Breaking News – Adios IdleAire…
Posted on Jan 31, 2010 - 11:04am by Marshall J. Gruskin in Trucking
I could have told them so. I’ve been writing for the longest time that it wasn’t going to work. Bad idea. Stupid. Waste of space. Dumb. Shame on T/A and all the other truck stops that erected this junk. Any trucker with an APU, cell phone, laptop or TV just didn’t need IdleAire. The better fleets wouldn’t pay for it. Arrow gave IdleAire to their drivers and now they’re gone and IdleAire is too. From their website: “IdleAire has closed operations effective 12 noon eastern time Friday, January 29. Truckers will not be able to use the service after today. Due to the economy, our customers had less freight to haul, resulting in reduced truck traffic and we have had extremely mild weather across the nation, reducing the demand for our climate control service. We continued to stay ahead of the financial issues and make adjustments as needed, but time and operating capital simply ran out.” That statement is absurd. This past summer was brutal and this winter is no better. The ice caps might be melting but we’re having as much snow and ice and frigid temps as ever. And I personally want to thank the suits at IdleAire for making my trucker life miserable when they made 25-100 spaces disappear in truck stops in their feeble attempt to make the planet greener.
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Right on Marshall, now what do ya think will happen to all that space/material that messes a lot of stops, i.e. congestion?
Have you traversed the I-80 in Iowa? i can’t wait for the next suits brainstorm.
I predict that shortly the idleair structures will begin sustaining damage due to chicken truckers who either can’t park or can’t be bothered to park correctly.
Shortly after that the damaged idleaire structures will begin presenting hazards to anyone parking nearby.
Shortly after they we’ll here the participating truckstops begin to whine about needing government assistance to “clean up” the debris.
(sigh).
Will they never learn?
Idle Dream here….but I wish someone would acquire the remnants of idle aire and JUST provide shore power.
Electricity. That’s all I want. At a decent price. The infra structure is already there. Just need an operator. Hell, the individual TRUCKSTOPS could do it themselves.
I agree with the shore power. That’s all most folks want or need.
I’m glad to see IdleAire go. Very glad. It was a government funded boondoggle from the start. It’s very visible waste of taxpayer dollars. The arguments between those who did and didn’t like it were mute. It’s a prime example of why companies need to be wholly funded by private entities. If IdleAire had any real merit to being profitable, private investors would have been all over it.
The excuses IdleAire gives are ridiculous. Their execs are sitting back on huge bucks from this while the rest of us are left with piles of junk throughout the truckstops.
I had a long talk with the President of IdleAir as he was walking through the Charlotte TA asking everyone not connected just what their problem was. I explained my disgust in him and his company for what they had done with our tax dollars. He was an arrogant SOB and told me about how his Father was a trucker and held the same bad attitude that I did. He told me to take his free lifetime membership as I would be needing it when the law forced me to use their service. Laughable now. If that membership was “lifetime”, that turns out to be one short and sad lifetime.
Lets not forget that IdleAire put good and innovative companies out of business. Since IdleAire received extra funding, the good companies could not reasonably compete. This is the real crime of it all. Will companies with truly good solutions invest their time and efforts only to risk being shot down again by another company who knows how to buddy-up for government freebies?
IdleAire’s damages should be the poster child used for everyone of these govt. funded “green” programs.
I was really sad to see that the McGraws invested in Idle-aire…as could have told them not too and saved them the investment…as their truly is a false sense of intelligence in the air out here…and someone sold them out…and I love their music…….
Go truckers…Love ya!!
What is truly sad is that truck drivers seem to be an “expert” on everything. First of all, the comment by Mark is so full of lies as to be laughable. First example, “I spoke with the President of IdleAire and he said”…sorry sir, but the CEO of IdleAire was a woman. Secondly, this conversation took place at an IA facility in Charlotte; wrong again-the nearest IA facility was in Spartanburg, SC. Third, IA was government funded; again you couldn’t be more wrong as IA was primarily funded through a 320 MM USD private investment. The company did compete for ARRA, EPA, and CMAQ grants, but the key word is compete as they did against the likes of CabAir and ShurePower. Please realize, you have a role in life and that is to drive a truck and deliver goods not espouse your misguided and idiotic diatribes about things which you know nothing about;
Obviously Todd is the expert here and us truck drivers should only talk about trucking.
You hit the nail on the head Frank!!!
Well You know You can Invest a Million Dollars into something that will be the GREAT Thing for trucking.. The Idea could be way ahead of times and marvel the whole industry. But Someone will Top you, maybe not today maybe not this Year but they will. Lets hope you just recooped what you invested before the Do. And the Times have changed and IdleAire is just Passed buy the next biggest thing… Them Yellow Tubes sure where a Pain… Always waited for them to rip that Hood Mirror off.
And, you, Todd are a troll! Nothing you have said here has been true on this issue-and I can prove it with a simple Google search. For starters, The Idle-Aire COO has been male . . several of them, in fact. The last two, Mike Crabtree and MR Lynn Young obviously believe they’re male:
http://www.zoominfo.com/people/Crabtree_Mike_66713907.aspx
http://www2.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story.
And if Mike mis-spoke himself on Charlotte, that’s understandable . . he’s a truck driver and goes many places every day, as opposed to sitting unemployed in his mother’s basement typing out crap responses to posts on issues he knows nothing about. There were three Idle-Aire locations on I-85 in NC:Kings Mountain Truck Plaza at Kings Mountain (I believe that is the exit 5 TS, for you highway-challenged like Todd), the TA at Greensboro and the Petro at Mebane.
And, Idle-Aire sucked down over $55 million in federal grants – thats tax dollars for people like Toad that dont have to pay as they produce nothing. Quote:
“In its annual report, the company noted that government grants – more than $55 million by the end of 2007 – have helped it fund its operations.”
http://www.heavydutytrucking.com/2008/06/034g0806.asp
$55 Mil and they STILL lost money! Of course, at $15,000 a parking space, how would they expect to turn a profit? Why?? Poor design and an overpriced product! They, like our Toad here, assumed the truck driver knew nothing and didn’t bother to do market studies with their prospective customers! They should have asked a truck driver or two.
So, Toad, I leave you with the illuminating advice of someone whose knowledge I’m sure you respect. “Please realize, you have a role in life and that is to
drive a truck and deliver goodslisten and learn from your betters not espouse your misguided and idiotic diatribes about things which you know nothing about”