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Did you get enough hours this week?
Why is this a question that starts a lot of driver conversations?
Why is it that we all know what it means?
The answers are easy.
Because we all know, that 40 hours is not enough to raise a family on.
It’s worse, when it’s your wife that is asking this question, especially if the answer is “No”
If “yes” then the look of relief can be measured by the number of mouths she has to feed.
The Driving Hours Law.
No problems, if you earn xxxx amount of dollars for 68 hours work
Big problems, if xxxx amount of dollars won’t feed and clothe your family.
We all know the guy that does 58 hours a week as an around town delivery driver, he’s got all the licences and skills to drive the length of the country on a nightly basis, but chooses to stay in the city and help raise his family. Xxxx gets eaten by inflation and he finds a part time job as a milkman on Saturdays and Sundays, an extra 8 hours will go along way, and the milk will be good for the kids, we just need to forget about Sunday in the log book.
But the extra dollars only go so far, and there is some work two nights a week as a security guard, so lets be into that too. It is an extra 8 hours, easy work, 4 hours per night, no problems mate. We just need to forget about the 4 hours a week we cant put in the logbook.
But now he’s not home helping to raise the family, he’s out there trying to feed his family. When he is home, he’s tired and grumpy and won’t do anything around the house, his wife’s getting annoyed because he’s never interested in anything, but going to work.
If he’s lucky, this situation may end in divorce, the marriage will have failed, but his children still have a dad. Even if it is only on Saturday evenings after the milk round, it was probably more than they saw him before.
If he is unlucky, he will be suffering sleep deprivation and doze off while at work, he will clip the curb inside the Lyttleton tunnel and be killed, his wife will morn him the rest of her life and the kids will grow up not knowing their dad.
When the nice CVIU officer arrives at the Bosses’ office to look at the pay books of the three different employers, each one of them can honestly say, “ I did not know he was working over his hours, therefore I cannot be held accountable for his actions”
The nice CVIU officer will raise one eyebrow and there it will end, because he will be unable to prove that they didn’t know.
The really good questions will never be asked,
“If your only paying him $9.50 per hour, how on earth did you expect him to pay his bills, without working to many hours?”
“Did you ever bother to ask how he was feeding all those kids, paying rent, buying shoes, buying Christmas presents or paying doctors bills?”
“What assistance will you give this new widow and her children while they make the huge adjustment in their lives, to not having dad around?” “Do you care?”
There are other questions that need your urgent attention.
Where can I get another driver? Did I get enough hours this week?
But that’s “just an old trucker’s point of view”
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