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.
But yea, there are also ways that the Qualcomm doesn't "work". Thus, we "have" to run paper logs.