Do you know what delineates a CDL A driver from a CDL B driver?
It is the source of much confusion, opinion and a lot of misinformation.
Our local Ops Manager was at our store today - he has been sick and didn't want to be far from home, I guess, in case he needed to leave.
We're all busy about our duties - though I wasn't driving, stuck at the store with no deliveries but plenty to do there anyway - when he asks me about the difference. A manager at one of our stores in New Mexico had hired a driver for an International 7600 series, 10 wheel-dual drive axle truck mounted with flatbed.
He had not checked whether this driver was actually qualified to drive that truck. This driver has a CDL B license. Ummmm, I'm sorry, hiring drivers without checking whether they are qualified to drive the vehicle they will be driving? Especially in the world of trucking? Are you crazy?!!! What kind liability would the put the company under in case of any accident. If an unqualified driver was caught - well - he would definitely not be driving that vehicle from the point of being stopped by the law enforcement officer.
Back to my store, well, I knew the answer but I told him I needed to check. Why? They change stuff with CDL regulations so much, you never know if your information is good or not. I got on the FMCSA site and found the information in very short order. The difference is a tractor-trailer rig, basically, versus a single vehicle with no trailer attached - or is it? No, it isn't that. A Class A CDL (Commercial Driver's License) is required for combination vehicles.
Ahhh, it's easier just to copy and paste, the info is readily available:
Classes of License:
The Federal standard requires States to issue a CDL to drivers according to the following license classifications:
Class A -- Any combination of vehicles with a GCWR of 26,001 or more pounds provided the GVWR of the vehicle(s) being towed is in excess of 10,000 pounds.
Class B -- Any single vehicle with a GVWR of 26,001 or more pounds, or any such vehicle towing a vehicle not in excess of 10,000 pounds GVWR.
Pretty simple, yes? Clearly understood, yes? Then why all the confusion? I had a manager tell me today at the main warehouse that I was wrong, if a truck has 2 axles on the rear, it also needs a CDL A . Not right. Sorry, thanks for playing, please go home now. The number of axles is irrelevant. I explained it to the Ops manager - but yes - I also printed out a sheet and gave it to him. Well why not? Management SHOULD know the requirements of what amounts to federally licensed drivers that is GREATLY regulated.
The difference? The vehicle being towed, if there is such. Mostly, 10 wheelers aren't towing trailers. I'm just saying that in general terms, there are plenty of dump trucks out there towing heavy trailers and many other scenarios as well.
The manager also argued that a DOT officer had told one of our drivers that the setup he had required a CDL-A license. I simply replied that if it was that trailer out there with tandems on it (two axles), it's probably rated WELL above 10,000 pounds and that's why that officer said that. It took a while, but this manager finally let up.
So, after reading that, can you tell me what the difference is? It's really only about trailers, to get to brass tacks. If the vehicle is pulling a trailer that has a gross vehicle weight under 10,000 pounds, you only need a CDL B license. If the vehicle is pulling a trailer that has a gross vehicle weight over 10,000 pounds, need a Class A license. ANY semi trailer out there is going to be WELL over 10,000 pounds. If it's a single vehicle rated at over 26,001 pounds, then it's a Class B. If it's under that, it's not a commercial license - unless it has air brakes.
You want to talk regulations, just go to the government's site - FMSCA - Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration - you're going to read a long, long, long, long time if you want to go through ALL of that.
Good luck with that.
2 comments:
Friday
Ugliness this morning. A return. I hate doing returns. The salesman just dump this stuff on drivers and leave it to us to figure it all out. They take a list over the phone, print it out and then give it to us. It's never that simple. Go to the jobsite and start trying to find all the stuff on the list that the salesman never actually went out and verified whether it's there or not.
Then, start writing in by hand a bunch of other stuff that wasn't on the list but the contractor wants to send back. Then, deal with whatever crew is available to help load the stuff - they are in a hurry, always and don't care if it's safely loaded or not. I DO care and I almost always have to tell them to STOP what they are doing. I've taken over crews whose boss's weren't even paying attention to what was going on - they're sitting in their pickup truck doing whatever.
Not really looking forward to that, not at all. On the flip side, I am 2 hours over my allotted time and I am either getting off early today or I am getting 2 extra hours on my paycheck. I'll gladly take the 2 extra hours, of course, but I somehow suspect that won't happen.
How would you like to be a police officer in Mexico right now, in one of these towns with all the drug violence going on? And now Chandler police are investigating whether the beheading of a mexican national (illegal) was the work of a drug cartel as well. How far is this going to have to go before the federal government/Obama says, oh, gee, we have a problem down there on the border, maybe we should do something about it.
It is widely recognized that the amount of National Guard they recently deployed is not near enough. November 2 is almost here, I'll be in one of those lines to vote, oh, yes I will. I am going to spend this weekend going over the local propositions as well to make an informed vote on those.
Yup, that's my self-induced "thing" to do this weekend. Pore through all the material on these propositions, I determined who I was going to vote for in the bigger races long ago. Why these parties are dumping so much money into a "last minute" effort, I'll never know. It's a huge WASTE of money if you ask me, I rather suspect that most people make up their minds on specific candidates and the offices they are running for well before the election day actually arrives.
Propositions? Don't know. Oh gee and gads, the DC truck is here. 17 minutes early. I almost always forget to lock that front door on Fridays - they always think I am going to start work early and get them taken care of. NOT. We have let them know many many times over that we start at 6:00, but they don't care. Neither do it, I won't do anything until 6:00 and that is the way it is. I WILL take care of a customer early, that's a fact, but not truck drivers and their impatience. Being and impatient truck driver? Sorry, Charlie, you're in the WRONG business cause you have to wait just about everywhere you go.
Anyway, I have several news tidbits I want to read with my last 15 minutes before work, c'yall
later.
ben
My wife does the DOT physicals and is pretty strict on the guidelines.
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