Log Rules on Hold and Mexicans Roll
Posted on Sep 10, 2007 - 9:10pm by Don Rogers in Hours of Service, Politics, Trucking
The ATA filed for a stay on the ruling by a Federal Judge that eliminates key parts of our current log rules. The ATA asked for an eighteen month stay to allow DOT time to get its act together and find a solution to this problem. Even if the Court denies the stay, we will have another couple of weeks before the July 24th ruling goes into effect.
If you are a flat-bedder that had to sit over the week-end because you didn’t have a load, it was probably on a trailer going to North Carolina being pulled by the first Mexican truck to deliver in the U.S. under the new program. Its pretty hard to argue that this load would have been hauled by an American Trucker, but since a Mexican driver ran it to its destination, there was one less load for our own drivers.
Tomorrow marks the sixth anniversary of the attacks of 9/11. Where were you on that morning? I was in Jackson, TN watching the towers fall on TV at the Loves truck-stop. Remember the skies without airplanes for almost a week. We all came together then and stood together as a Nation. Take a few minutes tomorrow to remember, remember the innocent who died at the hands of madmen, remember the soldiers who have payed the ultimate price to defend America from these monsters, remember how we put aside our petty differences and stood united.
Be Safe;
Don Rogers
Seeking Sanity in the HOS Debate
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I was driving through Brownsville Tennessee at the time.
It is indeed hard to argue that the loads taken east by the first two trucks took anything away from our own drivers.
In Laredo, at the same time, Melton has at least 20 loads sitting ready on their yard as did other flatbed companies.
It appears that Transportes Olympic is servicing their own customer both ways.
The people sitting in the border cities are for various reasons, the least of which is freight availability. The border crossings have been super slow this week for some reason.
I had gotten to work (I was still a system administrator then, truck driving was still a thing-I’ll-not-get-done-in-this-life item).
The thing struck home personally that evening when I noticed the absence of contrails in the setting sun.
And I wondered who was in in the plane that flew over the house twice that evening. I live under an approach path to Offutt.
I was sitting in a dock in Frankfort, KY listening to a Christian music station. The other city driver called me on the Nextel and told me what had happened. I thought he was joking until I switched over to the local NPR station. And thats where it stayed for the rest of the day.
I called my wife and had her put the TV on CNN. She was dumbfounded. I didn’t see the footage of the towers falling until that night. And I did indeed notice the lack of contrails for that awful week.
My wife even said she would understand if I went and re-enlisted in the Air Force. I had deployed for Desert Shield/ Desert Storm on 7 Aug 90. I had been out for too long and I was way past the age they would have taken anyway. That was also one of the most solemn prayer meetings I had ever attended.
I was hauling oversize from Chicago to a power plant near Evanston Kentucky. I normally do NOT listen to the radio when moving oversize. I first become aware of anything out of the ordinary while I was at the nearby Pilot fueling up. Pilot shut down their pumps…I had only pumped a few gallons….and restarted them with a huge price hike.
I don’t do Pilots now.
I’m former Air Force myself…and too old (viet nam era) to have gone back. Thought about it though.