Why Should We

Today's Thoughts 1/22/12 Why Should We

Riding along the other day, the radio on softly in the background and my mind off somewhere lost in the long ride I was doing, I heard this little blurb come through and it caught my attention. It was from the radio and the person talking had said the phrase, "Soft Tyranny." Being as I had no clue as to the reference as to what he was talking about, I decided to turn up the radio just a bit. From what I could gather in the last minute or two of his time was that our current administration up there in Washington DC was over-regulating us so much as a country that it was actually a form of "soft Tyranny."

Now there is a term I could work within the trucking industry I thought. It must be something like soft porn where they are going to lift up the skirt of Lady Liberty and just molest her just a bit. Just a quick cop a feel you see. Well we all know that they have done much more than just cop a feel to our liberties and they have no intention of stopping at the word soft on any subject. These points were passed years ago I thought as I recalled my journey from running as a renegade trucker into a trucker that fought for drivers to be able to run safe and legal without reprisal. Something else I had realized that this phrase "soft tyranny" was doing was changing the way that not only myself, but also other drivers that had actually turned to running safe and legal were thinking. Now instead of finding more and more drivers turning away from being a renegade, now they are asking, "Why should we?"

Even I ask this from time to time as I watch high dollar freight go by because I cannot run it legal. I mean it is not because it is not able to be run safe or that I cannot physically do it I know. It is because the FMSCA has decided in its infinite wisdom that I am too tired to do it. In addition, they have done this by stacking on us as an industry with regulation after regulation without any regards to actually being able to enforce the rules or any concern as to our being able to survive paying for the regulations. They have indeed created a condition as I see it as, "Soft Tyranny" on our industry. Yes, I still think it is extremely important that we as drivers run safe and legal. That is a giving, but to expect us to be able to survive without tossing the rules aside from time to time the FMCSA itself has made this impossible. They run us in circles driving us to do what we have to do to survive and then they pounce on us and shut us down while they preach to the world about saving them from us killer truck drivers.

A long time ago I was picking up a load from a farmer and as we talked, he said something that has stuck with me through the years. He said, "Truckers and Farmers have one thing in common. We are rate takers not rate makers." That is true to this day. No matter how hard we try to raise the rates, the other side just lets us sit until we have no choice but to run the load for just enough to pay for the fuel hope for better pay on the other end. Paying for all the things that the FMCSA has in mind for us never even enters the calculation. Because they can only regulate one side of this deal, truckers find themselves caught in the middle of a fight for power one side and keeping their money in their pockets on the other side. We sit in the middle and unless we are willing to do what it takes and pray we are not caught, we lose.

With this new attack from the Sleep Apnea crowd once again upon us. The FMCSA is again looking to bend us over our fuel tanks and reach up our arse to see just how big of a golden nugget they can pull out and force us to give to yet another group. If we decide not to comply, then everything we have worked for our whole lives is flushed down the drain The thousands of dollars for our rigs and all the time we sacrificed from our families will be lost. Comply and next week will just find you bent over that same tank with them digging for the next golden nugget from your rear side. They will never stop. Soft tyranny you say, at its least, soft porn, not even. The screwing we are taking as truck drivers dose not even come close to anything the word soft could describe.

So after all the work that I and others have done to make trucking safer and for drivers to be able to run legal, it breaks my heart every time I hear another driver say "Why should we." The thing is that I know is that even I ask this very same question to myself about once a week. Why Should We? They have made this imposable for us to do. They have taking everything from us that they physically can take and it seems that they even want our souls to boot. It has become evident that they want the American trucker completely of the road so that they can bring in drivers from third world countries. They will stop at nothing to shut us down. They want us standing in their welfare lines so that they can gain power. So I find myself waking up this morning asking myself, "why should we?"

That answer has to come from inside of you. I cannot give that to you. You have a family that needs feeding and a roof that needs to be put over their heads. There is college to pay for and retirement to think about and lots more to consider. All the things that any normal person would want in their lives and we as truckers are asked to give them up in the name of safety. It makes no sense to me. If you want the safest driver behind the wheel of a truck but yet they create an environment that only a rat would love living in. Then they complain when driver after driver ask, why should we?

For me that answer is I never want to hear that scream again and then have to explain why to the family. I do have a family though that deserves to eat and feel like they have some sort of security in life. So I try as hard as I can to run as legal as I can, but I still find myself asking after knowing that they are doing everything they can to shut me down, to bring this soft tyranny upon us as truckers, why should I?

Be safe peeps …
Jeff Head.
Be sure to add me as a friend if you like "Today's Thoughts"