Life on the Road - Trucking News Blog

Let’s move away from talking about the ATA – aka the SS Fat Guy – see photo. Hey, if you have problems sleeping, just play the vid of their membership chairman on their terrible website. You’ll be snoring away in no time. The ATA needs to hire a media consultant. There is still no word from the ATA about the Arrow mess or the problem of senior management/CEO professionalism and ethics in trucking. It doesn’t surprise me. New year, new decade, same ‘ole ATA. That comes from being fat, dumb and rich. But I want to shift your attention over to the ATA’s pen pal – OOIDA – the owner-operator independent drivers association, the NAACP of trucking. Why do I say that? Because by name, the NAACP  is 40 years behind the times, just as, by name, OOIDA is far behind the times.

It’s alright that OOIDA is doing a few little human interest stories about former Arrow drivers. I’m sure next will be tales of Haitian owner-operators. On the OOIDA website, which despite constant redesign, is interesting as drying paint and their blog, which desperately needs the Weisser touch, is transparent to, well, everyone. There is the story of the “jilted Arrow driver (who) may be forced to pay child support twice.” OK. But where was OOIDA six months before Arrow went under? Didn’t they, with all their “connections”, might have uncovered that something was afoul in Tulsa? There is no mention if the driver profiled, a Travis Chamberland, was an OOIDA member. Do you think that OOIDA might have “suggested” to Chamberland that they’ll profile his troubles if he pays $45 for a year’s membership (now on sale for $25) in the “association?”  I hate to assume anything, but wasn’t Chamberland an Arrow “company” driver. Did the former Arrow driver need to get the Oklahoma Child Support Services toll-free number from OOIDA as opposed to the web or the plain ‘ole yellow pages? I think not.

Because truck drivers, most of whom NOT OOIDA members, know that there are thousands of other Chamberlands that are being screwed by trucking companies and brokers every day that OOIDA is NOT reporting on.  Not members because they cannot afford the OOIDA membership and certainly don’t see any value in it. Many I know have never even heard of OOIDA. I take you back to Wayne’s posting on Dan Rather’s report on the Detroit trucking school. There is a “polished”  young man that Rather interviews who claims to make a lot of money selling trucking school to new (desperate) students. This guy needs to work for OOIDA. After he changes the name to include ALL  drivers, and gets rid of the stupid tractor trailer that sits in truck stops that doesn’t sell memberships, he would then shift the focus to the folks that need representation – namely all the other thousands of drivers who are the victims of unethical managers and CEO’s of small, medium and large sized trucking companies and brokers. Yes, that’s a mouthful. Read the rest of this entry »

Can you believe this? I had my truck in for service and someone stole my brand new GPS. The Mrs. gave it to me for Christmas and I had just used it in Canada. It was a beautiful thing – state of the art technology – a Garmin Nuvi 1350. So the service tech pulls my truck out of the bay and parks it with the door unlocked and the key in the ignition. I’m surprised the thief  just didn’t take the whole truck. Nothing else was touched – not my pile of Canadian change, not my Pentax – which was hidden – or my Dell laptop which was also hidden. It just didn’t occur to me to take the thing off the windshield mount and tuck it away somewhere. Why? Well, let’s go back to the beginning of this truckers week.

Monday morning – delivered wood in Mississauga. That’s Ontario. Get dispatched to pick up a load of pipe in Harrow. “You must be there by 5 PM to load.” Right. Get there in a snow  storm at 4:45 PM. I finish loading at 11 PM!  The paperwork was not ready until 8 AM – that’s the next morning. Tuesday – got everything ready for customs but the shippers fax machine is broken. What else is new? Broken fax machines are becoming more the rule than the exception at most of the places I service. So I drive off to the Husky in Windsor – that’s a truck stop – to use their fax machine. We’re good to go – cleared through customs. Right.  Holy, we’re NOT cleared Batman.” “You need to park and see your broker” says the Border Patrol/Customs officer. Seems there is a discrepancy with the truck license number in the “system.” OMG. About 90 minutes later everything clears and I’m on my way (again) to Baltimore. Just one small little thing – my wiper washers don’t work plus I have lost a left hand spot mirror, the right one is badly cracked and my APU heater is leaking toxic fumes into the bunk. But onward I go. Yes, I have reported the problem to the shop/road repair for two weeks, but the freight is the priority. I’m losing sleep worrying about the fumes creeping into the cab and my possible death, but the freight, not the driver, as I said, is the priority.

You know what its like to drive in the winter with no way to clean your windshield other than to stop every fifteen minutes and break out your can of ammonia Clindo? Well that’s pretty much what I had to do. With that and the remnants of toxic APU gas still making its way up my nose and worrying about the DOT writing me up for the missing and damaged mirrors, well, I was kinda stressed after about 275 miles driving. Its roughly 550 miles from Windsor to Baltimore. Beep. That’s the QUALCOMM. “Are you rolling to the final?” Stupid question. “Yes”, replied I. Beep. What’s your ETA? I picked a time out of the air – “0730.” 10-4 THX was the response. Window clear again, off we go. Then about hour later.  Beep. “This must deliver tonight at 2100!”. I believe it was 4:30 PM or 1630 when I got the message. I wanted to rip out the QUALCOMM and throw it off to the side of I-80 and get that application into that juice tanker carrier down in the Sunshine state.

I arrived in Baltimore at the consignee at 8:30 AM. I get no messages from my company, who seems to have lost interest in me and the load. I was told by the consignee at 9 AM that the crane is broken and they don’t have the personnel to unload me until 9 PM that night. Bastards. If you wanted this stuff so badly then get it off my truck so I can go get my wipers, mirrors and APU repaired. 11 PM that night, I get unloaded. Because I was late, there is no detention, waiting time or layover. I go the 7-11 down the street and buy $30 worth of junk food. I fall asleep after three large chocolate cream filled donuts and a jug of low fat milk.

7:30 AM Thursday. Beep. I get a pre-plan going 350 miles from the Port of Baltimore to somewhere in Ohio. It’s called “short-haul” Thursday to “position” you for a long weekend trip. Right. I refuse the trip saying I MUST get this work done. Beep. “Why are you telling us about these problems now? You’ve been on the board since midnight! The CSR – customer service representative – says he needs this picked up NOW.” I look at the Qualcomm. I wonder if my steer tires could crush the thing? Five minutes later. Beep. “You’re off the board.” Beep. “Proceed to the dealer.” And now my friends, the fun begins.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m sorry, but I just can’t Detroit off my mind. Having just drove through there, I’m really upset at the destruction, poverty and hopelessness. You can see it big time in the faces of the people in Wayne’s posting on trucking schools in Detroit. The US and Canadian truckers over at the Fifth Wheel truck stop in Milton Ontario are also sad about Detroit. We talked about a bunch of stuff about Detroit and the state of trucking in general – the other night over a Sunday dinner of roast beef, pork, ham and mashed potatoes.

For us, going into Canada to deliver and pick up at their steel mills, factories and warehouses reminds us of the way Detroit used to be twenty years ago. The Province of Ontario is thriving and Detroit and many other cities in the US are dying. Actually, Detroit is most likely dead, but I prefer to think of it as frozen – like Ted Williams head sitting atop a tuna can – so as to possibly be brought back to life should something exciting happen economically. The auto industry, which we all know isn’t what it used to be, had been keeping Detroit alive, but we know what happened to Ford, GM and Chrysler and poor Detroit went right down the drain and there’s not a whole lot left.

I’m just an old fart, but I remember going on business trips for my dad. This was before FEDEX and UPS. Yes, Wilbur and Orville had flown already. Smartass. Anyway, I would carry important papers for rich NYC business people to Dallas, Houston, Toronto, LA and Detroit. Everything in these cities “back then” was big and thriving. Men were men and women were women. I don’t know what that means really but it was true back then. This was America at its best. We had manufacturing. The airlines, telecommunications and trucking industries were all regulated by the government. It was actually fun to fly and there was no argument about who ruled late night television. China was a Communist country with no interest in Coke, Nike or Apple and most of its billion people worked on farms.

But then here we are – 2010. The airlines, telecommunications and trucking industry – all deregulated – are under so much intense government scrutiny, they might as well still be considered regulated. Dallas, Houston, LA and certainly Detroit are filled with crime, drugs, gangs and preposterous traffic. Union construction jobs are now all but gone and the work is done by illegal immigrants making minimum wage with no benefits. Unemployment is high and the infrastructure is falling apart. Manufacturing has all but shifted to the Pacific Rim and Mexico. Just like the auto industry sucked the life out of Detroit, our government, by over-regulating every aspect of capitalism, has sucked the spirit out of our country and bled it dry. We are a nation of sheep flipping burgers, pulling 80 hour weeks driving trucks and working at Wal-Mart. We go home to listen to millionaires like Glen Beck and Bill O’Reilly sell books, seminars and shirts while blaming liberal Democrats for every problem. But I have one solution.

Read the rest of this entry »

Big trucks. Bigger trucks. Huge trucks. Heavier trucks. Really big long huge heavier trucks are what the ATA wants. That’s because the longer and heavier the trucks are – the fewer drivers you need to hire. That’s the secret agenda of the ATA – fewer drivers, less pay – more money in the pocket of the ATA. Hey that rhymes! The ATA consists, by the way, of mostly small to medium sized trucking companies who join to take advantage of the perceived “pull” of the ATA in Washington. Companies like Hahn Transportation, Bulldog HiWay Express, Titan Transfer as well as biggies like CRST, US Xpress and CR England. Truth be told, most legislatures don’t know the American Trucking Association (ATA) from the Amateur Trapshooting Association (ATA) or the Air Transport Association (ATA).

Let’s hear what the ATA has to say about trucks on steroids: “Current law bans trucks with a gross weight exceeding 80,000 pounds from federal interstate highways. Increasing allowable truck size and weight limits on our interstate highways will benefit our nation’s economic productivity, reduce emissions, and improve safety. The ATA supports allowing more productive vehicles to operate on the interstate highway system, consistent with sound engineering standards and safety. At present, 6-axle trucks weighing 97,000 pounds are used extensively throughout the industrialized world.

“Bringing our federal regulations more in-line with international competitors will reduce logistics costs for businesses and consumers, allowing them to better compete in the global economy. Using more productive trucks also decreases the number of trucks needed to haul the same amount of freight, reducing accident exposure, lowering pavement maintenance costs and mitigating traffic congestion along critical freight corridors. Truck size and weight reform will increase fuel efficiency because fewer trips are needed to deliver the same amount of freight.”

What a bunch of corporate gobble-de-gook double speak nonsense. It boils down to one thing and one thing only. As I said, heavy and longer trucks – fewer drivers. I wouldn’t put it past the ATA behind closed doors to want to eliminate 1/3 of all the trucking jobs by using longer, heavier trucks driven by alien workers who can’t speak English trained under some Federal grant using our tax dollars. The ATA will advocate anything and everything that chips away at the little bit that the average driver has earned. That’s why the American trucker earns LESS now than he did 10 years ago.

The infrastructure of this country has been falling apart for decades. We spend more time and money and employ more resources rebuilding other parts of the world than we do our own country. Look at our large cities and the roads and bridges going to, through and around them – crumbling. Just when a new road is completed, it is already out of date. The ATA thinks new roads and more funding will support their big truck fantasies. Supersizing vehicles is just a bad idea – there is no valid justification at this time for it. If the ATA had their way, we would have giant “more productive” limos, buses, SUV’s and motorcycles. Let’s ride the ATA way! Why should a motorcycle carry just one person when it can carry ten? How about a bus with 300 passenger riding alongside a truck that has 10 axles and weighs 150,000 lbs. Because the ATA “secret” membership wants to supersize their homes, motor boats and wallets. Remember -  “fewer drivers, less pay – more money in the pocket of the ATA!”

we are long past the point where our governments are out of control. We are over-policed, over-taxed, overly monitored and have little or no voice and power to do anything about it. If Canadians, Americans and certainly truck drivers on both sides of the border weren’t such sheep, the time would be ripe for a revolution, and one far beyond “tea-parties.”

I have just spend the last week in Canada. Yesterday, before crossing at Windsor into the American disgrace known as Detroit, I was parked for lunch at a T/A off the 401. I looked out from the bunk to see a uniformed Ministry of Taxation “officer” hovering around my truck like some dirty lot lizard. He had a clipboard. He was doing a lot of writing. He looked at his watch. He looked at my APU. It was about 15 degrees and running. I honestly wanted to get out of the truck and kick his butt. But that would have accomplished nothing other than get me a few nights in a OP jail cell and a lot of satisfaction.

In Canada, the government demands truckers have speed limiters. You can’t use your cell phone or your CB. That’s right – no using the CB while driving. If you take a road test using an automatic transmission your CDL is restricted. When a weigh station is open there is no PrePass- you must enter. And you have all kinds of commercial vehicle inspectors and tax “spies” creeping around every rest area and truck stop trying to find more creepy ways to make the Government more money. And if all that’s not enough, the Office des transports du Canada – the Canadian Transportation Agency – wants mandatory EOBR usage and watches VERY closely what’s going on here in the States for more despicable ways to squeeze additional revenue out of  truckers.

The FMCSA now tells us that “it” would be reviewing, revising and rewriting the HOS – hours of service – rules this year. There is the whole BMI, fatigue management – sleep apnea exams, restrictions and regulations by the DOT. And the CSA 2010 – that will not only affect drivers but CARRIERS as well. As reported in Truck News – “in the lead-up to CSA 2010, the FMCSA has ’severity-rated” 3,589 different trucking violations which will determine driver and CARRIER safety ratings. For instance, falsifying log books is worth seven points, having insufficient brake linings nets four, etc., with all points scored against both the driver and the CARRIER.” And let’s not forget NAFTA – the go no-go cross-border trucking issue and the ATA wanting longer and heavier trucks on our crumbling interstates.

Like dogs, both the CTA up in Canada and the DOT/FMCSA like to sniff each other’s rear ends in the name of fines – I mean safety. It’s enough to make you barf. For a little flavor, add in the Internal Revenue Service, the FCC to control what you can and cannot listen to, the EPA, the destruction of our health care system by a aged prejudiced Senator from Nevada and scores of local and state governments with “their” hands in your pocket. You can’t even park your truck on your own property anymore for fear of violating some local code and getting fined. I once got fined for having to many leaves in my pool!

Go to usa.gov and you’ll be shocked at how many government agencies there are to tell you how to live, breathe, walk, talk and work. It’s 1776 all over again, but this time it’s not the British, it’s our own government. For truckers it’s the ATA, DOT, FMCSA, CTA and goodness knows who else. Drivers, it’s only going to get worse, and remember there is never ANY discussion about the “pittance” they pay you. Did you see that house the CEO of Arrow lived in? There’s lots of money in trucking even with all the current and NEW upcoming regulations, but the drivers, well, you’re never going to see any of it. Can you say – baaa, oops, sorry, I mean  baaa Comrade!

Dan Rather on HDNet has done a few reports on trucking. Mostly about training, trainees and company training programs. This episode, Dan goes straight to a trucking school in Detroit, MI. A place where the economy has hit the hardest and people are desperate for work, any kind of work. This is about a private trucking school that promised students jobs and promised they would be making a lot of money in a recession proof industry.

For most of us, this is nothing new and we’ve heard the horror stories of trucking schools and a rookie’s first year of trucking. This puts it out there for the rest of the public.

More crooks in the trucking industry stealing money from people that just want to work.

THIS IS REQUIRED VIEWING FOR ANYONE THINKING OF GOING TO TRUCKING SCHOOL. For the rest of us it sounds all too familiar and will make most of us sick, again.

I received a call from our comment line about our post reviewing Largo Software’s Nautilus In Cab program. We wrote a couple of posts about it and even had the creators of Nautilus on one of our podcasts.

The Contact form on LargoSoftware doesn’t seem to work as it never submits the form. I do know that Alex of Largo Software has moved on to another job. I downloaded the program and even though there is a 14 day free trial, the license server for even a free trial doesn’t seem to be working either.

I wish I could help out, but if the license server won’t even return a 14 day free trial and the contact form doesn’t seem to work, there isn’t much I could do. Once we get past that hurdle maybe I could help a few if there are installation problems or trying to run the software on Vista or Windows 7,  but until we hear from Largo Software I regret there is nothing else to do.

Our introduction to Nautilus In Cab was back in Sept 2007 and unfortunately, no matter how good a program is, things change, situations change and people move on. Hopefully, this is only a small blip in the Nautilus program and things will get back on track, especially for those that have already purchased the program.

Until we find out more and hear directly from Largo Software, this is where it stands.

One key aspect of the CSA2010 is the compilation of safety data on individual drivers. The safety data will be maintained in a nationally accessible database which is available to transportation companies. In order for a transportation company to access a driver’s data it will be necessary to obtain permission from the driver. This permission will probably be obtained just as permission to run a MVR is obtained during initial sign on.

What does this mean to the driver? Unlike the current system where safety data is only complied on the transportation company, now this data will also be assigned to the drivers. When drivers change companies, their new company will be able to see the past twenty-four months of safety data for the driver. Companies will be able to determine a potential drivers safety record based on this data. Drivers will no longer be able to go to a new company with a clean slate. Under the CSA2010 the drivers past follows them to the new company.

This data will be critical in a carrier’s decision to employ a driver. Carrier’s will be more selective in their hiring decision and drivers with bad safety data will find it increasingly more difficult if not impossible to find employment.

What can a driver do? Simple, follow Department of Transportation rules and remember, the CSA2010 does not just look at out of service violations – it looks at ALL write ups on a roadside inspection and assigns a point and severity rating to each write up with the more current violations more heavily weighted.

James Dawson
Vice President
The Mason & Dixon Lines
jdawson@madl.com

Well it’s real hard to follow Wayne’s post about John Eischens, but Life On The Road must go on. As you are aware, the weather outside is miserable. I chose to “sit out” Thursday after a 22 mile “test drive” northbound on I-75 in Ohio. The snow was blowing heavy, the roads were getting worse and my windshield wipers were icy and visibility poor. I promised myself I would order heated wipers this year, but I had other money priorities. I have a load of Louisiana lumber headed for Ontario. The driver who picked it up had to repower it because he cannot cross the border. I’m not not sure of the exact reason why. My company supported my decision to shut down and reschedule the delivery for Monday morning. Many other freight lines would not be as supportive and that is both unfortunate and irresponsible.

I want to take this post to talk about repowers. It is a “trucking thing.” It is when a load is switched over to another driver. One driver picks it up and another delivers it. Sounds simple enough. A driver runs out of hours to make the delivery time – another driver takes over. A driver needs to get home so he switches his load with someone else. You get the idea. But as any experience driver knows, repowering a load, in many cases, represents the most “screwed-up” activity that a carrier does. It is stressful for many reasons, the main one being the lack of effective communication about where the drivers are going to make the repower a reality.

By the way, the first photo I used does not show drivers waiting around dispatch for a load or information about a repower. I used it just to get your mind off the lousy weather. Your welcome. OK, back to the topic at hand. Last week, I was headed to Dallas and was turned around the repower a load. I was told it was urgent. No reason was given. When I got to the driver, he was upset. I learned that he had run out of hours to deliver the load. I asked how far away the consignee was. The answer? Nine miles! Was this driver out of his mind? He was so stressed out about getting a log violation that he literally was imploding. He wasn’t fit to drive at that moment. I guess the carrier thought so as well. I switched trailers and 15 minutes later was being unloaded.

I’ve repowered loads because drivers were “afraid” to go to Chicago, NYC, Canada, California and one driver who was a “vegan” and didn’t want to pick up meat at an Iowa slaughter house. There was the driver would loaded a 47K lb. coil and was “afraid” to drive anywhere with it. There are the drivers who have quit and need to get to a terminal because – thank goodness – they chose not to abandon the truck. Whatever the reason, you are typically kept in the dark as to when the repowering driver will get to where you are. As hard as I try to communicate where I am and where and when I’ll be to make the repower less stressful, the message is usually “lost in transit.” When I finally get to the other drive or he/she gets to me, it’s always hilarious to find out the truth about what each of us has been told. And no matter who the carrier, repowering – or whatever your company calls it – is a pain in the butt.

I believe flatbed drivers might have it worse. Not only does the load have to repower but all the securement, tarps, etc. has to be exchanged. Flatbed drivers are very OCD – obsessive compulsive about their equipment. I’m sure some box drivers are the same. One driver I repowered with wanted everything off the load – tarps, straps and bungees. I complied – I was MT – put everything on the deck of my trailer and drove away. I left him to re-secure and re-tarp the load in a heavy rain and high winds. Screw him. That what he wanted – fine. You’ve got to tough to repower. The whole process would make a great reality show – better than that ice trucker thing which puts me asleep. Do you have repower horror stories? Tell us us about them.

One of the sadder stories to come out of the Arrow Trucking shutdown two days before Christmas is the story of John Eischens, who has not been seen since Christmas Day in Butte, MT. An official missing person report has been filed in Texas. With no money, because his last Arrow paycheck bounced, he cleaned out his truck and gave the keys to the manager at the Pilot Truck Stop in Butte.

After that, no one has heard from him. My guess is had his stuff and started looking for a ride. If a truck driver was able to give him a ride from the Pilot, someone would have heard from him by now. He may have started hitchhiking and hitchhiking in Montana in December, can’t be easy. This has the possibility of being a horrible tragedy and it rests on the heads of Arrow Trucking.

Don’t misunderstand me, let me say this again, THIS IS ARROW TRUCKING’S FAULT. I haven’t looked it up, but I’m sure there’s a truck dealership either Freightliner, International or even a Kenworth dealer in Butte that he had enough fuel to get to. If he was able to pack up his stuff enough so he could hitch a ride, his stuff would have fit on a Greyhound Bus. When people are in a position of not knowing what to do and being overwhelmed, they can panic and make bad decisions. Putting a driver in this position is ARROW’s FAULT.

I’m the first one to admit, that I’m the last one to ask for help. If I don’t think I can do something, it doesn’t get done or I give it my best shot. One of the hardest things for me to do is to ask for help, but it’s one of the easiest things I do is to help someone else. One of the joys of trucking is (unless your company has a short leash and won’t allow you to make any decisions on your own, it didn’t use to be like that. Before cell phones and satellite tracking a truck driver, even a company truck driver was responsible and held accountable for making major decisions in his day to day trucking life, but that’s another rant), one of the joys of trucking is being the lone wolf, in charge of your own life, depending on no one for anything, but sometimes even the most independent macho trucker needs to ask for help.

Before I finish, from the Tulsa World article about John, toward the end:

Missing person report filed on trucker
By D.R. STEWART World Staff Writer
Published: 1/8/2010  2:23 AM
Last Modified: 1/8/2010  4:15 AM

But with the help of the drivers association, trucker message and bulletin boards, 7,500 people across the country became involved with the effort to bring stranded drivers home, said Lisa Philpot, a volunteer with “Support for Stranded Arrow Trucking Drivers” who lives in Baltimore.

“There were a couple of drivers up here (near Baltimore),” Philpot said by telephone late Thursday. “There are 300 to 460 drivers who are not home or (whose whereabouts) we can’t verify.”

Read the rest of this entry »