werevole

I would think part of that change in the industry was due to the tightening of the rules over roughly the last decade that supposedly were intended to remove unsafe and unqualified drivers from the road which at the same time pretty much backfired since it caused the great CDL purge that also eliminated an enormous amount of casual and inactive drivers from the workforce. The loss of so many experienced drivers from the potential employee pool killed a lot of career fluidity, including drivers that might later have a need or desire to return to the industry or pick up some hours here and there while not needing a steady income, and ability for companies to call back drivers in a time of need that it likely resulted in a lowering of standards for hiring and increased the chances of companies pushing drivers beyond their limits to compensate for the added challenges of finding drivers.

I won't debate you, I am well aware that a lot of chaff was weeded out, including a lot of us that started out with chauffeur's licences and were grandfathered into CDLs. And too, I mostly was in the parallel industry involving passengers (which came with a lot more regulation and scrutiny) plus putting it to the back burner over 20 years ago. I, though, would be the one that when an ice storm hit, received a call a few hours before I was scheduled to come in changing me from my usual route (the coach company in this example held a contract with the state to shuttle students from the blind and deaf schools to and from pick-up and drop-off points every week around the state as far as out limits could take us, those beyond either were then transferred to other lines or flew) to the one that even on a clear weather day couldn't be actually be accomplished without a drop positioning and some creative logbook entries. Even back then I would average 70 hours on the clock, one particular destination would put me over 100, pre and post activities that would usually go beyond the allotted constraints that would eat into those precious hours if one was so unlucky to be on an 8 hour turnaround (which wasn't much when you figured in commuting, anything to be done at home including preparation for the next trip and whatever remains to try at get some sleep no matter what time of day it was or the distractions), yet somehow even with all that I have managed to have only two chargeable offences on my licence over my lifetime and both of those were pre-18 and due to auto tag expirations on vehicles not belonging to me.

Over the years, though, I myself kept my CDL and what endorsements that could go inactive, despite the extra cost several times what a conventional one was, just to give me that extra flexibility that should I find it advantageous or necessary to return that that sort of work, or being that I moved to a fairly remote very small community that if the need arose or I simply decided to make myself available to the school district as a floater, I could have easily gone through a refresher and done what's necessary to become active again. So it was a bit of a slap in the face to one day get a letter in the mail saying that unless I surrendered my licence and downgraded to a conventional one or re-obtained and kept current medical certification that my licence would be cancelled completely. It further pissed me off that in addition to paying then for a new licence (which the old one hadn't expired) that I wasn't refunded for the time left on the old one (at the much higher rate).

So, if perchance I'm not considered some of the chaff that was eliminated, I'm sure I'm not the only one that wasn't a menace to have been brushed aside.