That's Your Problem

Today's Thoughts 12/16/11 That's Your Problem
CARB. For those of you that might be unfamiliar with the term, California Air Resource Board. This upcoming year is the year from my understanding that those of us with older trucks must register with the state if we are to continue running out here with the deadline being January 31st, 2012 as I understand it. This of course only gives us a couple of more years to run in this state before we have to either throw our trucks away and buy new equipment or pay thousands of dollars to upgrade them to standards that CARB in its infinite wisdom says it's ok for us to run. Next year of course is the year that older trailers have to be upgraded before we can run them out here. Easily for me I'm looking at over ten thousand dollars out of my pocket to do these upgrades unless of course I decide to buy new equipment and that could run me as high as one hundred and fifty thousand dollars for both truck and trailer. CARB's reaction to that little problem of course is the same as most new regulations place upon the common citizen "That's Your Problem"

Well let's take a look at the last time I spent a bunch of money to comply with CARB so I could run in the state of California. APU or Auxiliary Power Unit. California decided that no longer would drivers be allowed to idle their trucks while in the state so drivers were forced to take their mandatory ten hour rest break with no heat or air unless they purchased an APU for around eight thousand dollars a pop. Of course you were not required to do so but that meant that you would have to sleep out in the middle of the desert or in the dead of winter up in the mountains without any heat or air. Better they thought that you did not produce a bit of smog then you actually got some decent rest before you drove your eighty thousand pound truck around and run over someone due to lack of proper rest.

So I run out like a good little trucker and kick out over eight grand for an APU. Of course the technology was still new back then and I wind up with a lemon. Eight thousand more dollars not counting for time lost for installation and continuing trips to the shop to get the things repaired and I have well over twenty thousand dollars invested so that I am legal to run in the state of California. What a well respected good little trucker I am for doing so and trust me, for every dollar I saved not idling my truck I've spent two keeping the APU's up and running. And to reward me for spending all that cash, as I sit here tonight in a California truck stop with all of the trucks that did not invest in APU's sitting here idling and California is not doing a thing about it. In other words I threw away over twenty grand of my hard earned cash to do the right thing and my competition is out their keeping the freight rates low because they can run the freight cheaper then I can skirting the law. Yes I know, this is my problem.

So I'm sitting here thinking, "Do I go ahead and register then plan on once again kicking out thousands of dollars to keep compliant in this state?" And the only response I can think of is "Why should I". If CARB does as they did with the APU's, I'm just tossing money out the window to comply where most people will just ignore and the state of California will do nothing about it. Face it, California is about broke and they have absolutely no cash to pay for enforcement of just about anything. The governor was in the news just the other day saying he was going for over two billion (that’s with a "B") in cuts. And the way I see it, these folks out here are not going to like that not one bit, not at all. I'm guessing that they will remove CARB before they remove entitlements to illegal immigrants with their left coast thinking. It's going to fun for me to watch California in its infinite wisdom try to stay as socialist as they are without going broke or getting a handout form the rest of us. And trust me, if my representatives vote to hand this state even a penny, it will be the last time they get my vote.

Hence you can see my dilemma tonight, to register or to not register. And the longer I sit here and listen to all these idling trucks around me, the more I'm leaning towards not registering. I'm already down twenty thousand dollars that I would love to of had for other things in life. As I see it, we have them over a barrel and if we do not allow them to bend us over it, they will have to push these new regulations down the line or drop them completely. It's time that We The People stand up for ourselves and let a over bearing government know that we will not bend over that barrel any more. Let the state a California figure out how to feed its population without our trucks. Let them figure out how to keep even more companies from moving to Texas because the freight rates or to high due to lack of trucks being legal to run in their state. And when they up and complain that no one will run out here, we simply tell them, "That’s Your Problem".

See Ya' California. May the good lord bring to you politicians with common sense real soon.

Be safe peeps …
Jeff Head.
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