Now Wait A Minute

Today's Thoughts 12/24/11 Now Wait A minute

Yippee, I home for Christmas. What does that mean? It means that I have time to look back over all my leads and find the things that I missed over the last couple of weeks out there on the road. A chance at a decent internet connection so I can view some of the videos that I've been wanting to watch. And that folks gives me the chances to become very confused at just what in the frick they want us to do this time. After Ray La Hood and the NTSB spend the last year telling the world just how dangerous an eighteen wheeler is with a cell phone in it, The TSA and Homeland Security come out and start harassing big trucks and tell them to start calling in on the general public with their cell phones, again.

If you have not heard yet, Tennessee has partnered with the TSA and was stopping trucks at the weigh stations and without probable cause or retaining search warrants, then going through trucks looking for any signs of terrorist's activity. Is there no end to government stupidity?

First off, I don't care what the government thinks or better yet what either end of the government thinks, truck drivers since the beginning of time have been reporting drunk drivers and fires and anything else that the law needs to know about out there on that highway. Cells phones have made that just a little bit easier and a whole lot quicker. So why are they now handing out literature to truck drivers explaining to us how to be good little tattle tales in our travels on our neighbors using our phones? We have never had a problem partnering with the proper authorities in helping keep our highways safe. What we do have is a problem getting the proper authorities' to understand that we need our cell phones in our possession at all times so that we can do this.

But beyond that fact they are searching our trucks for terrorist activities and inspecting our loads trying to find that next little piece of terrorist activity. Well let me clue them in a little about this. They are the ones; the government that is that gave that terrorist a license to drive a big truck. As the trucking industry begs the government for better standards as to who can be allowed to sit behind the wheel of a big truck, that government continues to allow just any warm body behind the wheel. In fact the more grants that they can hand out to train people the closer they get to looking at the grave registration rolls trying to find more candidates. Job creation and all that you know.

But now let's just suppose that I'm a big bad terrorist with a load of terroristic thingys in the back of my wagon headed to blow something up. I would have to be a complete idiot to go rolling through a scale house knowing that they are inspecting trucks. Especially with the CB radios and cell phones lit up with all the details of the TSA being involved in the searches. I just simply wait them out and go through the next day. Put them in there permanent and I just transfer the load to multiple pickup trucks and I just wave at them on the way by. Of course with all the millions of other highways, I'm guessing choosing a route without a scale house might be a thing to do. You could harass eighteen wheelers till the end of time and the terrorist with all the time and money in the world will just use that as a way to keep them busy as they work around the problem.

So here's the deal big government, take away my cell phone and you will hear about the bad things going on out there on that highway the next time I get a chance to pull over and send up smoke signals. You keep unnecessarily detaining me for politically correct BS and the "keep your job" tactics telling the public how safe you are keeping them and I'm going to do what it takes to make up that lost time out on that highway so that I can keep my job. Because if I don't after you have wasted my time, the real world will just find some renegade truck driver that will.
Once again the solution that the government comes up with to fix the problem only creates more dangerous trucks out on the highway. Why they think they can first shackle us with time restraints and then detain us for an unlimited amount of time to look good in the news is beyond me. I keep hearing the claim that a truck was used in the Oklahoma City bombing. If I recall that was a rental truck and in case you don't know, in most states rental trucks are not required to go through the scale house where they are setting up the TSA inspections. In short folks they have created something that does not exist and then spent millions of our tax dollars protecting us from it.

Will a terrorist eventually get around to using an eighteen wheeler to do something? You can bet your last dollar that they will if they are already not doing so. But can you imagine the cost involved to check each and every truck each and every day on each and every highway? Can you imagine how many detained drivers will then have to do what it takes to get that load through after the searches? We already have enough of that problem with shippers and receivers and now the government wants to jump in and detain us even more. I thought the object here was to save lives on the highway, not put drivers in the position that they have to run like heck and cause more deaths. And of course I wish they would make up their minds, is the use of a cell phone a good thing or not? The TSA end of the government seems to thinks so while FMCSA and NTSB seem to think not. Or is it we can if they say so but if we think it's a good idea it's not.

Have Merry Christmas Folks and a Happy New Years too. Let us all pray for common sense to overcome our government real soon.
Be safe peeps …
Jeff Head.
Be sure to add me as a friend if you like "Today's Thoughts"