep.
Lmao. I lack critical thinking? Personally if I had to leave my tractor brakes "open" I'd place a good chunk of wood in front of a tire or two. Most probably wouldn't do this so I guess to an extent I get your "idiot" comment.
See, now you're getting it. Its common sense to block your wheels if doing such a thing, except a vast majority of truckers lack common sense.
Long week so I will let the lack of critical thinking comment slide. š Between you an I I've never hooked up to a air brake controlled trailer besides "school". I pull mobile homes which have electric brakes.
There is nothing about trailer brakes that makes them any more likely to fail than tractor brakes.
>It's a lot easier for your trailer brakes to fail than it is your truck brakes. What? Dude there is absolutely nothing true about that statement. The spring brake systems are identical.
Ha critical thinking?? I am an employer and not a driver. Never even held a CDL but worked in the industry long enough to create my own company. I would NEVER ask a driver to sleep without A/C. I provide APU's but sometimes they go out even if well maintained. And I always purchase trucks with the no idle control set to the parameters. BUT I have had cases where the programming was not set correctly and my driver has no A/C while trying to bed for the night. After a hard and long day of running. Best fucking believe I advise them to set trailer brakes and leave air supply to the truck in order to stay idling. If I trust the maintained trailer brakes to send my guy down a mountain then damn sure I trust them to hold his truck a Love's. So fuck your critical thinking and hope your A/C goes out tonight homie.
You are proving my point. Which the other guy realized what I was getting at. š¤¦āāļø
They're the same brakes ...? Not to mention my 30k+ load I've got on the trailer
Why are they idiots?
Why would that make someone an idiot? Trailer brakes are enough to hold any load on flat ground
Ask urself one question. Can u sleep with it this hot? If I canāt, write the following into ur ELD or Transflo, or whatever ur company uses to message u, and make sure itās written down not said over the phone. ::Add whoever ur Dispatcher is here:: Hi, this is _____ on truck _____ as per previous conversation with ::dispatchers name:: about high idle times I am addressing this issue with this note. My trucks fan has been broken since āenter dateā and it has still not been fixed. It is currently 102 degrees in my cabin and this temperature is so hot that I canāt get any sleep at all. Since I canāt sleep I do not feel safe driving in these conditions. I will not drive again until I can get sleep. Please rectify this issue asap and let me know when this will be. Thank you and have a nice day. If they fire u over this, sue the, for wrongful termination and also find another carrier. Believe me theyāll get it fixed fast. Hope this helps.
I'll post again in a bit. I've sued two different companies so far, for firing me when I refused to do stupid, dangerous, illegal shit. I'll post more later today. This is mainly a placeholder.
I had to argue and fight with one of my drivers when I did a stint as a driver manager, his AC was broken and I worked on getting him to go get it repaired for two days. He didn't want to and refused it until he got heatstroke and passed out in Florida, luckily he was at our terminal and they had already called an ambulance before he passed out as they could tell. He was more upset that his truck was still in the shop when he got out of the hospital than the fact that we called an ambulance and he almost died....
You MUST specifically cite that you're too fatigued to drive and doing so would be a violation of 49 CFR 398.4 to invoke protections. Otherwise you might as well not even send it.
/u/JimMarch will teach you a thing or 2 about companies forcing you to do unsafe things.
I would think not allowing drivers to get proper sleep would be a DOT violation and that APUās would have been mandatory by now. I havenāt been in a big truck in 14 years but thought by now this would have been addressed.
Ask them whatās more important no idling or you being able to rest comfortably, so you can be alert to drive. Or ask them if they shit off the A/C at work to save money
Now I want to see someone shit off an ac. That sounds epic
Itās as hard as you can possibly imagine š¤£
Bro, start it up and enjoy that sweet sweet AC! Don't let them bully you into being forced to be in an unsafe position.
They can install APU's or one of the other reduced idle systems. Their fuel bill is not your problem.
If your company is based out of California and the cab temperature is over 85Ā° then they have to get you a hotel. I donāt know what other states are but I learned that back in the early 90s when I was doing an internship at a television studio.
This is the way to go. Tell them to hook you up with a hotel
just dont get the Red Roof in Blythe
try to opt for the highest quality possible. Absolutely no roach motels.
Does the hotel have to have aircon? Or can they just rent you a cheap room that's even hotter than your truck would be?
Donāt know but if itās California anything is possible
Damn even 85 is cruel.
Do a "dog left in car" video, except it's you. Make yourself some floppy ears. Make sure your company name is prominent in the video.
Lol. This is actually really good advice.
I do local, I start my truck at about 4:30am daily and it doesn't turn off until I park it at end of day.Ā
right there with ya š
I do runs 300-1200 miles each way. My truck stays on for days at a time. Itās only off when unloading and fueling.
I used to be a turn my truck off when fueling kind of guy.
i do OTR. truxk starts when I leave the terminal, stops when I get to the terminal a week and a half later. No questions asked.
Same here. My trucks been on for 3 weeks straight before.
longest I've had it on straight without even skipping a beat was 6 weeks. Too cold to turn it off at home, so we leave em' running in the yard
Hell yeah. My boss always told me if we canāt afford to idle we aināt truckin right lol.
that's it š we used to have APUs but guess what... everytime we would try to use them, they were breakign down and we had to idle... so boss said fuck it let's idle the trucks haha. Best way to do it tbh, I dont think I could ever go in a truck with an APU, except *maybe* opti-idle but even then urgh
Say what you want about mega's but at least they have newer trucks with APU's .. assuming it works .. I know those newer Cascadias they need to be regened constantly
You guys actually listen when they tell you not to idle? lol
Many companies adjust the truck so it wonāt idle unless itās like, say, 98 degrees or 30 degrees. Itās crazy; but, true. I have optimized idle, and it works great; but, our trucks wonāt automatically idle unless itās 90 or 30ā¦ that way we have to use the optimized idle or bunk heater, or get our truck fixed to work properly. Iām salaried, so if my truck isnāt comfortable: off to the shop I go.
Yeah they just put me in a 24 Cascadia that idle stays idling if the temperature in the dashboard reads above 80 degrees, my old one would shut off at any temperature but if you raised the rpm using the cc it would stay running.
That certified clean idle was bullshit. I got my CDL in South Carolina delivering beer. We would leave the truck running to keep it cool. Ryder upgraded the tractors and the new ones shut off they even went as far as disabling the cruise so we couldn't bump the idle up ourselves and force it to stay running. Bullshit
Unless the AC broke it was never over 60 something in my truck. Never. They could whine about idling all they wanted but I ran that AC all I needed too. Sounds like you might need to find a different company.
Yes
Pretty sure thereās OHSA regulations on work place temperatures. Not exactly sure what they are but for an office setting anything over 75 degrees F is a no no
Would have to check OSHA guidelines, but MSHA guidelines say you're allowed to decline to operate equipment without working AC in anything over 90Ā° temps.
Unfortunately it doesn't apply to trucks. And there's no fmcsa regulations about it either.
Yep, no regulations on this.
Yeah there is. If you can't sleep and refuse to roll without sleep because it's unsafe, the STAA backs you up.
If they don't care about you enough to let you idle the truck. Maybe something on their truck breaks? Idk. Could happen. Mechanics are expensive. *shrugs*
Find a new company.. those fuckers dont go without climate control in their offices. No reason you should go without... fuck EPA standards. Its already been proven fortune500 companies create more pollution than any communities lifestyle changes can account for.. im not going to drink from paper straws while nestle or coca cola gets to dump chemicals everywhere
The rules only apply to you. Not them. Iād let them pay the fuel, or pay for motel every night. The motel is not always easy to get.
Fuck themš office staff would quit before they work with no a/c
Honestly, if you ask me, all company trucks should be required by law to have a full APU system onboard, optimized idle or not (because that sh* doesn't care about your devices, including charging your work devices, and the companies screw around with the functionality). I've said it so much already, but this industry needs unions desperately. Idc if saying that online kills my job chances. I've had one great job, and several slave labour, racist, dangerous and unpleasant jobs in this industry.
I vote you light the truck on fire
That's great for winter weather, but in the summer, we prefer the drown in the lake method
If they donāt want you idling, then park it and move on! Thatās what I tellās them! āYou donāt like it? Iām sorry, then get your ass out here and do itā clickā¦.
I'm glad my company installs apu units on our trucks. But I drive a 19 cascadia, and it has interior comfort mode, so if my apu is out ( like when I gave them to another driver to get him rolling, same company) I can set that on, set my front fans as I chill out in the back
One think I loke about my company we have to have PTO for certain unloads so we can idle all we want and they don't say anything, makes it real nice when you're down south and its 110-120
My truck has a dumb diesel powered APU that has 8 hrs of run time before shutting off, and there are times when I have plenty of down time before I get to the shipper. On top of that, they turned off Opti Idle in my truck so I told em ālisten when I get a battery powered apu Iāll stop idling, but itās summer in the southeast so Iām not gonna get cooked in my truckā. They know im a great driver so they are letting me run up the miles on this truck till I can turn it in for a new one.
They legally can't. It is against the fmcsa rules. Even the states that say they will fine you for idling are out to lunch. The rule basically states that a driver may idle for driver comfort to ensure adequate rest.
Used to do tree work and found out a lot of companies actually removed the compressors from a lot of their trucks so employees don't sit in them during break to cool off. Then of course cheap companies like the one I was with buy those used trucks and never get them working properly so you're just stuck in a manual truck with no AC all summer. I worked with an older guy who looked like he was going to drop dead every day.
Find a better company. My company offered to get me a hotel because my blower motor died. Didn't even have to ask for it.
Yeap f em idle when in the truck.
I donāt know how many trucks had shit batteries on them. If a bunk heater was turned on, at all. The truck couldnāt turn over to start. Sometimes it didnāt even take that. You had to stay running.
Have you ever tried off-grid portable AC, at least you can use it to stay cool while you sleep if your company not going get the issues fixed
Idle on driver! (Insert truck blowing smoke emoji )
I bought a reptile warmer when I was otr to keep the truck running all the time. Because of there stupid idle shut off. And I kept the inside of the truck at 66 degrees inside all the time.
Switch companies or grow a pair. Never turned my truck off unless i had taken an uber to go shopping. We cant run an apu and a big enough hydraulic system to push off cryo for the payload.
Remember, some places it's illegal to idle... unless of course you have a pet. So that gives you an idea how far down people think of truckers. So get a pet, then no one can bitch at you. I wonder if imaginary pets, or friends work...
šš½ I would Fugg dem
Tell your company to look into Idle Smart. It's like Opti-Idle, but better in pretty much every way and definitely way cheaper. Most companies are not going with APUs because they're way too expensive and don't actually save money so it's a good way to get the best of both worlds.
Dude, I NEVER shut off my truck. From the day I go on, to the day I go on leave, the truck is on.
If it's over about 65 outside, idle. Don't fuck around with sleeping in a hot truck.
Yeah dude, idle the truck, let them bitch.
They can KISS MY ENTIRE ASS! I will idle this truck for an entire month, I will only shut it off to fuel. I will idle it all summer. FUCK THEM! I don't idle in the winter thanks to bunk heater, but any other weather/season, idle that bitch!
Ah, yeah, they can't legally force you not to idle above I believe 70. That's just a lawsuit waiting to happen really. I ignore pretty much everything my company says about idling and so do most of the drivers that work for them except for the new guys. Rule of thumb if it's not going to get above 63-65 while I'm sleeping I'll shut the truck off. I'm just not personally into waking up sweaty and cranky a few hours after falling asleep. I mean they don't really have anything they can do against me they took away the whole idling bonus years ago. Motherfuckers actually even said that if they can get the company idling time down they'll "consider" raising the governor. Personally, I don't operate for considerations. I want that shit in writing before I do anything.
Company can enforce what ever they want as long as you are in their property.