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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.

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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.

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