Life on the Road - Trucking News Blog

A New Hampshire man was busted yesterday for trying to make a living on the road. Unfortunately his chosen method was to grow pot on the right-of-way of I-89 near Concord. If anyone noticed someone working at night along the roadside lately in that area, it was probably this guy weeding his crop by flashlight!
Check out the video from Fox-Boston here.
Police arrested 37-year-old Frank Drake around 1:40 yesterday morning as he watered the plants. Troopers say he was carrying a .357 handgun at the time.
Not a good way to make a living on the road!

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Today I am starting a series on the tools you need to be an Owner/Operator. I am planning to go about this by discussing one topic at a time over the next few weeks or months. We will delve a lot into the economic side of running your own business, how to figure the real cost of doing business and see if you are really making any money on the road. We will also go into subjects such as leasing vs. owning, truck specs, and any other subjects that people want to learn about.

First off we need to get some basics down, so I’m going to cover some simple basic terms used in accounting, because if you do not know how much your spending then you can’t know how much your making.

Now everybody settle-down and take your seats, todays topic is the dreaded subject of: Read the rest of this entry »

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As truck drivers we spend literally thousands of hours looking out a windshield. Most of that time is spent just listening to the radio or CB, generally wasted. With XM and Sirius we have a much broader entertainment selection but for the most part it is still just mindless banter. All of this wasted time can be spent in expanding your mind and learning. It has been shown that an active mind delays the onset of diseases like Alzheimer’s. I have always enjoyed reading but that is really hard to do while going down the road, but a few years ago I discovered Audible.com. Audible is a great source for audiobooks on-line, just download the book to your iPod or other MP3 style player and it gives you access to a world of great stories. Audible offers a subscription deal of 2 books a month for about $22, I find this is more than enough to keep you listening for a month. Some of the recordings are quite long, Truman is over 50 hours by itself. They do have abridged versions of most of their books if you are looking for a short read. Check them out for yourself.
I’m always looking for ways to pass the time behind the wheel, audiobooks are just one way that I have found to keep my mind busy and learning while going down the road. I also listen to podcast and will go in to them more in another post.
Stay Safe out there;
Don Rogers

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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

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Being a CDL instructor for my company, I tested out a new student driver yesterday. He is a young man from Atlanta, 23, very considerate and professional and looking forward to a future in trucking. This has got me to thinking about what he has to look forward to in his career as a truck-driver/Owner-operator.

On the same day he was passing his backing and driving test, the courts threw out challenges to opening the borders to Mexican trucks, hours of service regs are in limbo, and the economy is in a downturn, what kind of future does he have? Will he be starved out of the business by cheap foreign labor, will regulations and political games make it impossible to have a life in the industry?

I am afraid the “American Truck Driver” is an endangered species. If we expect to survive as a way of life then we must take matters into our own hands. We need to remind our politicians that they work for us not the other way around. It is doubtful that truck-drivers will ever organize into unions, unions always seem to fail in the end, but we can vote. We need to make Congress take responsibility for the decisions they make, instead of letting them pass off legislation to Judges that have no knowledge of our industry and are swayed by special interest groups.

Will my student be able to succeed through hard work or will he be forced out of the business by regulation and foreign competition. I would much rather see a future for this young man in this business than for someone from another country. I would much rather see him behind the wheel of a truck than flipping hamburgers while others drive the trucks that feed this nation. Unless we get our act together we are sure to go the way of the Passenger Pigeon and Dinosaurs.

Senate Phone Numbers
House Phone Numbers

I hope everyone has a safe Labor day weekend;
Don Rogers

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Waiting here in Laredo has given me some time to think about the wave of trucks waiting just across the border, waiting to move out across U.S. highways possibly by the end of this month. I keep asking myself why, why do we need to allow access to these trucks, why is the President in such a rush to kick off this pilot program that is just the first step in allowing unlimited access to U.S. customers to Mexican companies, why is it going to happen against the overwhelming public opinion against allowing Mexican trucks access to U.S. highways. The only answer I can come up with is simply profit. Increased profit to the companies that have already exported their jobs to Mexico in the pursuit of the profit. Profit to Mexican trucking companies, who can blame them for wanting the borders opened up. They can use lower waged Mexican drivers to compete against U.S. trucks for loads. Profits for the grocery companies, greatly reduced transportation cost, does anyone truly believe the savings will be passed to the customers. I’ll guarantee that tomatoes will cost just as much after Mexican trucks take over as they do now. Read the rest of this entry »

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The recent bridge collapse in Minnesota has brought the issue of road repair and funding into the national spotlight. Last week, President Bush was asked about a proposed tax hike on fuel to pay for repairing Americas Bridges, “Before we raise taxes, which could affect economic growth, I would strongly urge the Congress to examine how they set priorities,” referring to the fact that committee members in Congress have long had the right to skim off funding from the road repair budget for use on pork-barrel projects, ie the infamous “bridge to nowhere“. Read the rest of this entry »

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How often have you been sitting in construction on a bridge, feeling it bounce up and down, hearing the comment from the c.b. wondering what the weight limit is on this bridge. The collapse in MN brings to light the deterioration of our national road system. Apparently there are thousands of bridges across the country that are in the same shape as the one that fell yesterday. Our highway system is wearing out faster than government is willing to spend the tax money to maintain them. Read the rest of this entry »

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A little positive press for truck-drivers. CNBC is going to tell the story of a Florida womens struggle to drive and deal with her diabetes. CNBC will air the story during its dLife TV segment at 7:00 pm Eastern Sunday. Be sure to watch Sunday night if you can, and even if you can’t be sure to check out the dLife website, it is full of info on dealing with diabetes. This is an important issue in trucking, very few things can end your career as fast and suddenly as being diagnosed with diabetes. Read the rest of this entry »

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Are truck-drivers literally a dieing breed? Are we working ourselves into an early grave? In a poll by Knoxville-based Professional Drivers Medical Depots finds that 65 percent of truckers surveyed rated their health fair or poor. The poll also sights that 70 percent of those responding to the survey knew a truck driver who died between age 40 and 60. It seems that the already stressful driving lifestyle has gotten worse instead of better. With high stress levels, poor food, and just living in an idling tin-can for weeks at a time, are creating a crisis in the industry. Read the rest of this entry »

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