GPS Tracking Would Solve Many Problems
Here’s a news items that came across my desk in the past few days. They all seem to point up just how far some people will go to make their life harder, instead of working smarter.
Trucking protest a waste of time
Thursday, 22/05/2008
Plans for a national trucking shutdown have been dismissed by South Australian truckers as a stunt.
Up to 1000 people from the transport industry will meet in Townsville this weekend, to plan a mid-July industry shutdown, because of the planned introduction of work diaries.
The diaries replace existing log books, and introduce more severe penalties for anyone breaching fatigue management rules… full article.
I had to take a second look at this one to make sure it wasn’t some news article from 1968 or some other pre-digital era that had slipped back into the news queue by mistake.
Better tracking of trucks, especially with regard to fatigue management rules (American readers substitute Hours Of Service rules) is a worthy goal. In general, the only truckers who really object are those who would break the law or those who are ignorant of the law and don’t want to learn.
But in this case it seems the government is most certainly the ignorant party. Simplistic logbooks are indeed no good in today’s age. We don’t call them ’swindle sheets’ for no good reason.
But diaries? More laborious, prone to mistake and interpretation pieces of paper, creating more mountains of paper? Come on, folks, it’s 2008!. A simple, tamper proof sunder $500 "post mission" GPS tracker in each truck subject to the rules would eliminate the waste of time, eliminate the potential for fraud and, as a side-benefit, allow each truckling company or independent owner operator to save an easy 10% to 15% on his/her operating expenses.
Anyone ever consider the idea that the goals of business and the goals of regulatory agencies do not have to be in opposition?