After decades of wrestling with hours-of-service regulations and paper logbooks as a driver, owner-operator and fleet owner, Steve Rush has reached a conclusion: electronic logging devices are the best thing to happen to the trucking industry.
Rush started his career in 1965 as a union driver at a motor carrier in New Jersey. Back then, interstate carriers were granted operating authorities for specific lanes by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC). HOS compliance, he says, was not much of an issue with his predictable work schedule.
Cheating on logs happened “but not a lot,” he recalls. That all changed in 1972 when he became an owner-operator in the tanker business.
“The more you cheated, the more money you made,” he says.
He founded Carbon Express in 1983 during the dawn of ICC deregulation. As new carriers entered the market, rates went down and he admits his company drivers and owner operators regularly exceeded HOS limits to keep his business afloat.
The culture of noncompliance at Carbon Express continued through 2006. One day, the safety director of the Wharton, N.J.-based fleet came to Rush’s office. An industry association, the National Tank Truck Carriers, had invited Carbon’s safety director to chair a safety committee. The safety director told Rush he would not accept it, as they both knew HOS compliance was a facade.
“I looked at him and thought about it,” Rush says, and then replied: “You have my word. We’ll change.”
