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Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

Do American trucks not have tachos? In EU it's impossible for a truck driver to speed or work more than 8 hours a day - if the truck moves even a little bit in the period when the driver is supposed to be resting, that means stupid fines for the transport company, and that's because everything is recorded by the tachometer behind the dash.

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Independent trucks don't. Company trucks do. However, the company does not get fined, the driver does, personally.

I see. There is no such distinction over here - if you are carrying goods commercially, you have to have a tachometer, full stop. Also, while the driver can be given a ticket for certain things(speeding mostly) working over hours or any issues with the truck will result in a massive fine for the company(one of the trucks carrying goods for us was fined in Germany recently for 2500 Euro because one side had a small bulge - that's not acceptable). The police also took copies of all tacho recordings for weeks prior and can issue further tickets if any discrepancy in working hours/speed is found.

FYI, by independent I mean a guy buys a semi-truck and trailer, has his own little company and hauls loads commercially. By company, we're talking about 50+ employee operations. There's a whole bunch of contractors, "owner-operators" that are independent. Qualcomm, who has a gps and digital log system, is in nearly every decent sized company trucks. Also the trucks I ran were throttled to 63. The throttle ranges between companies. Independent guys, obviously, don't order their trucks throttled. The companies do it for insurance reasons.

But yea, there are also ways that the Qualcomm doesn't "work". Thus, we "have" to run paper logs.

Again, interesting. You physically cannot order an "unthrottled" truck(as in - the tractor) over here, everything has to come out of the factory speed limited, and everything has to have a tachometer recording all the time. The only exception is if you drove your own personal truck for your own personal purposes, but as soon as you start carrying goods for money(even if it's just you) you have to have a tacho installed and working .

Don't the independent operators have insurance?

Too expensive?

Surely everyone has to have insurance when driving, even in US, no?

"Uninsured motorist coverage" exists here for a reason.

Truckers need $750k of liability insurance (but usually have $1M). For individual drivers, they are required to have liability, but it varies by state (and in some places a lot of people flaunt the law).

That is shockingly low. My normal car insurance without any extra add-ons covers up to £20 million($26 million) in 3rd party damage, and I believe EU mandates that every car insurance, no matter how cheap, has to provide at least 5 million euro cover. So even the most basic, 3rd-party-only, shit car insurance has to cover you for up to 5 million euro, by law.

Outside of trucking: In the US, there are a handful of States that do not even require car insurance, and in the ones that do require it, the minimum "shit tier" coverage is astoundingly low. In Florida, where I once lived, you could get coverage of $10K (property damage and personal injury) and be driving legally. $10K won't even cover the cost of a broken leg.

It is the same in the US. All trucks that transport across state lines has to have an electronic log. Tickets issued to the driver can be noted on the saftey record of the company and if there are enough violations, especially of certain types, the companies authority to transport can be revoked.

>However, the company does not get fined, the driver does, personally.

America vs Europe in a nutshell.

Yep. Upholding "the morals of the individual" vs going for what could effect intended wider behavior change.

Yeah I see this a lot. Like in the US they seem to go after individual doctors for mistakes. In Norway it is more the hospital which gets punished.

Also economical compensation for medical error is something you apply to the government to get. If you think they pay too little or don't pay then you go to court.

I've noticed that in the US almost everything seems to go to court straight away. In Norway and probably rest of Europe there are much more non-court systems to deal with problems.

E.g. if a company has behaved badly you contact the consumer ombudsman and they will make a ruling or advocate on your behalf. They kind of collect complaints from many consumers and will get more involved if more consumers complain.

Companies will usually follow a ruling by the consumer ombudsman. If they don't do anything then that is when you get into court.

It might be one of the reasons why there are significantly fewer lawyers in Europe than the US.

In the US, except for a few exceptions like Kaiser, doctors do not work for hospitals. They're independent. That's why, when you get a procedure done at a hospital here, you get a bill from the hospital, another bill from the doctor, and another bill from the anesthesiologist, etc.

This is false (the bit about owner/operator trucks not being required by law to have a big-brother data logger installed). Prior to the E-log mandate about a year ago owner operator and smaller trucking companies could have run paper logs.

> In EU it's impossible for a truck driver to speed

They can speed if there's a speed limit on the road (such as when you enter a populated area or get close to a dangerous crossing etc.). The tacho does not know about it. In Poland, truck drivers speed all the time.

Well of course, yes(I am from Poland as well), I meant more that there is an EU-wide speed limit on trucks(about 60mph or 100km/h) and it cannot be exceeded.

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