Thoughts from the road - Fighting the boredom
Posted on Oct 16, 2007 - 11:41pm by Porter Corn in Trucking
It appears there is more action on the Mexican Truck issue Tomorrow, Mary Peters, Secretary of Transportation and Mexico’s Secretary of Communication and Transportation, Luis Tellez, will hold a news conference on Capital hill where they will demonstrate to Congressional leaders, a hands on level 1 inspection of an American truck and the 2007 Freightliner that was the first to receive authority to participate in the Pilot Program. In the end, they will ask Congress to cease and desist. This should be interesting.
Oshkosh, best known for heavy duty construction and military applications appears to have developed a fully functional remote control Class 8 truck, The Terramax Check it out. It makes one wonder if the professional trucker will soon be obsolete and replaced with a systems manager in the future. Oh well, I’ll be retired!
HOS rules put on hold. Rule making on EOBR’s in limbo. the latter coming from the FMCSA. Let’s hope that languishes in the dustbin of time until it’s forgotten or Ms Claybrook is only a hated memory.
CDL from the Cracker Jack box. Coming through Houston Sunday, some idiot in a day cab Freightliner out of Port Allen La., pulling a loaded propane tanker, weaving in and out of traffic in access of 80 mph. And one wonders why we have so many truck involved accidents reported every day! Oh, and the driver wasn’t Mexican either!
You know what worries me more than Mexican trucks? Anyone ever driven the border from Laredo to Van Horn Texas and seen the mega trains running east and west? 4 locomotives pulling and 3 pushing. 150 - 200 cars long loaded with containers, 2 or 3 to a car? I’m talking about pig trains going both ways, stacked up in and out of Alpine and all across I-10 from Texas to California with only 5 miles separation between them. Day and night. 400 loads on the rail and off the highways per train. While drivers sit at points between El Paso and Los Angeles waiting for freight. That worries me!
For the techno weenies amongst us, I found a helluva deal at CCrane Co. Their Super USB Wi-Fi Antenna is fabulous. I was tired of the marginal performance of my Link Sys card and decided to try one of these. Customer service is excellent and I had it within two days. The thing is 9″ long with suction cups and velcro to give you mounting options. The open source wlan program that comes with it sucks but the antenna increases your range by a factor of 4. This thing is picking up sources I’ve never seen before and believe me, I am taking advantage of them. In places like Marathon Texas, it will find you a signal. The upgraded performance with the truck stop wi-fi solutions is incredible. As I am writing this, I am sitting in the back of the Petro receiving four bars from the antenna mounted on the main building. Even with the Idleaire wi fi transmitter between me and the building, the signal is strong. At $99.95, this is a LOTR “Best Buy”!
So begins another night of trucking. I hope to be back in Laredo tomorrow night and then a couple of days in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon to rest and recoup! Now if I can just get out of Tennessee without the hassle.
Ya’ll be safe out there!
Connecticut bill to increase weigh station hours dies
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Man I could have used that wi fi antenna while I was on the road. I ended up getting a cellular card from cingular, now AT&T. They claimed that it would be high speed in most places but it was really a medium speed dial up where ever I went. I turned it off after three months and they charges me $175 for terminating the contract early. I told them that if they didn’t take that off my bill then I was through with them. They didn’t and I don’t miss them! You think they miss my payments?
Know what you mean Tim. I had SPRINT broadband card for about a year. Good service in the cities, mediocre at best on the road, but it was always on. But after receiving a bill for $1072 for a months service, I told them where they could put it!
That long train scares me too. I used to work on the Mississippi river just above New Orleans, LA. Operated a crane, unloading ships of bulk cargo. I did this for the last 10 years, but the ships were becoming more scarce each month. My concern is that if the trucks can roll out of Mexico, then why would shippers ship their cargo to the United States when they could ship to Mexico at far cheaper prices. This would virtually close many ports in this country and put many hard working people out of work.