Wrongful Places

Today's Thoughts 7/26/11 Wrongful Places

What a beautiful morning this is. I like getting a good start to the day. I'm up early for a shower and the first one in the restaurant for breakfast. It's a great start for the trip home that will end up in the first real vacation that the wife and I have been able to plan in years. Of course you cannot expect to get through the day without at least one hiccup. Arriving at the shipper I'm informed that my load was preloaded on a company trailer. That sucks because I own my own equipment. It's ok though, they are back there right now swapping the load to my trailer so I should soon be on my way.

As usual, on the way in to the shipper, I like to get my morning dose of the news. Today it seemed to be full of people finding themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. The first blurb I heard was about a person down at the morgue hearing some strange knocking coming from the freezer department. Right off I'm thinking about some scary movie coming to real life. Not this time though, once again I'm guessing some doctor somewhere with all their knowledge was about to make yet another medical mistake and bury someone before their time. I know, you can tell I like doctors, can't you? The reason for that I'll go into another day. For now let's just talk about this other person that found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It seems according to the news this morning that a young mom decided it was a good idea to jay walk in the middle of the block about the time a drunk driver decided he would pass by that very point in the road. Unfortunately it is sad to report that a child was killed during this incident. The drunk even with several drunk driving events on his records received six months jail time. And the mom, I never did hear exactly what her deal was but as I understood the story, she was looking at jail time herself because she decided against the law and jaywalked across the street resulting in the death of her child.

How fair is this I ask you? Well, let's look at that for a minute. As I understand our laws, everyone is supposed to be dealt with evenly and fairly. Those of us in the trucking industry know exactly what happens to a driver when a drunk runs into them and it is proved that that truck driver was not supposed to be there. It could be that the truck driver was off on his logs or perhaps off the truck route. Whatever the reason, the drunk in most cases is not blamed for the wreck even though they are too drunk to even stand. So is it fair that a mom enters a street at an illegal point and is punished under the same law that others would be punished under in similar circumstances? Most fair if you ask me. We all live under one law. Just because I drive a truck does not mean that I should be panelized any differently than this mom. I do feel bad about though.

That mom just like many truck drivers did not wake up that morning planning to get a child run over by a drunk. But fair treatment under one law is a must if we are to remain a nation of laws. No one person can be treated differently then another. As time goes on and our government tightens the reins on the people as we are seeing more and more evidence of especially with this current administration. Laws that only used to be applied to the trucking industry are now being applied to the general public. You have seen this in some of the convictions over the last few years. Some cases I've heard of in the news include car drivers being convicted for a death because they worked double shifts and were found to be too fatigued to drive. The standards for health for truckers are now being forced onto the nation as a whole under the guise of a socialist health care system. You must eat healthy or else. I heard in the news this morning about a study showing how the general public working swing shifts is causing medical problems and the government needs step up and fix the problems. On and on it goes.

But the most disturbing thing I heard in the news this morning was some congressman saying that with all the laws we have as a nation, each American commits on average three felonies each day without knowing it. So my question is simply this. When will you find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time committing some felony without even knowing it? Is America the wrong place to be anymore? I hope not. It's time to fix this country.

Be safe peeps …

Jeff Head.
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