Shackles

Today's Thoughts 12/17/11 Shackles

BINGO….. They have done it again. Truckers once again explain exactly what is needed to help keep us safe on the highways, and the government shackles us with new regulations that work against what we ask for. What am I talking about, the new cell phone regulations for drivers of commercial motor vehicles or CMV for short. Let me bring you up to date just so that we are on the same page about this. A couple of bad actors get themselves into wrecks due to the fact that they were using their cell phones for texting and other unsafe practices and the FMCSA decides that every truck driver must be punished so that no truck driver will ever be involved in a wreck again. So they decide that all cell phone use in a CMV should be banned…….

The problem with that is the study that they had done on cell phone use in a big truck showed that just the drivers that where using their cell phone in a unsafe manner were found to be involved in more wrecks. Drivers that used their cell phone in a safe manner were found to actually be more alert and involved in less wrecks. None the less, big government moved to remove all cell phone from trucks. Unfortunately for them and luckily for all highway users Safe Truck Drivers Of America stepped in and raised holy heck explaining to the world how unsafe our government was acting. They were putting being politically correct over what was saving lives on the highway…..

What we ended up with is a set of rules that basically takes a safety tool that safety conscience drivers use and shackles them by the way that they have to use that tool. One button is all that can be pushed to either make or accept a call. This my friend is all good and well but only if you can explain to me how it stops the renegade driver from pushing as many buttons as they were before the new regulation. They have already shackled us with a mandatory fourteen hour rule and new proposed rules are about to shackle us with mandatory breaks even if we are not tired. Electronic On Board Recorders (EOBR) was just thrown out by the courts and already they are up there trying to figure out how to shackle us with them again going around what the court's decision was.

I've said it many times before and I'll say it again. Truck drivers have taking the lead in highway safety over our government. We have asked them many times to partner with us on safety issues but they simply refuse to even acknowledge that safe truck drivers even exist. Instead they pull whatever out of the hat that sounds the most politically correct but hard to defend and they tell the general public that they are trying to save them from those rascally killer truck drivers once again. They picked one storey about one truck driver that was involved in a fatality wreck while he was texting and from that they decided that every truck driver out there needed to be shackled so that this never happens again. The thing is like I mentioned earlier, the renegades will just continue to text and the safe drive just lost a safety tool.

Texting while driving to my knowledge is illegal in any state in any vehicle. So is distracted driving as well. So what was accomplished by this latest shacklement on safety minded truck drivers. A tool used to keep their mind awake and alert made into an object that could shut them down. Large fines and temporary loss of their drivers license has been attached so now instead of doing the right thing, the driver may choose to just continue on while half asleep behind the wheel. Stopping is out of the question due to the fact of time restrictions placed on the driver and the plain real world fact that if that driver will not put that load through on time, another driver will be found that will leaving they safety minded driver starved out of the industry once again.

And speaking of once again, truck drivers are once again put in the very precarious position of deciding between running safe as opposed to running legal. Do they chance picking up that phone and engaging in a conversation that will keep them alert and awake as the studies show a phone conversation will do; or do they decide to play it safe from the law and drive drowsy down the highway putting everyone's life at stake. For me that answer is an easy one. I would rather do what is safe and be labeled a killer truck driver then to allow an over regulated and over bearing government to put me in a position that might kill an innocent family. Political correctness is not only killing our country but our families as well.

Just to let you know, for those of you that have not thought this through. That one button push thingy that they have pronounced upon us, well forget that. Every truck driver out there is now figuring out just how many buttons need to be pushed and where they are so they can clear their call list after each and every call so that the law cannot prove on the side of the road how that call was made. Whatever procedures might be necessary to obtain records from the cell phone company will have to be gone through before much can be done. Simply holding the phone down below the dash conceals from view anything a driver might be doing with the phone from the law and takes the drivers attention off the road. But as many of you all ready know, truck drivers have explained this fact to the government already, it's nothing new.

When will they start figuring out that humans are a very crafty bunch? No matter how many regulations they shackle us with, no matter how many millions of our tax payer's dollars they spend trying to enforce those shackles, about ten bucks and ten minutes is all it takes to work around those shackles. Until the government stops letting just any warm body behind the wheel, they will always be letting unsafe drivers out there. The answer to safe cell phone use is not more shackles but better truck drivers with better training and throw in some morals and ethics and decent pay so that we can deliver our loads safely without starving our families. But you see folks; these things are beyond the comprehension of the powers that be. Until such a time as they decide to start looking at the true cause of killer truck drivers behind the wheel of trucks instead of just the politically correct reasons for them being there, the best we can expect from out government is more just politically correct shackles.

Be safe peeps …
Jeff Head.
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