Truck Safety Group Urges Purges Of Drug Abuse Drivers

Patrick wants to keep it simple...

Okay. We'll approach it from that perspective.

- You cannot pick and choose; if we go back into a fully regulated landscape, everyone will lose. A box of Cornflakes will be $12.00. The market drives what is acceptable fees for a commodity service. Fact. If the market is paying more for a commodity service then you can expect the consumer to ultimately pay for it.

- A fully regulated landscape removes any incentive to perform. All we need to do is look at the downfall of the railroads to understand the effects of tight regulatory oversight. Considering you are a runner; "Patrick are you willing to be paid the exact same wage as an ambivalent, lazy, under-performing driver?" Again, you cannot have it both ways.

- I know most of the safety managers and regional safety director of Swift. Do you really believe these professionals don't give a "rat's behind" about profitability and insurance? No. That's a ridiculous notion. Keeping in mind I've read all of your posts about your current company, do you believe your company puts safety first, above everything else?

Is that simple enough?

The debate of deregulation vs. full regulation can't be approached from a simplistic point of view. Please, leave that to the media.

I understand brett i do completely and its the nature of the beast and in a free market thats always gonna be the case its just sad sometimes driving around small town america and seeing ghost towns and old closed family industries that thrived and drove communities i hope for a bright future for my kids but i wish they could live in small town everybody knows everybody type communities i guess im gettin older and just struggle to embrace change itll be easier for my children than for myself

Come on Brett, I have NEVER had anybody take what I have said and try to skew so far in left field!

Ok here goes, I guess I have to add context.

Un American comment:. Of course the big association is NOT going to go and say: “We want more regulation so we can choke out the small American dream companies.” Of course they are going to use the guise of safety. It is politics. Whenever has anything with politics ever been honest about what the true intentions are. Big corporations don’t give 2 hoots what the public thinks for the most part, but there are NOT gonna deliberately shoot themselves in the foot. Then again who knows, with the collapse of small family owned business in most sectors of life today. Perhaps the public wouldn’t care if they are trying to do what Walmart did to small retail and grocery stores.

Collision avoidance systems. Insurance companies give discounts because they bought into the material that a PAID 3rd party tester wrote about on the product they were PAID to evaluate. DUH. Has a single insurance company executive ever driven a truck with one of these crappy, lousy systems. NO!!!!! That is why believe the BS they have been fed. If they actually had to live with them on a daily basis. They would charge a PENALTY for having them installed!!

Speed Limiting. 85???? Really? You have spent way too much time with the Bull Haulers of west Texas!!! I was talking 70 MPH. 65 vs 70!!!!! Wow, where do you get 85 from? No 85 is not safer than 65!! But 70!!! Would be. Trucking companies govern at 65, 63, 58, etc.... for FUEL ECONOMY. This one blows my mind you went there. What kinda trucks has you been driving???

ELD. They are more efficient; because, of all the telemetry data. They know where drivers are, how many hours they have left, what issues are going on with the trucks. Because of their large size, imagine the nightmare if it was all a paper system for them. It is more efficient to have real time data!!!

Economy of Scale. Why don’t small business do it. If they want to ultimately survive they DO have to keep growing. In business you are either growing or dying. Purely simple. That one was fairly self explanatory.

Public opinion. Really??? Name one share holder or High powered corporate executive actually cares about public opinion? The bottom line is ALL that matters. I give you Donald Trump. ‘Nuff said!!

I have NEVER said large carriers are the scum of the earth. I said: “They are trying to eliminate the small company competition.” It is BUSINESS!!! I mean, come on. I have already stated I give two shakes whether they accomplish it or not. I WILL have a J O B!!! I don’t know where your stream of rhetoric is coming from. My ENTIRE point was SIMPLE. Safety is NOT their primary concern for what they are trying to get accomplished with regulation. Getting rid of the small town competition IS!!! I’m just calling it like it is. I don’t care if they pull it off!! I really don’t. Claiming safety is nothing more than a ruse..

I don’t think deregulation was bad!!! I was saying the companies fighting for it wasn’t thinking about the big picture and what it would cause. It was THEIR mistake, NOT an economic one!!!!! They were only thinking about what they wanted to do. Wanted to set prices on transportation fees, set up lanes where they want, etc... do you think they would of pulled for as much deregulation. as they did, if they knew what was going to happen? They ALREADY had their authority to transport goods from Uncle Sam!!! I really do NOT understand how everyone keeps wanting to think I am trying to bring up whether those changes were good for the U.S. economy as a whole or not!!! They were. That simple. What it was NOT good for was: allowing over competition driving down profit margins and forcing severe stagnation in driver pay. Being a truck driver used to be REALLY GOOD money. Now it is just decent!! Hell, soldiers make as much truck drivers. Being a soldier has NEVER been looked at a great way to make money!!

I am NOT saying the government or big corporations are evil. Again, I am saying using the guise of safety is BS!!! NOTHING MORE, PERIOD!!!!! That was ALL, I said, EVERYBODY ELSE IS TWISTING IT INTO SOMETHING IT IS NOT!!! INCLUDING YOU, BRETT.

Very interesting discussion. Way, way, above my pay grade, so I don't really have the knowledge or experience to contribute much. I will say this, though. I've found over the period of many years and many mistakes, that life is like a river. You can either go with the flow or fight against the current. But one thing we can't control is the current, unless we build a dam. (Dam, I have no idea what that means). I stopped trying to swim against the current long ago. Now I just enjoy the journey and paddle over to the shore whenever I see something interesting. Life is now much more interesting and enjoyable. Somehow, I think there's a trucking lesson in that.

My popcorn had run out. We do have these kind of discussions about 2-3 times a year.

LDRSHIP has hijacked the original topic to argue that the glass is half empty when it's actually half full. Yes, Big Trucking wants to squash ma/pa upstarts - that's what competition is so about. Insurance companies lower the premiums when anyone can work safer the next guy. Any public facing company (like all those trucks with company names on the side) really do want people to think highly of them, though liability lawyers do their best to make truckers into ne'er-do-wells. The gummint enforces HOS regulations with ELDs to eliminate the fantasies posted in driver's logs.

It looks like, as stated earlier, we'll be better off of we agree to disagree.

Errol, Very well stated. Lets hope yours is the closer to this thread. Nothing more can be said, no matter how you care to rearrange the words!

Errol, Very well stated. Lets hope yours is the closer to this thread. Nothing more can be said, no matter how you care to rearrange the words!

Considering the headline was about eliminating dopers from the driver pool.

And I posted a thread about that days ago.

Rick

And I posted a thread about that days ago.

Yes you did Rick! You must need to work on your click bait.