Life on the Road - Trucking News Blog

The Senate finally got the hint on Thursday that America is not happy with the poor job they have been doing and showed its dissatisfaction in opposition to the Comprehensive Immigration Bill. The Presidents and Congresses push to slap together a bill that would give amnesty to 12-20 million illegals and provide big business with a cheap labor force garnered opposition from both sides of the aisle. Conservatives saw the bill as giving away America and rewarding people who have broken the law to jump ahead of people seeking citizenship legally. The Left, lead by the Labor Unions saw the temporary worker portion of the Bill as a threat to their membership. It seems the only people who would win with this cobbled together Bill would have been the illegals and they may have been left open to exploitation under some of the bills provisions. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 9% [?]

You see that icon on the left? Well, of course you do - stupid question - it’s bright orange and I magnified it! This little icon was introduced to the world by the fine folks at Mozilla and it lets everyone know that an RSS feed is available. As a matter of fact, if you look at the top of our column to the right, you’ll see that we’ve got one too. That’s because we want you to subscribe to our feed. We want you to subscribe so badly that we even offer lots of different ways to do so.

Right about now I’m pretty sure that some of you are saying, “What the heck is an RSS feed and why in the world would I want to subscribe to one?” But, even if you’re not, here’s the lowdown: First, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and, second, the best reason to subscribe to our feed, or any RSS feed, is so that you can stay up-to-date without needing to visit Life on the Road each and every day.

Here’s How It Works
RSS, very basically, creates a computer-readable summary of blog, web or news site content. The summary might be just the headlines, the headlines plus a post excerpt, or even the headlines plus the entire post. These summaries can then be read by an RSS Reader or RSS Aggregator.

Here’s What You Need
If you’ve got a “MY Yahoo!“, “My AOL” or “MY MSN” page then you’re all set. All you’ve got to do is click the corresponding button near the top of the right column and follow a few instructions. Same thing for Google and Bloglines. If you’re not already set up with one of them, however, I have a suggestion you might want to look into. I used to use MY Yahoo! as my homepage and I was pretty satisfied with the it. Not too long ago, though, at the suggestion of a good friend, I set myself up with Pageflakes. It does everything that the others do but I like the format a whole lot better; and I can customize the display properties for each flake. Check it out for yourself. It’s easy to set up and if you do a little experimentation you can end up with a really great and really useful homepage.

By the way, if you set yourself up with Pageflakes then all you’ve got to do is click the “Add Feed” button, enter our feed URL - http://lifeontheroad.com/feed - in the text entry field, and click the “Get Feed” button. That’s all there is to it!

Here’s Why You Really Want To Do This
Once you’re all set up with an RSS reader like Bloglines, MY Yahoo!, or Pageflakes you’ll be able to view news headlines, weather forecasts, the content of all your favorite blogs (like Life on the Road!), and a whole lot more, from your personalized home page. Instead of traipsing all over the web you can use one application to bring the web to you. Cool, eh? If you’ve got any questions or comments let me hear ‘em!

Popularity: 10% [?]

On-going series on Ham radio and trucking. Check out part 1.

So you want to take the dip and get your Ham radio license? Well there are a few things you need to know to prepare for the test.

First, study a little bit. I know, you thought you were done with studying when you finished school, but this studying will get you a lot further than that high school social studies class ever did. Just about all you need to know, even the questions and answers on the test are posted on the web. No, not on some clandestine cheat site, but on the ARRL and FCC websites. They want you to know the questions and pass the test. Get a copy of the Technician Study Guide from HamElmer and read through that then go to KB0MGA.net and take a few practice exams. Once you feel comfortable with the practice exams its time to go for the real thing. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 8% [?]

The chicken truckers can breath a little easier now since the FMCSA has revised the rules concerning additional lights on equipment.

In 2005, the FMCSA issued rules prohibiting more than three lights on the backs of trailers and specifying limits on the rest of the tractor and trailer.

FMCSA said earlier this month that it would permit the use of additional lights on trucks, provided each extra light was “at least twice the distance that separates each [additional] lamp in the required three-lamp cluster.”

The new ruling does not seem to address the issue of additional lights on the cab and sides of the trailer.

I imagine that will remain up to the individual states enforcement officers to make the determination.

Popularity: 13% [?]

The Immigration Reform bill, a piece of legislation hastily put together was voted down once again yesterday by a Senate group who changed their minds and votes two days after voting to bring it forward for debate.

So today, a minority of Americans are celebrating it’s demise for this legislative session and patting each other on the backs in praise for preventing what they considered “amnesty” for an estimated 12 to 20 million people in the country illegally.

But there is no reason for celebration but rather a time for sadness that this opportunity we were presented with was wasted and ignored, and now we return to the status quo.

Instead of compromising in the nation’s interest, senators kowtowed to their loudest, and often most irrational, supporters. For conservatives, it was nativists who stoked fears that immigrants are tainting America. For a few liberals, it was unions, some of which claimed that more immigration would cut wages and opportunities for Americans. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 8% [?]

Thursday marks the end of the public comment period for the Mexican Truck Issue. Make your voice heard in Washington by going here and filling out a comment form. The docket number is FMCSA-2007-28055. Don’t miss out on the chance to let the people who will make the decision on letting Mexican trucks full access to U.S. highways what you think.

You can also see what others have commented, here are a few samples that I found while looking into this very important issue:

“We operated into Mexico border area to deliver or Pick up US loads for a few years after Nafta was passed the procedure was to turn in a list of drivers and equipment to the Mexican Customs authority and pay a fee of $10 per truck. After a few years Mexican DOT began to seize our trucks and loads and demand a fine of up to $1500 per truck to have our truck released” Owner of a small trucking company

“leave the border the way it is. we have enough problems with illegals now. what makes you think that a mexican driver who can’t speak,read or write our language is going to b e safe on the highways..you think you have a prob lem now with illegals and drugs being smuggled into our country, wait and see..”

“We must keep the borders closed to Mexican trucks. If they are opened it will effect the safety of our highways and the safety of the American people”

“To impose this pilot program will only increase the number of fatalities that I see”

“I feel that the mexican trucks pose a risk to security”

So far there are 38 pages of comments on the site and most are like the ones above. Make your voice heard and get those comments in.

Be Safe;

Don Rogers

Popularity: 11% [?]

I’ve been seeing it for the last couple of months and everyone has been telling me, that it’s just me or the freight I carry. I got a call from someone last night about how his general freight company was showing them slides about how freight has been on a downward slope for the last two years. The last couple of months have been the worse.

And now from the Wall St. Journal Online

In a Sea of Optimism, Why Some Forecasters Warn of Recession
By KELLY EVANS
June 25, 2007; Page A2

It starts out

Talk to just about any economic forecaster on Wall Street, and you’ll probably get a relatively upbeat assessment of U.S. economic outlook. They’ll tell you that business investment and manufacturing output are bouncing back and that housing might be less of a drag on growth, trends that suggest the worst of the slowdown is behind us.

But there are a few that realize what’s really happening.

Mr. Smith doesn’t rely on the yield curve alone; he also collects anecdotal evidence from “real people,” like business managers, analysts and workers at companies all over the U.S. He said that before he updates his monthly forecasts he speaks with nearly 100 people: “The steel experts and the shipping experts and the truck experts and the agricultural experts — you name it,” he said. Right now, he says, the real people are telling him that business is slowing. “Demand has gone down for railroad, trucking and air freight — all three. All housing companies are down. Packaging demand is down — nobody knows why — you can’t buy more if you’re not selling more boxes.” 

Now - get your conspiracy caps on! Why isn’t government or anyone else admitting there’s a slow down? Could it be that if there was a slow down in the economy there wouldn’t be a need for all this cheap labor everyone keeps trying to shove down our throats with this new immigration bill?

Or is it just me?

Popularity: 8% [?]

It’s in all the headlines. What do you do with all these trucks? This sign wasn’t in my neighborhood where I got a ticket, but it’s a sign we are all familiar with.

There’s a very wide street in the back of where I live. The back of my complex faces it, the back of another apartment complex faces it and the backyards of some houses face this street. It could be called an alley except it’s so wide. There’s no parking on one side but there are no signs on the other side and no cars park there. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 20% [?]

National Average for diesel fuel from the DOE on 6/25/2007

2.835

Up from 2.805 last week.

California average is 3.073 Up from 3.033 last week.

Get those fuel surcharges!

Popularity: 7% [?]

Robert South once stated that “Speech was given to the ordinary sort of men, whereby to communicate their mind; but to wise men, whereby to conceal it.” I seem to prove daily my lack of wisdom and provide further proof with the following installment of Tuesday Trivia: Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 26% [?]