Life on the Road – Trucking News Blog

T.W.I.C. , another government acronym stand for Transportation Workers Identification Card.

What with the pro-government, run your life, womb-to-tomb, mentality so prevalent nowadays  look at TWIC as a foretaste of the future.

Some time ago I was told by my company that we HAD to have a TWIC card since we did a lot of “port work”. ( Transporting stuff to ports and picking up stuff from ports.)

Since they had me by the finances I got one.  Let me tell you it was a hassle.  Not cheap either.  For one thing the administration which oversees TWIC reasoned in typical government fashion.  TWIC cards will be used by truckers…right?  Naturally they located all the “TWIC Service Centers” in locations which are either impossible or nearly impossible to get to in a truck.

But be that as it may.  I got one.  I’ve been using it for months.  Typically I pull into a port and the guard asks me if I have a TWIC card.  I say yes and that’s the end of it.  Occasionally they ask to see it, so I show it to them.

Not in Portsmouth Va.

Here it needs to be “registered”.

That involves taking it into a real pretty (expensive) office, answering a lot of questions and giving them my PIN number.

My what number?

“Oh…you MUST have a PIN number”.

Nope…don’t have one.

“But you MUST”.

So…with my wife’s help via long distance “three-way” we called several “service centers” nationwide.

No way, no how could I get my PIN number.  It’s secret.  They’d have to re-issue a TWIC card.

Or go to a service center, in person, and change the PIN number on my present card.

And me at the Port with a wideload.

Only it turns out that I didn’t need to have the card registered to unload , today.  Not only that but I could use my unregistered card to unload two other guy’s loads who didn’t have TWIC cards at all, much less not know their PIN.

Lovely.

I anticipate more of these kinds of things as government gets more and more intrusive.

Check out the Bill by Congressman Dingle. It basically makes  food a controlled substance.

The President is decreeing s regulation which will make automobiles much more dangerous. They’re also  nationalizing the auto industry, and the banking industry.  Next is the HealthCare industry.

And don’t even get me started on guns.

This isn’t the America I grew up in.