The perfect job exists.
The perfect job exists.
118 comments
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Wish we got a more complete understanding of the truckers' side in this article - why is it so hard to turn off your engine instead of idling?
The guy quoted in the article says that some trucks need to operate their lift gates 15 or 20 times in a day. First of all, turn on your engine to operate the gate and then turn it off when you're done... Secondly, if it is impacting business too much to take that extra time to turn the engine on and off, invest in an auxiliary power source to operate the lift gate.
Maybe I'm missing something?
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Former trucker. If it's hot or cold AF it sucks not having a or heat. If it's a hot day, it's way hotter on blacktop surrounded by hot engines.
It can be a pain to turn it on and off a bunch of times per day, I know it sounds minor, but when you're trying to keep track of a bunch of things, making sure the right cargo comes off or on in the right order in the right way, hitting multiple docks or stops in quick succession. Trying to claim the space you need and trip plan (a lot of people don't realize how difficult it can be to get a truck through a city, especially East Coast cities).
Then you get somewhere and hop out of your truck to check in, thinking it will take 30 seconds. Talk to whomever you may need to, clear obstacles and eyeball the space you need to get your trailer into. You'll run into clueless, apathetic and just all around useless fucks at every corner. The sort of people that make glaciers seem on point. 30 seconds can turn into 30 minutes real quick.
It's a tough gig, and having an army of mercenary profit driven people out there looking to make a buck off the guy delivering literally everything you need to survive that's not air (and sometimes even that too) is kinda bullshit.
Edit: I'm not endorsing excessive idling, just trying to give some perspective on why a driver may fail to turn it off.
And also that a policy that pays anyone to report it is suspect at best. Where are we drawing the line on that? Jaywalking? What about immigration? Who's to say I can't start a company that surveils and informs for profit? It's a slippery damn slope with nothing nice at the bottom. Enforcement should be done with paid public servants, full stop.
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There's a lot of externalizing of costs going on. The trucks are idling because the drivers are operating at the slimmest possible margin under the assumption that idling doesn't cost anything.
What we actually would want to get to is that idling does have a cost (environmental, health, pleasantness of the area, etc). And that cost ought to be passed up the chain so that the various goods being shipped are more expensive.
But without a more centrally-managed economy, the implementation is to put all the pressure on the truck drivers and leave them responsible for passing that pressure to the next step up the chain. It doesn't work out very well in practice because the drivers need to make a bunch of capital expenses for something like adding a cab AC and adding a batter-powered lift, but they've been operating at low margins so they're not in a position to do it.
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My understanding is that turning off and on a diesel engine is not great for it or something like that. Sorry, my grandpa was a mechanic and I'm half remembering something he said.
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There are also older and jankier trucks still around which need the engine running for things like the lights and/or the hydraulic loading gate in the back to operate. Both these things are non-negotiable safety needs when loading or unloading a truck.
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an army of mercenary profit driven people out there looking to make a buck off the guy
that's one interpretation. another could be "a group of people who care enough about the air quality of their neighborhood that they finally stand up for themselves".
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Yeah that sucks, but that truck should be a train on a rail spur, and if we can punish anyone involved in making it not that, i am in favor.
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To add to this as a Diesel mechanic,
Diesel engines are designed to operate continuously for the most part, the most wear and tear on the engines happen during start up and shut down.
They take large batteries and more effort to start so repeatedly doing that over and over in short intervals will lead to flat batteries and burnt out starter motors
Diesel engines run most efficiently I.e less pollution and better fuel economy when warm, cold engines cause more soot etc.
The engines wear poorly and develope carbon deposits from stop start operations too increasing fuel consumption and NOX emissions.
Lastly but certainly not the end of it is most Diesel trucks have what's known as a turbo timer, this keeps the engine running 2 minutes or more depending on settings after the ignition is turned off.
This allows oil flow around the turbo and prevents unnecessary heat damage to components.
Certainly if i applied some thought to this i could come up with more reasons and others could argue against but that's what I've got to say on the matter
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Yeah all of those things do suck, we empathize with you. Just go ahead and turn off your engine though and avoid the fine.
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The first 3 paragraphs are absolute garbage.
Your last one I get, but still, it's a job, delivering in a large metropolitan area sucks. Turning your engine off ain't that hard. Yes I've worked as a driver.
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My grandpa drove a semi truck;
The A/C was part of it, some truck stops even had a thing called “IdleAir” that was like a window unit so you didn’t have to leave your engine running. For semis nobody wants to sleep in a sunbaked box with no air.
But according to him, for the really big engines, turning it off and on causes more wear and tear than leaving it running. So back in the day when diesel was still very cheap compared to gas they all got in the habit of leaving it on all the time.
Even the cops leave their cars on all the time where I am from.
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I've often wondered why trucks can't have a stop+start system integrated like many cars have these days. Wouldn't need to be a conscious action to kill the engine, just something that happens automatically when they park up.
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That is wear and tear on your engine, and the meager benefits you get from that are far offset by the maintenance costs.
For example, my not so fuel friendly car has, over the course of 3 years, shut itself off at stop lights for over an hour and a half.
Through doing this an entire gallon of fuel has been saved.
Over 3 years.
It's engine down time is usually less than 10 seconds.
I get that it feels like this is a benefit if you have all of the cars everywhere doing it, but this ain't it. Even environmentally, the extra batteries we need to produce will be more harmful than the miniscule exhaust will be.
Service trucks will put many, many more miles on them in that 3 years than I will. Their idle time might be a great deal more if they're leaving it to idle while they go try to make a delivery. But, two things: those systems are ridiculously easy to turn off, by design, and diesel engines really don't like working that way. The wear and tear would be worse, more expensive, and more harmful.
I'm not saying throw your hands up and give up. I an saying that the service vehicles are the ones we actually should be making exceptions for. Even in a consumer car free society, we'll still need the service vehicles to do work.
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Air conditioning
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I wish there was something like this for reporting people parked in bike lanes.
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The cops won't ticket themselves.
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That’s why this system is great though. Citizens report violations directly to the city and bypass the cops who never enforce these kinds of rules or violate them themselves. The city could fine the cops. Whether or not that happens is a different issue
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There’s a street I cross in the morning that becomes a clearway during commute hours. I take a grim satisfaction in watching the tow trucks take away yank tanks, because of course their humans believe the rules apply to everyone but them.
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Anzeigehauptmeister
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The quota of complaints that was actually followed through / taken action on was similar to stuff actually recycled from collected recycling, both rates are below well 10% (in Germany).
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not all heroes wear capes
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Can we get that for reporting cars parked in bus and tramway lanes?
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And bike lanes.
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$1, $5,$3, $7, $4 and $2!
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Jokes aside, this is a pretty rad program.
Under the Citizens Air Complaint Program, they can record idling trucks or buses, report them and keep 25% of any fines, which typically range from $350 to $600.
Even if you aren't doing it 6-9 hours a day like this guy is, getting a cool $75-$150 for making a report while out of the house anyway doesn't sound bad at all.
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Idling is illegal here often but I see vehicles doing it all the time. Would love if a scheme like this existed in the UK
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It also depends if they want to enforce it.
A lot of things are illegal to do in the US but ignored, but someone has to actively enforce it. Which is a police problem on its own.
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There's nothing to enforce any random person can send the video which is then watched and a fine assessed. How do you think he's making money if they aren't collecting the fines
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Every city should do this.
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Not sure why the meter maids aren’t doing this instead of turning the people against each other
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Where I grew up, meter checkers were getting threatened with assault for writing up parking tickets.
The current city I'm in, the meter checkers never leave their cars. They take a photo of the offense, and mail their tickets.
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I guess some trucks need to idle their engine to keep the refrigerator running so food doesn’t spoil?
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well they’d better go catch it
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If the engine is powering the refrigerator, it is exempted. Engine powering air conditioning is not exempted.
118 comments
This seems pretty common sense.
I mean, bare minimum that’s over $80 per report. Even if you only get one per hour, that’s still fantastic money by most metrics. That’s like $14k per month, or ~$170k per year. And that’s just the bare minimum fine.
Per fine, not report. So there's the "did they actually get fined" portion of it. But still, That's a nice bonus if only one report goes through a week, for maybe an extra hour of time spent if you regularly bike commute, walk, etc.