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Pending transport regs could be bad for live animals

Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs) are promoted as the solution to keeping sleepy drivers off the road, even if the load is livestock. That sounds simple on the surface, but ELDs are being used as control tools for unrealistic regulations.  Under Federal rules, after a maximum of 14 hours of time in the truck (11 hours of driving), truckers must take a whopping 10-hour sleep break! I don’t know how many out-of-touch bureaucrats it took to write this law, or what rationale the “sleep police” at the DOT used to come up with it, but almost nobody over the age of 16 can sleep for 10 straight hours. Maybe 4 to 6 hours of sleep after every 12 hours of driving would be realistic, but not an impossible 10! The cattlemen began explaining the dilemma this regulation causes: One rancher named Mike periodically sends 10 to 15 head of cattle to the sale barn. The truck that picks them up also has to pick up small herds at surrounding ranches to fill the load. It can take a full day to get the ranch pickups completed before the driver is ready to head for the sale barn or feedlot.

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