Telematics/GPS doesn't concern me as a feeder driver (for now at least) but I knew when I first heard of it there was going to be trouble with it's implementation.
When I was a package car driver, if I wanted to get a drink, go to the bathroom, talk to a customer I liked, buy lottery tickets, whatever...if it made me fall behind a bit I would run my ass off to catch up. I had housing developments that if I really poured it on I could do around 30+ stops per hour. There was never a problem.
But now, with all this technology, you have to be an automaton now. Because if you do not do the route exactly the way they want you to, no matter if you have always been a safe, consistent driver, they might come after you.
When I saw that they were going to take more and more freedom of how we do our jobs away, I got out of package. I always felt if I was giving you what you expect out of me, performance-wise, I shouldn't be micro-managed.
This appears to be coming down from corporate because we just had a feeder driver "talked" to for being 3 minutes overallowed on his start work.
So what does he do from now on? He stops at the shop every night to have his brakes adjusted along with anything else he can come up with.
They give you on average 18 minutes to start work, find your tractor, pre-trip it, go to your trailer, properly couple to it, pre-trip it, make sure that it is safe to pull it from the door by verifying with sup, close the doors, drive to the gate, have the guard seal the trailer, call out the trailer, and then leave. 18 minutes. Only a completely overzealous manager tries to hold you to that.
If they get too heavy handed in feeders, I will stop using my cell phone on the job for work and you can believe I will not leave the property if even a license plate light is out in the middle of the day.
I know, I know, I am not supposed to use my phone and I should run to the shop for every little thing. But the thing is, I treat UPS like I want them to treat me...by not sweating the little things (As long as the little things don't involve safety. Safety should never be compromised). We should be working as a team.
If we all just want to ball bust each other, our competition will be ready to roll right over us.