Throwing in the Towel

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS EX-PAT BRITISH TRUCKERS (INTERACTIVE)
1

The changes to the U.S Hours of Service rules (I spent 80% of my time in the U.S) and changes to the pay structure where I work(ed) partly because of the new H.O.S would have led me to have to work 4 to 6 weeks away from home, meaning i would sometimes never see my family for months and also make less money doing so (I worked for money!), has led me to ‘resign’. :frowning:

It’s a bit of a nightmare for us because the rest of my family only moved here 3 months ago, and we spent a bit getting set up here, we like living in Cranbrook, but if we stayed here, looking ahead into the future, I can see a time when i wouldn’t ever get home to see my wife and young daughter (especially if I only got Texas loads) and we would also struggle financially (especially in the winter months when you cover less distance due to less speed).

I have probably made as many dollars as i had spent, so we have had no great loss financially…yet, as i said, i can see we will struggle in the future the way things are going, so thought best to ‘nip it in the bud’ while we are ahead, kids school holidays are on so less disruption to change schools also.

I’ve had good fun, it’s a tick off my ‘bucket list’, I learnt load’s about Canadians, Americans and Mexicans (and dodgy Brits and Europeans :laughing: ) and achieved many things over here in Canada i never thought possible due to my oldness! :grimacing:

2

Good luck with things back in the UK mate. I think the job here is going to pot due to European style over-regulation without the European style of getting paid for the time you spend at work. Its a dead end road to nowhere at the moment. Trucking here has never been very good if you actually want to be home to sample the new life you’re supposedly living in Canada but until now has been an alright way to earn money if you don’t mind being away, now though, with all this 168 hours nonsense its making that option more and more unviable, not only because you can’t do as much, but now companies often wont reload you until you have a fresh set of 70 or at least enough hours to get back with, and if you’ve done 45 or 50 hours to get somewhere, you wont have enough time to get back in a 70, but you’re still 2 days away from being eligible for a reset under the new rules, so you end up sitting 2 days waiting for 168 hours to pass, then wait 36 hours beyond that, and hope that includes two periods of 1am to 5am.

As things stand now, and the way I see them going in the future, I’d love to get out of truck driving but thats easier said than done when everything else in NB is minimum wage and the fact I’m getting married to a local girl here in August means returning to the UK isn’t an option, at least at the moment.

3

contractdriver:
:frowning:

I’ve had good fun, it’s a tick off my ‘bucket list’, I learnt load’s about Canadians, Americans and Mexicans (and dodgy Brits and Europeans :laughing: ) and achieved many things over here in Canada i never thought possible due to my oldness! :grimacing:[/quote sorry to read that but least you been and done it …and the best of luck when you get back …how old were you by the way…

4

just read your 48…

5

robinhood_1984:
and if you’ve done 45 or 50 hours to get somewhere, you wont have enough time to get back in a 70, but you’re still 2 days away from being eligible for a reset under the new rules, so you end up sitting 2 days waiting for 168 hours to pass, then wait 36 hours beyond that, and hope that includes two periods of 1am to 5am.

Please please tell me your on some kind of wind up with the above :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: ,
would anyone really be silly enough to think the new HOS means you`d have to sit for around three an a half days going off your eg above :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

Unless I missed in the new HOS that theyve removed the provision for you to roll your hrs over, which I dont think I did, but I`ll stand to be corrected if I did and everyone can put :laughing: at me :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

6

I can’t even imagine how hard some of you guys must be running in order to be having all these problems with the new HOS amendments.
So if you get short of hours and have to park up for the day you can no longer call it a reset? It’s still classed as time off and you gain hours back from the beginning of your hours cycle.
How can the new rules cause you to be away for an extra six weeks or sit for three days?
The majority of my work takes me down to Texas, Arizona, California, Florida, etc so I ought to feel any effects of the new laws as much as anyone but I haven’t encountered any problems yet. Its all pretty much the same as the last six years that I have been on long haul.
At the end of the day, I’ve seen them come and I’ve seen them go in the words of someone who I forget.

7

I would load Tuesday at Nisku AB, I would drive Nisku to… lets say Houston Texas over abt 4 days, usually have a reset on the weekend (cos no one works to unload on weekends) Sat-Sunday and unload Monday AM, then drive to and load ‘wherever’ and run back up to Edmonton area asap (Within about 500-600 miles of Nisku) on a fresh 70, tip, then get back to load Nisku and run back down again, slotting resets in whenever i could, at either weekends or when i had used all my hours up (11 hours in 14) 70 in 6 days usually.

I can’t do this now, i can only START a reset every 168 hours. I can’t recap (not worth it) as i have usually used all my hours up so would have to have a 24 anyway, then am stuck on the hours i did a week ago.

Basically my take home pay has gone from about $2400 every two weeks to about $1600 because i can’t reset when it’s convenient. e.g Saturday and Sunday weekends and have to sit around elsewhere cos the company wont let me go unless I have a fresh 70.

I only get paid 45c a mile now, no extra money for anything else… and no minimum pay cos the boss said we will be sitting about more waiting to take ‘legal’ resets.

Out of the 38 mostly new Canadian drivers where i work (lots have left!) I was the only one who complained about the new pay structure change. :open_mouth:

I’m not wanting to be sat around away from home earning nothing so i jacked it!.. simple really!

It seems those who run paper logs are using a modified ‘old’ system and those of us on ‘electronic logs’ are stuck on the new rules and can see the ‘totally mentol’ restrictions popping up all the time.

I loved the job, i have no complaints about the company or my treatment there… but my pay going to suffer so i’m off!

I rarely passed my home before these HOS changes, but the company would let me drop my trailer on a ‘reset’ to go home, now i’m not gonna have the reset cos i’ve already had one, hence I am never able to go home on a ‘reset’.

I guess everyones work is different, all i know is that the new rules won’t work with my trips… unless i run ‘very illegally’.

8

If you have spent four days running from Alberta to Houston Tx and then had to sit for another two days to wait to unload why would you need to start another cycle?..
The day you unload is going to be day seven of your old cycle and you have only got thirty odd hours so far. You couldn’t possibly run out of hours now. . FFS.

9

P.s. if you’re on electronic logs instead of using log books you shouldn’t be getting paid by themile but by the hour or day even. Just my opinion.

10

Read your ■■■■■■■ signature regarding being adaptable to change and digest it . You haven’t been here that long , your family have just moved out and now on a whim it’s all back to that crap hole called Britain .
Take a reality check before you regret chucking this opportunity away , you’ve done the hard part as in getting established ,so get thinking re how you can make this situation work for you rather than bailing out immediately ,you will regret it .You don’t have to tolerate being away for ever , so can’t you just take the time away on the chin until PR is gained and other choices open for you rather than this knee jerk I’m off reaction ?

11

Hi CD.

Moving to Canada is one of the hardest things you will ever do. Ask anyone who has done it, and they will probably agree… It’s not meant to be easy. Nothing worth having is: If it was everyone would be doing it, then this country would be in the same mess that the UK is.

You have almost qualified for pnp, YOU ARE ALMOST THERE… How you handle the next few months will impact the rest of your life. Hang in there a little bit longer and then you can pick and choose anywhere in Canada. Think about it… One year out of the next 40 years (80+ for your daughter) isn’t that much.

One of the best pieces of advise I was given when I first came here was … ‘give it at least 12 months before you go back to the UK.’

This is just my opinion, of course.

I went back to the UK for an extended period over winter. It just reaffirmed for me the reasons I decided to come out here in the first place. Just remember what made you decide to make the move in the first place.

Things change, people move on. There’s a good chance you won’t be able to walk straight back into your ‘old life’, because it won’t be there anymore.

Having said all that… If you do make the move back to Blighty, GOOD LUCK and all the best. :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

12

That’s good advice. I went back to the UK to save my marriage but I knew deep down it was past it and it didn’t work out.
Now I’m back in the UK and don’t really want to be with a big mess to sort out.

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flat to the mat:
Read your [zb] signature regarding being adaptable to change and digest it . You haven’t been here that long , your family have just moved out and now on a whim it’s all back to that crap hole called Britain .
Take a reality check before you regret chucking this opportunity away , you’ve done the hard part as in getting established ,so get thinking re how you can make this situation work for you rather than bailing out immediately ,you will regret it .You don’t have to tolerate being away for ever , so can’t you just take the time away on the chin until PR is gained and other choices open for you rather than this knee jerk I’m off reaction ?

The ‘Crap hole called Britain’ isn’t such a crap hole, I would love to be able to pack up and move back. These riddiculous new laws are ruining everything for drivers, To have 4 or more days off duty but not have it actually count as a rest is completely stupid, whoever thought up this new rule should have been fired when he first came up with the idea. Contract Driver (I won’t use his real name because he has become a good friend) see’s what is going to happen. All you guys who are taken in by companies that come over there promising a good future driving in Canada are in for a shock, it ain’t no bed of roses, Taffy and Chunk can vouch for that, H&R conned them but they were lucky, they found better jobs out here.

14

Pat anyone who has half a brain can work out that firms that need to go half way round the World to get drivers are not going to be very good jobs :open_mouth:

There were firms round my old stomping ground that employed Welsh/Northerners until the Poles showed up, they were crap jobs too :open_mouth:

As for time off, who gives a flying ■■■■ what they call it, it’s time off and it allows you to spread your hours to enable you to recap then it makes no difference :open_mouth:

There are new rules, you have to learn how to make them work for you, moaning about it will achieve SFA, yes the ruling is stupid, but it is what it is. Give it a couple of months and everyone will be used to it and it won’t cause any problems… unless you try to do things the old way…and if you do that… you only have yourself to blame :bulb:

15

Mark, I can agree with you about the crap companies, I just keep thinking about all the posts on here from drivers who have been taken in by the likes of H&R and will find out soon enough what they are expected to do.
As for our friend who is departing the continent to return to blighty, I think maybe he should have a look around for a new company first, Taffy and Chunk did and the now have a good number.

16

So did I Pat, five years ago I left Big Freight after four months of misery and I’m still happy at the firm I moved to.

What’s even more impressive about that is that I am not easy to please at all, to the point where I wouldn’t give a primadonna like me a job :laughing:

There are crap jobs about, but there are plenty of good ones around too. The whole Canadian experience can be so much better when you have one of the better jobs around.

Now the new HOS rules are in force, the ability to work the miles you need to pay the bills and the home time you want into the equation would be the criteria I would look for in any change of job :bulb:

17

At the risk of sounding ignorant im glad i just stay in Canada for my job, not really clued up on all the US hours thing and have no intention of going there for work purposes but i think the advice given on trying to find a way of making it work till PR is sorted is good advice ContractDriver. Have you considered relocating at all within Canada, my company is looking for 40 drivers in Edmonton i believe and whilst it may not be a job that suits everyone, it may be a solution to not getting back on the plane and all the upheaval that goes with it. Send me a pm if you want some contact details and ill try and help if i can at all. I f you decide its not for you then I wish you all the best in whichever direction you decide to go

18

Having a word with a DOT officer earlier, he believes that very soon the 168 hour rule is going to be revoked, even he and most DOT police believe the rule is stupid. I do know there are some class actions being bought against the FMCSA opposing this issue.
It’s a shame Contractdriver can’t move down here, I could get him a job tomorrow and a damm good job at that :exclamation:

19

Jesus alive Contract Driver how on earth can You blame the new HOS rules for this quite glaringly obvious missing of the homeland, We have only been messing about at the moment for the last few weeks with these hours anyway, I don’t see how they are going to be too detrimental to us blokes from Canada anyway in all honesty as We grab a day the minute We cross the line.

I’m sorry for this not turning out for You but I really think it must be other circumstances & not three weeks of trying out the 168 hour rule that’s made Your mind up.

Anyway looks like You’ve made Your mind up, safe travels…Oh & I did see You the other week in Alberta & did wave…

20

Your right Pat I reckon this ■■■■ isn’t going to be enforced as its utter ■■■■■ & the DOT know it…