This week on the Oakley Podcast, hosts Jeremy Kellett and Megan Cummings chat with Lt. Doug Lafferty of the Arkansas Highway Police Department. The conversation covers the importance of communication during inspections, distracted driving, and the complexities of the split sleeper berth rule. Lieutenant Lafferty emphasizes proactive communication to address mistakes early and improve safety. The episode also highlights the value of collaboration between drivers and DOT officers to ensure safer roads, important tips for drivers in inspections, and so much more.
Key topics in today’s conversation include:
- Safety Discussion (1:45)
- Technology and TikTok (4:00)
- Jeremy’s Home Improvement Project (7:03)
- Introduction of Lieutenant Doug Lafferty (12:10)
- Accident Causes (16:22)
- DOT Inspection Insights (20:02)
- Use of Cameras in Work Zones (22:33)
- Common Inspection Violations (27:34)
- Importance of Inspection Violations (30:17)
- Communication During Inspections (35:04)
- Ensuring Accurate Documentation (42:56)
- Perceptions of DOT Officers (46:40)
- Variability in State Regulations (51:35)
- Concerns About Self-Driving Trucks (53:50)
- Finding Violations During Inspections (55:31)
- Handling Data Cues (57:13)
- Log Auditing and Potential Violations (1:00:49)
- Collaboration Between Trucking and DOT (1:04:10)
- Final Thoughts and Takeaways (1:06:18)
Oakley Trucking is a family-owned and operated trucking company headquartered in North Little Rock, Arkansas. For more information, check out our show website: podcast.bruceoakley.com.
Transcription
Jeremy Kellett 00:12
Welcome to the Oakley podcast, trucking, business and family. This show is brought to you by Oakley trucking, headquartered at North Little Rock, Arkansas. The purpose of this podcast is to communicate with Oakley owner operators and their families by giving them up to date information concerning Oakley trucking and the trucking industry, from business advice to safety updates to success stories, also to give an insight to outside truck drivers that might be interested in joining the Oakley family. Hey, welcome to the Oakley podcast, trucking, business and family. My name is Jeremy Kellett, and I’m your host for this podcast, along with my co host, Megan Cummins, welcome back. Welcome back. Glad on today’s episode, we sat down with me and Dustin Barnett from the safety department. We sat down with Lieutenant Doug Lafferty, and he’s been on the show before. It’s been quite a while, though, but it gives you an insight of actually what a dot officer looks for when they do inspections. But what happens during an inspection? We ask him all kinds of questions. We even had, you know, it was great to have Dustin Barnett in here as a safety guy to ask him questions on behalf of our owner operators. It was a very good episode. It is, I’ll kind of prepare you in the beginning. It’s a little lengthy, yeah, because we had so many questions for him, and he was super nice to answer them all, and did a very good job. So it’s a great episode. I really want you to stay. Stay tuned into it and listen to the whole thing, because there’s really good stuff at the end too. So must
Megan Cummings 01:45
be refreshing to put a dot officer in the hot seat. Yeah, it
Jeremy Kellett 01:49
was, and it kind of he was sitting where you are, Dustin was on that side. I was on this side, and we were just berating him. But it was good. He’s, he’s, he’s, he’s super about it, and knows how to take it and handle it. And gave us some good advice. We gave our owner operator some good information, you know, to go on and off and what to look for and what to do. And, I mean, just some good stuff. We we actually asking Megan some of the questions that our listeners, yeah, on Facebook. So we asked him some of those questions too. So really good stuff that is coming up, but first I want you to tell them how to share the podcast. I was
Megan Cummings 02:32
I’m going to mention my mother and father, because I’m my favorite among senior citizens who don’t know how to work technology very well, but they somehow figure it out. Every week, whenever the podcast comes out, they like to watch it via YouTube, and they’ll screen it or cast it to their TV in the living room. I listen in the mornings, Wednesdays, whenever I know I’m gonna be on the podcast. If I’m not there, I just kind of like you don’t. I just might as well, full disclosure, I really don’t listen to it if I’m not on if I’m not there. Anyways, whenever I know I’m on, when I know I’m on the episode, they come out Wednesday mornings, and when Annabelle sends out the information, they actually, I think they get published like at midnight on Wednesday. Isn’t that right? 3am so Spotify Apple podcast, I was looking at that the other day, all the streaming platforms, also YouTube. You can see the visuals, and you know how easy it is to click the share button. I do. I do it all the time, TikTok, the TikTok shorts. Share those, those, yeah. I replied, ” Yeah. Repost, yes. That’s my favorite thing to do on TikTok. Repost. Whenever you do that. It just reaches a bigger audience. It’s all of your followers and stuff. And I send tiktoks. I mean, those are, that’s easy,
Jeremy Kellett 03:47
and that’s, that’s, that’s all we’re asking our listeners to do. Yeah, you know, share the information. The reason I want you to tell people is because I don’t know how to do that. A lot of that, but a little crash course, it works. Nothing to it. Works, and that’s how we get out to people that, I mean, you got, you got listeners that are not involved in trucking listening to the podcast? Yeah,
Megan Cummings 04:10
yeah, my old fan Well, I mean, not necessarily involved. We’ve got a lot of history with trucking, but yeah, all you gotta tell them is Megan’s on it and I’ll watch it. Yeah, it’s as easy as that. So anyways, yeah, TikTok, and now we don’t have to worry about that. I was a little spooked about that, what about that whole TikTok ban? Oh, yeah, we’re they gonna ban it or not? Actually made me a little bit sad, not gonna lie. Yeah, it was just like, I don’t know. It was a big chunk. I think it’s been around for what, eight years, 10 10 Okay, so eight to 10 years and lit, this isn’t a joke. Sunday night, I was like, What is this gonna do for us? Yeah, because I really think that we get a lot of people that get their, well, their face, not just get their news, but, you know, they. But we’ve got a lot of people that don’t work here, you know, that see our tiktoks, yeah, yeah. I think that’s we
Jeremy Kellett 05:06
do have. Our audience is growing. We’re over 53,000 subscribers on YouTube. I mean, we have 20,000 on TikTok and Facebook, yeah. I mean, so it’s, it is growing rapidly, and it’s good, and that’s because, you know, everybody shares it and tells everybody about it, and that’s what we’re after. That’s what we want to get out to as many people as possible. So it’s working. Also, sponsors back in the game, here with Aero truck sales, LubeZone, appreciate what those guys have done and hung with us since the beginning of this podcast. They do such a great job, and we appreciate all that they do. Also got a new sponsor, and we’ve got a lot more details coming out about them, but it is a Central Arkansas truck and trailer repair shop here, just down the road from us. Super nice guys, David Dunn and his son and and they, I’m actually going to sit down with them and talk to them about what they offer and what they can do for our owner operators. But they seem like great people, so I’m looking forward to that. Got us a brand new sponsor. So beautiful. Other than that, Megan, everything is going your way.
Megan Cummings 06:11
What’d you do last weekend? Let’s see. What I did this weekend was as follows, hold on, I actually did do something this weekend. I’m just blanking. Give me a second. You. Give me a second, yeah. Oh, okay, I got it. I got all up here. I went to get my hair done this weekend. Just stick to whatever. I made some banana pudding this weekend. Nice, yeah, and that’s about that’s about it, that’s
Jeremy Kellett 06:37
about it. Yeah, I didn’t get out. No, I did get
Megan Cummings 06:39
out. I shopped a little. I don’t really count shopping or like when you asked me what I did this weekend. I want something really interesting to tell you.
Jeremy Kellett 06:48
Yeah, I was kind of hoping for that. I thought maybe I’ll work on that next weekend. Have anything
Megan Cummings 06:52
just normal stuff, cleaning. What did I say the first time you asked me that? Napping, gleaming pretty much, and Van fitting this weekend. What did you do this weekend? You
Jeremy Kellett 07:03
I know, this weekend was a good weekend. It was on the first weekend I actually stayed in on Saturday. Normally I’m either hunting, yeah, been doing a lot of hunting here lately, but I actually had a project. I know what I did Saturday. I’ll try to make this as short as possible. But I had bought my wife this ring camera, with spotlights. You don’t have one of those already. Well, we have one. I bought one last year that plugs into the doorbell, so I installed it last year. Simple, no, no brainer. Well, this one I bought this time is a hard wired spotlight, and we wanted it over the driveway. You know that you can see the driveway in the front there. So I’m looking at this thing. I’m not an electrician, by the way, but I was trying to figure out how I could get this done today. And, you know, I’ve finally, it’s like a process. You know, you start looking, I’m up in the attic of my shop because I’m wanting to mount it on the front of
Megan Cummings 08:01
my shop. Did you have to, like, wire it yourself? Yes, yes. Is that safe? No, okay.
Jeremy Kellett 08:06
I mean, I felt safe because I flipped the breaker off, you know, did you get any power? Any point in this story? Did you get electrocuted? No, I did not. Okay. So I had, I was figuring out how to go, you know, fish the wire from the attic down through and come out the stucco, because I drilled a hole in the front of my shop in the stucco. And I thought, were you? I mean, there’s no returning now, yeah, you know, you’ve got a hole in the front of your shop. So anyway, I managed to get the wire fish through there, and mounted my fancy double spotlight ring camera on the outside of my shop. I was impressed. Went into Elizabeth to brag on myself, you know, tell her how good a husband she has, yeah, yeah, and how good an electrician he is. And I said, Honey, all right, I got this thing hooked up. Now, get on your app and get this thing going. So she’s starting on her app, trying to figure it out. And then it says, You got to be so many feet within the camera. And so she hands me her phone. I go out there in front of the shop, and, you know, I’m doing all the directions. I’m looking at the camera. I’m doing all the directions, hitting the next button and all this, you know, get it set up. And it says Complete. And I say, well, all right, so I go back and give her the phone. She says, yeah, it’s working. I go right back out, start my other project. Soon as I walk out the garage, it says, big, loud voice, you are currently being recorded. And I Okay, I go in. I come back, you know, because I’m getting stuff out of the garage to my shop, to my truck. And every time I come, you are currently being recorded, and I walk in there and I said, You’ve got to shut this thing up. And then she starts talking to me through the camera, yeah.
Megan Cummings 09:53
Isn’t that great? Isn’t technology great? Yeah, please tell me you guys can save that and show us. That.
Jeremy Kellett 10:01
But anyway, I was, I got it. She got it where the lady’s not talking to me every time I walk by there, yeah, and we’ve, we’ve, she started figuring out how to control it and said it because she was getting all these notifications every time I was out. I mean, yeah, those things are cool. They are cool. So seamless
Megan Cummings 10:16
entertainment. Yeah? Like, I never thought seeing dry cars drive past would be so much fun, but here it is.
Jeremy Kellett 10:22
So that was my Saturday. Most of it, it was pretty productive. I enjoyed it.
Megan Cummings 10:28
Can we stick your number on the on the thing for Jeremy Kellett’s electrician services?
Jeremy Kellett 10:35
I wouldn’t recommend that. That sounds like you did a great job. Well, it hadn’t burned down yet. Everything looks good. So,
Megan Cummings 10:42
All right, big plans this weekend. Same Yes, nope, big plans. And I’ll tell ya about it next week. Sounds good. Give me some time to come up with a lie. Me too.
Jeremy Kellett 10:52
I’m going duck hunting with my son this weekend. Me too. I’m looking forward
10:56
Yes, that is so weird.
Jeremy Kellett 10:58
All right, tune in next week to find out what’s happening with Megan and Jeremy and also what’s happening at Oakley trucking. We got some good stuff coming at you for the next few weeks. Really good episode. So stay tuned. Let’s get started on today’s episode.
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Jeremy Kellett 12:10
Welcome back, man. It’s good to be here. Welcome back. We have this time for people that don’t know out there. Lieutenant Doug Lafferty is, if he’s our Oh, I guess go to person when it comes to dot and get him on the podcast and talking, because we know Lieutenant Doug is going to tell us the truth as he knows it.
Lt. Doug Lafferty 12:33
Yeah, there’s a lot of things I don’t
Jeremy Kellett 12:36
I know, but I appreciate you coming up here. Man, is that chair rocking on you. Oh, it’s perfect. If you want to go straight up, you can, but I appreciate you coming back up here and doing this with me. I know it’s been a couple years. We’re talking downstairs. While ago you got, you’ve been your grandpa. Now, girls have grown up, or one of them,
Lt. Doug Lafferty 12:58
one of them, another one thinks she is, but she got a little bit left. She’s pretty mature, so she’s 1616.
Jeremy Kellett 13:07
Taking a toll on Dad.
Lt. Doug Lafferty 13:10
It will, it will gray hair all the time.
Jeremy Kellett 13:14
I got barn up here with me because, and the reason I sprung that on you, Barnett, is because I was going through my mind of this episode he’s doing with Lieutenant Doug, and I thought, You know what, we could get our safety guy in here with the D O T officer, because we all always have so many questions. Well, if we just had one here, you know that we could ask him these questions and get his opinion on some stuff, and we got it right now it’s here. So I don’t know which way this is gonna go. I feel like it’s gonna go really well. But I, you know, I want our owner operators to see how hard we try to represent them when it comes to inspections. We’re gonna talk about some inspections. We’ve just got a slew of questions we’re putting, I mean, Doug on the spot here. I mean, it’s fighting us off, but we got some we actually had put out. Annabelle put it out on social media last night. Got a bunch of responses from some of our owner operators that want to know just things Doug that they don’t know the answer to and I am perfect. And I think it’ll be good to hear from you on, I love it, yeah, I mean, and that’s what this is about. You know, this episode is getting in here and helping us all, helping the safety department understand, helping the owner operator understand, helping the dot officer understand and communicating, so we can all get a little bit better. I mean, because the ultimate goal is safe drivers on the road, right? I mean, that’s the ultimate goal. Let’s get cranked up with some of these. All right, questions, man,
Lt. Doug Lafferty 14:51
you got the bamboo under the fingernails and everything? Yeah, yeah.
Jeremy Kellett 14:54
Now, to clarify, tell everybody where you work at and how long you been there I
Lt. Doug Lafferty 14:59
am with. Are. Highway police. I’m assigned to District Four, which is based out of Hope Arkansas. Before that, I started in law enforcement back in 2003 with the Hope Police Department. Staying there six, six and a half years, opportunity came open with the highway police, and I knew I didn’t have much more of a future where I was, so I applied, and amazingly, got hired and been with them ever since. I’ve moved up the ranks a little bit. I’m mostly an admin now, which, not gonna lie, that hurts me deep in what little bit of my soul I have left, because we all know cops don’t have souls. But it’s good. It’s been good to me to meet some really neat people. Do
Jeremy Kellett 15:43
you? You’re at the hope scale on I 30. I was
Lt. Doug Lafferty 15:48
now moved up the road to our headquarters, just a little bit up the road. Our Lieutenant over the scales is a lieutenant Latoya win free now she hired me at the same time I did, she’s a good person.
Jeremy Kellett 16:01
Okay, okay, good, you know, I guess let’s start off with some, you know, basic questions that I think the safety department had given me a few, you know, to talk about, you know, just some simple ones. What are the top causes of accidents on the road today and what steps are being taken to address them? I mean, I think we know the answer to that, but
Lt. Doug Lafferty 16:22
Cell phones tend to be a big problem because what y’all are seeing, we see a lot of them that they’ll pull up and, you know, we’ll go out and talk to them, and there’s a video playing, I mean, right, right in front of them. And invariably, oh, well, I was just, I was, I was using it for music. Well, okay, I get that, but the screen’s moving, and eyes are attracted to movement. Any, anybody that’s deer hunted, they’re gonna go, you know, your eyes are attracted to movement. We have had a few that, okay, hit play and nothing moves. Okay, I can, I can buy that one, but it’s just those, those videos are there. And it’s not just the commercial, it’s, it’s everybody that’s, that’s what we’re seeing for, yeah, a lot of
Jeremy Kellett 17:06
our acts, yeah. I mean, I think we all know that too. You know, distracted driving and cell phones play a big, huge part in it. I mean, it’s, and people keep them propped up, you know, mounted right up there.
Dustin Barnett 17:15
Yeah, there’s a lot of addictive properties just using the cell phone in general, all the studies they’ve had on social media and watching those little video clips. And, you know, you all probably saw it going to a restaurant, and most everybody’s sitting there just glued to a cell phone instead of conversing and having that discussion face to face. So unfortunately, with all of that, I feel like people are starting to get a little bit too comfortable. They’re using those cell phones inside the vehicles while they’re traveling, and then it becomes a question of not if, but when. You know you try your best to draw awareness that even though you may have done it a few times and nothing happened, you’re at greater risk to become distracted, and it drastically decreases here your reaction time on certain accidents. Oh, yeah.
Lt. Doug Lafferty 18:01
Couldn’t agree more. That’s exactly what we’re seeing. And then it doesn’t help that the passenger vehicles will get, you know, behind the CMVs by, you know, eight feet at 70 miles an hour, and it’s like, and you look over and they’re on their phones, and it’s a disaster waiting, yeah, yeah, and it’s not going away. No, we’re doing everything we can. That’s pretty much every officer. When they find that that’s there, there’s not a whole lot of leniency on that, because we’ve had too many people get hurt and we’re but we have to address it each time individually, so it’s probably not going anyway.
Jeremy Kellett 18:39
No, I mean, it’s a constant battle here too. I mean, we see it all the time and, I mean, I get truck drivers on the phone. They don’t have anything to do a lot of times they get it through their headset. They’re talking to people. They’re talking to their kin folk. They’re talking to wives about whatever it is. I mean, they’re, they’re on the phone a lot, and you start sending face timing and videos, and that’s where it becomes dangerous. Yep, turns real dangerous real quick. I can attest to that. I mean, I was trying to stay on my way home last night, I was trying to figure out a light in the side of my car. It was not the dim light was not on like it normally is, and I’m over here punching that, you know, you got that thing on your steering wheel, the arrows and the okay and, and you’re trying to find a lighting and the whole time I’m driving, and I shouldn’t be, and you’re incriminate. You want everything I know, I know it, but you’re wanting to figure it out, you know, instead of pulling over and trying to figure it out. And, yeah, anyway, I finally gave up. I said, That’s a stupid You know, I don’t remember the last five miles, and I just drove so everything can be distracted like that, and
Lt. Doug Lafferty 19:48
It’s easy to do. We’ve all done it all in time. It’s just something we need to be aware of. And I think I’ve got my younger daughter to understand not to do that. Yours that might be just scared well, you. Not let her drive. It’s good though.
Jeremy Kellett 20:01
You know, with trucks today, I guess Doug, I mean, you guys, what are y’all seeing down there at Hope, with the volume and the violations and, you know, it’s been a couple years since we talked. Have things changed?
Lt. Doug Lafferty 20:15
Not a whole lot. You know, the vehicles themselves have really improved over the quality since I started that. I started in 2010 and y’all got a lot better equipment on the road than what I started at. I mean, it’s a noticeable difference. We’re still seeing you still have rolling junk out there. I mean, we all see it. We all know those. And of course, we’re trying to address that. Don’t y’all target those. If I see one that looks like it’s falling apart, yeah, we’re pulling it over. But they, you know, most of the time we’re at the scales, and everybody knows where the scales are. You show me one truck driver that doesn’t know where my scales are, and they’ve never come through there. And, you know, we have our mobile units, and they catch a lot of that. There’s only so much you can do. But yeah, if we and people always, what do you look for each officer is different. But for me, if I see that truck that just looks like it’s, it’s just tired and, well, how does a truck look tired? I can’t describe it. It just looks like it’s been on the road for 20 years, even though it might only be a couple years, it just looks tired. Those are the ones I like, because you’re really helping your how to word this, you’re getting that truck off the road that’s gonna hurt somebody. And that’s what we want. I mean, it’s I want everybody to make it home, and that’s what it all boils down to, yeah,
Jeremy Kellett 21:41
yeah. Some of the, I mean, the basics there you can, you can tell something’s going on here, yeah. I mean, a lot of problems, yeah. And those cases, I guess those guys, I mean, you put them out of service, they stay on the side of the road at the till. They get trucks out there and get stuff fixed. I
Lt. Doug Lafferty 21:59
guess if it’s, if it’s out of service, it has to be fixed before it can be driven. Now, if they’re in an on the side interstate, and it’s not safe for them, obviously we’re going to get them off the road first. I mean, it’s more dangerous to leave them there than to move them up four or five miles. We’ll move them up. But you know, like our station, yeah, you’re there. We’ve had a couple that were towed off. We’ve had cranes out there picking them up. And very, very rare that it’s not going to be fixed there.
Jeremy Kellett 22:27
Yeah, Barnett, you, I know you want some of these questions here that y’all had sent them easier for
22:33
recall. One, I think it’d be a good segue off of that distracted driving. I know Arkansas put up some cameras or during road construction and in the work zone, in the work zones, can you talk a little bit about that and how your officers are utilizing that as a tool to catch distracted driving?
Lt. Doug Lafferty 22:49
We have a it’s called a heat team, and I don’t remember exactly what the acronym stands for, but it’s basically the heavy activity, and they can use those cameras to and it’ll tell them when people are speeding. And they can also get photos sent to them, and it’s only those officers. I don’t have access to it, because I don’t. I’m not part of that team, but they can see distracted driving, speeding a couple other things, and, you know, in a work zone, you don’t really have anywhere to pull somebody over, so they’ll be able to pull them over later. And then they’ve had some really good results, not not from tickets. Because, I’ll be honest, I don’t care about tickets. I don’t think that we write a ticket when it’s needed, not because of anything else, um, but they spent a few months just doing warnings, and that was in the work zone like the Benton area, yeah, and their crash rates went so different. I mean, just instead all these massive backups and crashes and, you know, three and four crashes, you could get home, and that was basically Through their efforts, and those cameras helped a lot on that.
Jeremy Kellett 24:04
So the cameras don’t issue a ticket. No, no, a police officer still has to do it, okay? It it just gets the license plate, or it
Lt. Doug Lafferty 24:14
takes a photo of the vehicle. I mean, honestly, I’ve never really seen it, because that’s like I said, it’s that one team, but it gives them something to look at, and they still have to stop the vehicle and issue a citation or a warning or whatever. And I know for a long time they were only doing warnings
Jeremy Kellett 24:31
the public knows, like, it’s got, it’s got a big sign up, or your pictures being taken or something. Yeah, you’ve seen them? Annabelle, I haven’t seen them. Yes,
Lt. Doug Lafferty 24:39
I was driving up today, and I saw the sign, and I’m like, make sure. Okay, good, I’m doing the speed limit, even though, I mean, I train the officers on, on some of the things. And I’m like, Nope, I’m not getting my picture taken. I don’t want to explain that one. Have we had
Jeremy Kellett 24:53
Any drivers in this situation? No, not
24:55
that I can recall. Good. Yeah, good. It’s kind of one of those things too. When it’s posted. It’s good that it is, but it kind of makes you focus a little more and you start paying a little bit more attention, which I think is the purpose of it. But, yeah, luckily, we’ve not had any of those come across.
Lt. Doug Lafferty 25:10
It’s, I think it’s more useful, not as you know, how many do you stop? But how many know about it? It’s like when we put blue lights on the traffic backing up from an accident, that is 100% just to let people know, hey, something’s coming up, and the signs kind of like you were saying, I think it does a really good job of just letting people know this is up here, and letting people fix it themselves. And it’s so much better than us trying to because we can’t. There’s just not enough
Jeremy Kellett 25:41
on the changing subject. I want to get into the roadside inspections and stuff like some of the questions safety guys were asking us before, but first I had thought once, because I don’t know, I guess I’ve seen these on my YouTube before, but the driver is actually videoing the police officer. Does that really happen? I’ve
Lt. Doug Lafferty 26:01
had it happen a couple of times. A couple of them are, what are they trying to do? Some of them are the sovereign citizen types that really think that everybody’s after them, which, okay, others. I want this for, you know, in case something happens, but if something happens. You have my body camera, I don’t care. And some of them are just trying to learn what we’re looking at and how we’re doing it. Those are the good ones when they have team drivers, because you start feeling there. And I’ll look and say, why don’t you just walk around with me without breaking my birth. You’re doing it because your own free will is off duty. Come on. And I’ll show them, and we’ll walk around, and I’ll show them everything we’re doing, and they look at some of their faces when we do that, and they’re like, you’re okay with me doing this? Yeah, this is not undercover operations. This is all out in the open. Come on and show your friends. So I’ve done that four or five times, and the look has always been like, you’re really gonna let me do this? Yeah? I want you to tell everybody what we’re looking at. There you go. That way they can fix it before we see it. And so much better. Yeah, so much better. But there are some of the sovereign citizens out there that they’re trying to catch us doing something which goes against it. If you catch me doing something wrong, then I shouldn’t have been doing it. Yeah, so, so
Jeremy Kellett 27:27
What are some of the things you look for? Yes, you want to go with that bar net. Don’t let me interrupt you.
27:33
No, that’s great. And, you know, we have our, you know, access to all of our CSA data, so we monitor that pretty thoroughly, and we see our top categories, just as a company, but I’m just curious to see what you all are noticing out there,
Lt. Doug Lafferty 27:46
the things we’re seeing the most of I’ll break it down, between equipment and log book on equipment. You got the paperwork side and annual inspections. I think those are nationwide, one of the highest things for violations. Our eastbound station has a tire sensor that will pick up on flat tires. And we’re seeing a lot of that, you know, before it was just, hey, if there was a flat, you know, you caught it, hopefully, and now it’s given to us. Hey, you might want to check this one, or you might want to check this one, and it’s not perfect. I’ve had a few that didn’t say anything on and you go out there and, you know, tires rated for 120 and it’s 30. So, I mean, there’s, but we’re seeing a lot of that. You know, you always have some lights, because lights burn out on the log book side. You know, ever since they made it a little bit more stringent on being out of service for the false log we’ve seen a huge increase on those on the the non out of service variety, and that’s just a matter of timing, but we’re seeing a massive increase in that, increase in what the false log books, okay, you know, they changed it where, if you’ve got a 10 hour break. After that, it’s not out of service. And we’re seeing more and more of that. Of the violation, it’s not being placed out of service because it doesn’t hit that criteria. But it’s becoming a lot more common. Are
29:14
most of those just driving over their available hours or falsifying their logs? It’s
Lt. Doug Lafferty 29:18
usually probably a PC. Oh, is it? You know, there’s some things you can do, some things you can’t. And, you know, hey, I drove four hours off duty. What were you doing? Was getting over here to pick up a load? No, that doesn’t work, and stuff like that. We see a lot more of that than we were before. People have pretty well gone the way of the ELD. And that used to be a big one is they just wouldn’t have an ELD. But we still see some of that where I just gonna use paper logs. Okay, what’s your, what’s your exemption from the LD? I just don’t want it to work, so it’s out there.
Jeremy Kellett 29:54
So what? Which? I had a question, actually, a couple times I had one from one of our. Our guys on Facebook, and also the safety department asked for it too. But it was asking about you, I got a violation at the way you pull me in, the way station, inspect me, and I’m getting a violation of a light out or, as an example, or an airline that was leaking, but I fixed it, right? You saw me fix it. It’s fixed, and you let me leave, and I’ve seen this multiple times, because the driver thinks he’s okay because he fixed it there, but it was still a violation. It was still a violation. The way we look at that is, when we pull you in, we want a snapshot in time and everything that was a violation, then it’s supposed to go on the inspection.
Lt. Doug Lafferty 30:45
Now, I have had one while I was doing an inspection, while he was pumping his brakes down for something. He had an air suspension bag below. Obviously, I’m not going to list that one because it happened during the inspection, but if he had come in with it that way, that would have been, you know, then it would have been a violation. But, yeah, it’s, in theory, it’s, you know, as the truck came in, that’s what we want the violations for,
Jeremy Kellett 31:11
and that’s what you’re gonna write it up for, whether they fix it or not, right? Gotcha. And that’s,
Lt. Doug Lafferty 31:15
that’s when we get, hey, I fixed it. Okay? You can take that violation off now. No, sir, I’m sorry we can’t do that,
Jeremy Kellett 31:21
yeah? Because if you hadn’t found it, they’d still be rolling
Lt. Doug Lafferty 31:26
down the road. And we get that a lot, and they’re wanting to save the safety scores, which I get, but it’s not what’s fixed after it’s found, it’s what’s fixed before. Does that make sense? Yeah, being more proactive versus reactive? Yeah, yeah, that’s a great way to put it. If you reacted to what we did, that doesn’t mean that the violation didn’t exist. And yeah, that’s great way to put it, perfect way to put
Jeremy Kellett 31:53
it. All right, I got a question here from Mark Johnson. He’s actually one of our owner operators. This is kind of a long one, so why do we still have weigh stations with all the new technology we have now? Good question. Second part is also, how can a 120,000 pound truck be on the same road with the truck that weighs 80,000 pounds? Is the difference only paying for a permit or more axles? The reason I asked is because an 80,000 pound truck is over gross two to 500 pounds, they make it a big deal. Will the government permit us to haul up to 85 in the near future?
32:30
Okay, so we’ve got multiple questions. Yeah, so
Jeremy Kellett 32:33
sorry about that. So it looks like the one he’s asking is 120,000 pound truck going down the same road as 80,000
Lt. Doug Lafferty 32:41
right? The roads are designed to basically absorb a certain amount of weight, and you get a certain amount of damage, because it’s the vehicles going over them that damages, which is, you know, costing the taxpayers to repair the roads. The reason for the permit up to that, up to that 80 it’s not really doing much, but anything over that is where it starts, because of the way it’s designed, it starts damaging the roads. That’s just basically paying for the maintenance that’s going to have to be done in the future, gotcha. And that’s why they do the permits.
Jeremy Kellett 33:17
And I think of the other question here, which is kind of interesting. I don’t want your thoughts on it. Do you think we’ll ever not have weigh stations?
Lt. Doug Lafferty 33:28
There is a program where they’re doing what’s called a virtual way station. And basically, as trucks go by, they transmit their logs, which I see some value in for doing level three type things. But I’m going to use the sensor that we’ve got for our tires right now. They don’t declare that the tire is flat. The officer has to go out there because technology is not perfect.
Jeremy Kellett 33:55
So you got tire sensors under the Yeah, great. Or, I don’t on the scale or whatever. Yeah,
Lt. Doug Lafferty 34:01
I don’t know the physics of how it works. Got you, but it says, Hey, look at this one. We think this one’s bad, and it will get close. But we’ve had plenty of times where it’s gone off. We go out there and we check it. Tires are good. Technology. The wall is wonderful. It’s not everything. I’ve had other times where it said there’s nothing wrong, and I had three flat tires on that inspection, and the sensors didn’t tell us anything. So technology is good. I like technology, but a well trained officer also has knowledge and discretion that a machine doesn’t just because the sensor might say something, we still, we still verify if it’s true or not. The machines break. Yeah, if they didn’t, you put a truck on the road, and 100 years later, it’s still in perfect shape. Yeah, I think the other one was what I think that covers. Yeah,
Jeremy Kellett 34:57
I think that covered what I wanted to do. How about you? Barnett, you got what about our list over there questions? You got some? Find one here. We can go down it. I put most of those on there that you guys sent me. Yeah,
35:08
one thing I think of, every time we get an inspection sent in by an owner operator, they always kind of say the same thing is, oh, no worries. I didn’t receive a citation. So it’s not that big of a deal. The officer told me it was just a warning they’re going to write a violation, right? We try to, you know, share a little bit of knowledge with them on, you know, how the CSA programs developed, and how the violations negatively impact the company and the owner operator. But it seems like too often they just call in, like it’s not that big of a deal. So I didn’t know how, during the roadside inspections, how you all communicated that with them?
Lt. Doug Lafferty 35:44
Well, at the end of the inspection, what we teach our people to do is show the owner, show the driver everything, point it out. It’s a lot easier to know that you’ve got, you know, this break messed up, and you actually point to it, and if you can see the violation, show it to them. Yeah, and if there’s anything in the law book, we go over it and we show it to them. Some drivers, due to circumstances, it’s not always possible because reasons you know somebody’s threatening to fight you on the side of the road, you’re not going to go under and put yourself in a dangerous situation, as far as whether or not you know, like the warning or the citation, that doesn’t change anything that’s up to the officer, and if they choose to do one, so be it. We don’t push them when I get, you know, at the end of the month, we do a form that shows us how many inspections, and I don’t even look at how many citations they’ve written. I don’t care now,
Jeremy Kellett 36:41
wait a minute, they’re meeting their what’s the driver say? They’re meeting their quota. You have to give more of them at the end of the month than you do at the first of the month. I mean, that’s just rumors I’ve heard. Have you heard of them? Dustin, yeah, yeah. And
Lt. Doug Lafferty 36:53
I grew up hearing that. And I’m not going to say that there’s not some agencies that make money off of citations, I will say the Arkansas highway police do not. Typically, those are going to be smaller agencies that have to make their paychecks. Got you highway police? We don’t. We don’t care. It’s, I don’t look at it. The only time I ever ask is if it’s something like DWI. You know, if you’ve got a DWI or resisting arrest or a possession, you know those are significant enough. But if, for some reason, they choose, well, DWI, it’s in law, they have to. But the others, if they choose not to, I look at them confused, and don’t say another word. We’ve got some guys that they’ve had federal out of service orders and they’ve not written citations, which, in my book, you’re definitely going to get one. He chose not to. He’s not heard a word of complaint out of me. I don’t get it, because that’s a fairly big deal, but it was his discretion, and okay, so I still don’t get it, yeah, but the officer made that choice, and there’s no law that says he has to. Now, there is no DWI. But other than that, I’m not getting involved in it. I don’t care. It’s what they choose to do.
Jeremy Kellett 38:20
So just to kind of get our audience back up to par, here we got Lieutenant Doug Lafferty hanging out with us from Arkansas highway police down and running the scale. Did for years down at Hope Arkansas now is in the main building, yes, just up the road there from but it stays in touch. He’s heard nothing but great things about Oakley, owner operators, all good. No inspections. I’m not gonna say
Lt. Doug Lafferty 38:50
anyway. They might have been inspected, but never seen anything problematic.
Jeremy Kellett 38:57
Just, you know, I’m just trying to, you know,
39:00
point out that you are awesome. Yeah,
Jeremy Kellett 39:02
yeah. He said,
39:04
he said it, yeah, I’ll say it, you’re awesome. Do a good job.
Jeremy Kellett 39:09
But no, we’re talking inspections and anything else we can think of here. Got Dustin Barney of the safety department here with me too. And it’s, you know, it. The reason we have this episode is, you know, this is Doug’s third time here with me. It is because we can get some, I mean, the more we can get our owner operators to see this and hear this, I think it’s going to make us better, better company and understand some of the rules and why some decisions are made. Yeah, I agree.
Lt. Doug Lafferty 39:39
And we want that good communication, the better communication we can have with both the companies and the drivers, so that, you know, questions get answered with more compliance, without having to see us in a bad light. We love Dustin. I’ll make sure you get my email address. Yeah, and anything comes up, I don’t promise. To have an answer, but I’ll try.
Jeremy Kellett 40:01
Yeah, that’d be great. Have you had any big drug bust lately? Dinner? We
Lt. Doug Lafferty 40:05
haven’t. We’ve had a couple, some smaller ones, but nothing significant.
Jeremy Kellett 40:10
I watch that a lot of times and I forget what that show is called. Now, me and my wife watch that sometimes big drug bust coming across the border. Yeah,
Lt. Doug Lafferty 40:18
yeah, the biggest city I’ve had dealing with was a straight truck. I don’t even know what he was hauling. I don’t remember. And he wreaked a weed, and they’re not messing with it, because possible marijuana, medical marijuana, but on the commercial side, as we all know, it’s a no go. So I go up, I’m like, Yeah, well, well, I’ll, I’ll address this. And I ask him, and he’s like, No, there’s nothing in there. And I’m like, Hey, I smelled it from like, 30 feet away. There’s something in there. And the first place I reach, he’s got a Smith and Wesson 357, and I find, like, 15 packages of, you know he was doing up, charging him distribution. And we keep looking, and there’s another gun, and they’re both right there where he could have grabbed him ready. Wow. And I have no idea how much he was in there with the officers right there. And it was wild. Luckily, we had enough officers there. He didn’t give us any fits. But it’s out there that could happen real quick. Yeah, the weirdest one, I don’t know if I told y’all this one last time he had edible he had THC infused cereal that he would eat with his THC and infused milk. And it just seemed like a never ending cycle to me, eat a little bit, get the munchies, eat a little bit. And it was, it’s the only time I’ve seen milk with THC in it. And he thought there was nothing wrong with it
41:55
at all, legal now, and it was labeled what they think, yeah, on the carton of the milk. Yes,
Lt. Doug Lafferty 42:00
it was, it was wild. And yeah, well, my wife has a medical card, yeah. But, you don’t. And B, it’s in a commercial, no. And
Jeremy Kellett 42:13
there’s still some confusion about out there with people on that in there, there is,
Lt. Doug Lafferty 42:17
and what it boils down to is the state may choose not to do anything on it, but it’s under the federal rules. It’s still illegal. It’s just like the alcohol prohibition. It’s been legal to have alcohol in any state for years, but not in a commercial vehicle. Same idea, okay, so, and we’re finding more and more of that, and it’s usually the medical grade. Now, you got
Jeremy Kellett 42:41
Any questions over there?
42:42
Barnett, yeah, no, Don at the moment,
Jeremy Kellett 42:45
let me see that sheet right there. That’s on it. This was a little different. How do you ensure accuracy of documentation during inspections and enforcement actions?
Lt. Doug Lafferty 42:56
We teach our people to talk to the drivers, ask questions, instead of just assuming something, seeing something, assuming something, or taking photos. We all are high definition body cams. If you get a violation, take your camera off, put it up there, let it sit, you know, and then talk to the driver. You know, we were talking a little earlier about showing things to the driver if, if you’re seeing something wrong, then hopefully the driver can explain it, and you’re like, Okay, that makes sense. I stopped a guy the other day that was a permanent load, and he had stopped in a lane of traffic, which he had and he shouldn’t have, but he explained why he did it, and it was to fix something. He was like, 17 feet tall, so that if something hit, it would just go over some pieces of wood, so it would just kind of catch and go over. And I looked at his permit, and I thought he was off Route. I talked to him for a second, and no, he wasn’t. But talking to people helps a lot. We’re not infallible, I mean, the air is human, and I’m very human, and the more we can talk about it now, I’d tell you that their attitudes are not always great. And I’m not saying argue, because you’re going to lose that’s part of what the data cues are there for. So like, adverse driving conditions, we get a lot of data cues on that, and it’s like, well, they’re claiming adverse and you watch the video and it was never brought up by the driver, and that could have saved a whole lot of heartache, both for y’all and for us later, when I do hazmat, because I’m horrible at hazmat, anytime I think I found something, sir, this is what I’m seeing, and I’ll Show them in the book, does your safety department know of any exemptions to this? And there’s been a few times, yeah, look at such and such. Glad we made that phone call. Just communication. Now, when a violation is legitimate, we tell them, try to make sure we get it on body cam and just describe it better. Descriptions we give, because then you understand it better, and it’s like, oh, okay, that’s what they were talking about. Okay, I see that. And other than that, I’d love to have any suggestions. Y’all got anything on you for the industry side that we could do better learn?
Jeremy Kellett 45:14
That’s his department, yeah. But for me, as far as you know, the only thing I see is a lot of people in the recruiting department coming in and running these PSPs, as we see, a lot of violations. I mean, you’ll not have one break violation, it’ll be four break violations. I don’t know if that’s because they had four bad breaks or, you know, but it’s been down there several times, and they’re like, Well, isn’t one not enough? You know, we see that so on
Lt. Doug Lafferty 45:41
that we have been given CSA issued an operation policy 14, and it tells us how to document, okay, and each individual break is supposed to be individually mentioned, okay. Now there are some things like a log book each day is supposed to be individual. And what I tell my people is this is what the ops policy says for like, seven days you didn’t certify your logs. But if you put that on one, yeah, I’m not gonna give you any grief over it. I mean, they forgot. Give them a reminder. But you don’t have to put it on every day. Some do, you know, put it every day, which is what the ops policy says. But if they don’t, it’s like, I teach my kids, doing the right thing, doing a good, decent thing is never wrong. So sometimes you’ll see only one and they’ll say, “Hey, you missed it every day. Technically, yeah, they were supposed to put one for each day. But really, why
Jeremy Kellett 46:40
are all DLT officers as nice as you out on the roadside tend
Lt. Doug Lafferty 46:44
to be a little hardcore when sometimes, but we try to teach people just to be decent. Yeah, and you got, you got a tough job sometimes. I
Jeremy Kellett 46:56
I mean, those guys that don’t know Yaw do it either. I mean, a truck driver has a tough job too, but they do. I mean, you guys have a tough job too. We’ve
Lt. Doug Lafferty 47:06
got, I’ve got some really good people that work with me, and a lot of us have connections back to the trucking industry. My dad drove. We’ve got several people that grandpa drove here. My grandpa, yeah, years back, yeah. I still need to go get those plaques just the next time I’m up here to show them. Like, really cool. Yeah, he’s got some award plaques, and it was weird. But I’ve got some good people. And driving up here going through some of those work zones, I remember feeling, you know, just how, oh my god, what could happen? Then I look over and I see this. It was one of y’all trucks going into it. I’m like, How in the world do they do this? How do they drive in these situations, in these traffic? Yeah, every day, and not just come apart, yeah? Because, I mean, I know how stressed I get when I was driving a Chevy Tahoe. I couldn’t imagine, because so much respect for that. Yeah, a professional driver is a person to be respected in all circumstances.
Jeremy Kellett 48:06
Well, I think, you know, I try to put myself in a dot officer’s shoes and not know what to expect that day when you go out on the job, on your shift, yeah, you never know what’s going on, what you could run into. And that’s gotta be your biggest fear. I guess
Lt. Doug Lafferty 48:22
you get used to it, do you? There’s times where it’s like, oh, okay, what are we coming up with today?
Jeremy Kellett 48:29
I feel like that at Oakley,
Lt. Doug Lafferty 48:32
yeah, but we got used to it. I’ve been in law enforcement since 2003 so we see things different, and it’s weird. Hey,
Jeremy Kellett 48:45
Ben wanted me to address the block in the window on the driver’s side. A lot of guys will have some of that stick on the window tent. I mean, the suction cup stuff, some of them will put a towel up there, and also the windshield and all the mounting devices.
Lt. Doug Lafferty 49:06
That is something that has been heavily debated amongst the various departments of transportation, in the Feds also. And the best answer we can get, if it’s windshield mounted, you know, it spells it out in the regs. It’s not windshield mounted. It’s really not addressed. And you know, the stuff on the side windows, I think is a horrible idea, but if you can see the mirrors, it’s legal. And I don’t, I don’t like that, because I want your drivers to be able to see what’s what they’re going to turn into and what’s coming but it doesn’t address it now that there is some on the window tinting. Man,
Jeremy Kellett 49:48
That’s my biggest I mean, because I like window tint, but not just because I like the way it looks. Well, I mean, the sun I can imagine riding down. The highway all day and the sun beating in on you. I mean, you got to do something.
Lt. Doug Lafferty 50:05
I agree, as long as it’s not just where you can’t see anything.
Jeremy Kellett 50:09
I know, but you got these gauges that can’t be. I don’t even know the rule now, but
Lt. Doug Lafferty 50:15
I don’t have one of those. And I don’t, I don’t enforce that one. I don’t, that’s one of those. When we start talking about that, when I say, hold that thought, and I go get a book, I guess, because I can’t remember it off the top of my head, think it’s 7030 I think that’s what is 70% allowed through 30 o’clock. And
50:33
what I find too, they come in with factory window tents, not knowing, just because it could be such a low percentage. Then they go down the street and they say, Hey, put 7030 years, and then it ends up going over the threshold. And that’s why we try to tell our Inter operators Be very mindful if you are going to put window 10
Jeremy Kellett 50:51
on. Yeah, we tell them, no tent. I mean, coming in, there’s no tent, because you end up, I mean, that’s, that’s one of the reasons you got to write a guy up for having window 10 off. I mean, we don’t need that silly violation. Well,
Lt. Doug Lafferty 51:05
In another thing, I think Arkansas law is a little stricter. But what about another state? And
Jeremy Kellett 51:16
they’re all the same, aren’t they? They’re not all the same on the window tint. Arkansas
Lt. Doug Lafferty 51:21
The law is a lot stricter than the federal law. And then Yaw crosses state lines, and you get this state that’s really, really strict. And I mean, it’s, it’s, I wish there were better answers for that. I really do. And
51:35
We see that too across violations, just depending on the state, it seems like they target things a little bit differently than other states. And that’s what’s confusing to an owner, operator or driver. They get pulled in clean level one, and then another officer finds something different than he chooses to enforce. And it just kind of confuses them a little bit
Lt. Doug Lafferty 51:54
on Yeah, and one of the things on that is, you know, we are people. There’s things that our eyes go to, I check airlines very, very thoroughly. And anybody I’ve, I’ve worked with, they’re going to also, I had one officer while I was working with him that you know, about every couple feet, as you’re going up on a level one, I’m like, Hey, did you check the airlines over there? To the point that he’s screaming at me under the Yes, I checked the airlines. So I’m telling myself, okay, I need to ease up. And then, you know, we go up another three feet and, like, you check, sorry, but yeah, I mean, there’s, there’s things that one officer may catch and another one may not even see. And I don’t think it’s so much that they’re trying to ignore it. I’ve had some that we were going through, and it’s like, Oh, got a bunch of rock, you know, nails in this tire. I’m like, Hey, good eye on that. And I’m sitting there going, Dude, I looked at that tire like five times. I never saw it. And I think there’s some of that. I can see that there’s so much to inspector there is,
Jeremy Kellett 52:53
How long does the inspection take?
Lt. Doug Lafferty 52:54
You? What kind of vehicle are we looking at and how many violations? Well, I
Jeremy Kellett 53:00
I don’t know. Oakley truck rolls in. How long is it going to take? Going to take you, if you pull them
Lt. Doug Lafferty 53:03
around back, if they’re in good shape, about an hour for a level one. Oh, really. Okay, but that depends on, you know, how many axles, you know the configuration, if on a clean one, about an hour, 45 minutes to an hour. But if you’re looking at maybe something’s got eight axles, a bunch of violations that you’re having to sit down and check things and double check and it can take longer. I had one that took me six hours. Admittedly, he went to jail for DWI, which took a lot of time. But it really depends on on what you’re looking at and what you’re finding, but I think the average is anywhere 45 minutes to an hour, okay, for a level
Jeremy Kellett 53:46
one, you run into any of these self driving trucks.
Lt. Doug Lafferty 53:49
I have not, and that scares the mess out of me. I think Texas has authorized some in certain sections, and I don’t, I guess I’m old school. I want a human there in case things go horribly wrong. Yeah? Because how many times has your phone just decided to do something weird and you had to shut it down to get it to restart? Yeah? And that it scares me.
Jeremy Kellett 54:12
Yeah, whoever thought that would be a good idea got some issues. Just saying, Annabelle, don’t know. Okay, good, all good information. I mean, you know it, it helps us all. We can understand a little bit more about you know, you’re not the enemy. No, I just want you to get your truck drivers are not your enemy. Trucking companies are not your enemy. Now,
Lt. Doug Lafferty 54:39
When grandpa found out I became part of the highway police. He got mad because he was an old truck driver. He was an old truck driver. He got so mad he had a stroke and died. I mean, it was the enemy side. Oh, he was mad. I still want to know some of what happened, because every time he talks, you never know what people put on those trucks, and those drivers don’t know. I want to know what happened to grandpa. Ain’t no telling. No, because
Jeremy Kellett 55:05
anyway, anyway it’s, it’s all good. I mean, it’s, you know, being able to know that and show our listeners, our audience, that you’re not after truck drivers. No, they’re not. They ain’t got to be scared of dot officers? No, you know, it’s just in their mind. I’m trying to think in their mind. You know, there’s so many regulations there are. I mean, how can I possibly get them all right? You know, there’s, I mean, is it true that if they get pulled over. You hear this all the time, too. Doug, if they want to find something, they’re gonna find something. I’ve
Lt. Doug Lafferty 55:46
had a couple that, and I shouldn’t, shouldn’t have done this. He made me mad. I went over that truck four times. I couldn’t find anything, nothing he made and what it was he had stopped about an hour earlier, and it was, and it shouldn’t have made me mad, but there was something about his attitude, it just irritated me. Did I look for something? Yes, did I find anything? Not in the least. Is that common? No, normally there is something. But really, let’s, let’s not worry about fuses. I mean, there’s a limit to what we need to do, right? And what I tell our officers is, stay calm. If somebody’s pushing your buttons, let them stay calm. You stay professional. You do your job the same way every single time. Take emotion out of it. It’s not easy to do because I mean, somebody you know, sitting there cussing you up one side down the other, you’re gonna get upset. But we have to set that aside and just do our job professionally. There’s days,
Jeremy Kellett 56:48
I bet we have them here too, once in a while.
56:53
Yeah, I have one more before we wrap up. You know, we issue some data cues on some stuff that we feel like wasn’t issued properly, which I know how it kind of looks on our end whenever we submit one of those. But is that something your department handles? Or can you explain how the officers you know asked about the violation and how right decided? We’ve got
Lt. Doug Lafferty 57:13
a group of three or four or five people that they look at the data queues, and everyone that is sent in is looked at. Typically, what they’ll do is they’ll watch the video. So if it’s a light out, okay, the light’s not working, denied. If it’s a log book, they’ll look at the log book. And if it looks, if they can clear it by looking at the video or whatever, send it in and say, No, this is obviously wrong, then they’ll do that. But if they need to ask the officer, anything you know, did y’all keep any documentation? Did you keep any files? Do you have any of this, you know, anything, then they’ll ask us about it. And we’re wrong from time to time. I view everyone as a way to get a little bit better. And sometimes we find where we did everything right, we just don’t have the documentation. Let it go. Obviously, we don’t want to do that because we’re the federal side. Also keep an eye on how much our mistake rate on data cues, but it happens. We’re going to make mistakes, but they look at it very closely, and if we’re wrong, we want to make it right. And that goes back to what we were talking about. You know, if a driver sees where an officer is making a mistake, ask them about it, because it’s so much easier to fix it on the front end than to come back later. Saves you. I don’t know how long it takes y’all to file a data queue, but it saves you that time and the heartache and the stress, and it’s easier to do it on the front end. I’ve had several times where you get an inspection done, and they’re like, Hey, I found this document you were looking for. It’s like, All right, so now let’s fix this. And that saves you from having to do it later. It saves us from having to do a data queue. It saves time and money and an embarrassment, because some of the stuff is it’s just embarrassing, the
58:59
one that we see the most on our side. And that’s not necessarily just saying Arkansas, but it’s the sleeper burst split. We let our owner operator split hitting logs, and it’s very there’s several of them where they have issued driving over the 14 hour violations when they really weren’t. So they really, that’s the main one that I see us as far as hours of service are concerned. We Yeah, the the
Lt. Doug Lafferty 59:21
split is, it’s complex, and what really is throwing a lot of people for a loop. In the past, it was an eight and two, and if it was 10 or more, you didn’t worry about it, you couldn’t do it now, it’s seven, three, and it could include a 10. And in the past, the only thing you ignored was the eight. Now you ignore, when you calculate your 14, any of it that’s actually used, and it’s come. When we were, I promise you, we were trying to get better. It’s just a very complex one, and it takes a lot of training and a lot of looking at it. I had been instructing. I was our instructor, and it wasn’t until the first time that I had to go up there, and I was teaching that split for like, eight hours that day that it finally clicked. And it’s a weird one, yeah, but we are. We’re trying to get better. We’re doing everything we can. And if you got any ideas on how we could help with the training on that, I would love to hear it, because I am out of ideas other than just repetition and keep showing them.
1:00:33
Do you all? And this is a question, we get an orientation, like, if you do the via web service transfer and the officer goes back and logs in with the code. Does it audit the log as far as hours of service is concerned, and tells you if they drove over their available hours, or is it
Lt. Doug Lafferty 1:00:49
it gives it a button for potential violations. It’s like we were talking about earlier. Machines are only so I teach them not to rely on that too much, because machines make mistakes? And when the when the 14 changed three
1:01:06
years ago, four years ago? Thing is, yeah, back in 2020
Lt. Doug Lafferty 1:01:09
that one was there. None of them were right. There were some that was like, there’s not a violation there, but it’s showing violations, and there shouldn’t have been. And then there’s others. It’s like, there’s no way that one’s legit. It shouldn’t, but it wasn’t. So what we tell them is, if you’re going to use it, double check it, make sure it’s right. Because another thing we run across is there’s various rule sets, like, Texas has their own, and I had one that the log was showing that was perfectly fine. I’m like, No, you’re you’re over right there, yeah. And the guy was not understanding, and I showed him, and I showed him, and I showed him, and his thing was, well, the log didn’t show it. It says, I’ve got this time of like, well, I don’t know the answer to that. What we finally figured out was he was on the Texas intro roll set instead of the federal we finally figured that out, and he had gotten the ELD provider on the phone, and you could tell he was like, No, you’re wrong. I’m pretty sure I’m right on this one. I’ve been teaching for a few years. At this point, I knew I was right. And I said, Sir, you do realize he’s on the Texas rules? Well, yes, under the Texas rules. I’m like, You do realize he’s in Arkansas now, therefore he’s under the federal rules? Oh, yeah, he’s wrong all day long. And I’m like, but yeah, there’s, there’s plenty of ground to work at on that we need to get better on, that it’s something we have identified, and we’re doing everything we can it’s very complex one, and it’s it’s difficult to get right every time, what I tell our officers is, if I’m call me, I don’t mind looking at a log and helping them. And we’ve had several that have done that, and I’m like, No, he doesn’t get that exemption, because the seven has to be in the sleeper berth, and they’ll put on duty, yeah, off duty, yeah, off duty. That’s what I meant to say, Yeah. And, I mean, it’s, that’s one of those. It is what it is. But 14
Jeremy Kellett 1:03:13
probably gonna change it again. Are they, I don’t know. Oh, please say they are just saying, you get used to it, then they change it. Yeah,
Lt. Doug Lafferty 1:03:19
It’s a complicated one. I’ve actually sat down and mapped out a way where you could go, like a week and never get more than about seven, six or seven hours and not be in violation. Using the new at least on the 14, you’d still be hammered on the 11 and it’s crazy. I would tell the drivers on this one, if you’re in sleep or birth, make sure you put it as sleep or birth. A lot of times it doesn’t make a difference. But if you’re going to do a split, it really does. And there’s times where you know that little bit of time in the split the sleep or birth will change things so drastically on your lungs, yeah,
1:04:06
Okay, thank you.
Jeremy Kellett 1:04:08
Good information, hopefully good stuff. I mean, it’s, you know, you can just go on and on and on. You really can get down in the weeds on some of this stuff, on every instance that happens, and I appreciate you answering some of them for us. I mean, hopefully that helps some of our owner operators, our listeners out there on explaining some of this to them, I’m sure they they have a bunch of questions, or probably chime in here with some when we put this out, which we’ll just send them to you about that send you some questions. I don’t promise to know it all, but I will look well, like you said, you know, earlier, we’re human beings. Yeah, we all make mistakes. And I just, you know, if we don’t get anything out of this, I want us to get that. We’re on the same team here. Very much. You know, trucking company and dot, we’re the same. Team. We’re trying to, you know, both do a job and be safe at it and protect everybody out there on the roads. We don’t want to. Last thing we want to do is hurt anybody over something silly, you know,
Lt. Doug Lafferty 1:05:11
yeah, and we’ve all, you know, driving down the road, there’s a tire in the middle of the road, and we’ve all seen that. We’ve all, we’ve all experienced that, and if we can stop you know that maybe somebody’s life will be saved. And it sounds like an extreme jump, but I could show you photos, yeah, well, make sure they’re through with court and all that first. But I could show you photos, and it’s
Jeremy Kellett 1:05:37
Yep, makes you, makes you do your job a little differently every day, yes, when you see the results of some of that. So hey, appreciate you coming up from Hope. Appreciate you sitting in here and getting drilled by me and Dustin and I hope, I hope you come back. Oh,
Lt. Doug Lafferty 1:05:53
gladly, good. If this is the worst I get drilled, and thank God
Jeremy Kellett 1:05:58
make it pretty easy. So, yeah, yeah. And I appreciate you sitting in Barnett, yeah, forcefully, kind of just grabbed you and said, Come on. I think it’ll be good. So it was good. I appreciate you doing all that. Yes, appreciate our listeners. You guys are awesome. Appreciate the feedback you give us questions. I hope we can help answer some of them. Send us some more. If you got some more that we didn’t cover, send them to me. We’ll pass them along. I got Lieutenant Doug’s email. We’ll send them straight to him and try to get you an answer. Appreciate everybody listening, man, hang out with us these next few weeks. We got some new stuff coming. Give us your feedback as always, and we look forward to talking to you next week. Thanks. Thanks for listening to this episode with Oakley podcast, trucking, business and family. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate or review the show in the podcast platform of your choice and share it with a friend. We love hearing from our audience. So if you have a question, comment or just want to say hello, head over to our website, the Oakley podcast.com, and click the leave a comment button. We’ll get you a response soon, and may even share some of the best ones here on the show. We’ll be back with a fresh episode very soon. Thanks for listening.