I Want To Know

Today's Thoughts By Jeff Head 10/2/12 I Want To Know

I want to know I am thinking; fat chance they will ever tell me, but I still want to know. They, the government are the ones I want the answer from, yet they have to answer to no one. What they say is is, is what they say it is and you had better deal with the outcome or just go home and get out of the trucking industry if you do not like it as far as they are concerned. The thing is, is I want to know and I think it is high time we as safe and legal truckers demand an answer to my question.

I am riding along yesterday morning, just about half way light, when I come upon a construction zone. I slow down to the speed limit, fifty five with the left lane closed off with construction barrels.  It is not long before a car comes up behind me still traveling at normal highway speeds, slams on their brakes at the last moment getting right up on my tail and starts dancing side to side in the lane.  I can tell they want me to speed up. Years of driving have taught me how to recognize drivers like this. I know that in just a few minutes they will lose their patience and do something stupid here. So I watch, I wait, and sure enough, here it comes.

An exit ramp comes up and I go on by. My friend behind me takes the ramp to the right. There is a two lane highway at the bottom with a stop sign. I know exactly what they are about to do, I have seen it to many times. I keep a close eye on them in my mirror. Sure enough, they blow the stop sign and race up the ramp on the other side back onto the interstate. I am already hitting the brakes as I watch them do this. They enter the highway just in front of my truck, causing me to slam on the brakes even harder and off they go. Yet another idiot survives their suicide attempt in front of a big truck.

So I want to know a few things here and like I said, I think it is time we asked and demanded some answers here. If safe and legal truckers are doing the right thing out on that highway, if we are following every speed limit law, every highway sign, every rule, every regulation, everything to be as safe and legal as we humanly can, and idiots like this one still end up dead under our trucks, why are we being held responsible?

I mean think about it, the FMCSA sets up the rules so that we are where we are at the time they say we should be there. I had no less than five near accidents they other day because instead of driving a extra fifty miles to put me on the other side of a big city at night with no traffic, I shut down to keep the log book happy and left out in morning rush hour the next day. People are in a rush to get to work, thousands of drivers that have absolutely no time for a trucker to be out there running safe, doing the speed limit, blocking up lanes and exits.  An extra forty-five minutes the night before would have put me ahead of all that. But instead I have to shut down because they tell me I have to or face the penalties assigned to truckers for trying to be safe.

I want to know if anyone anywhere has ever done a study showing what happens around big trucks that are running safe and legal out on that highway. I can tell them, anyone that runs this way can tell them. People get plum stupid. They will do things to get in front of you, around you, whatever they have to do except slow down because of you, the trucker.  We become the most un-safe vehicle on that highway because of the actions that the human psychic brings out when someone is delayed because we are doing it right and they find themselves behind us. My question is how many people die each year because of this phenomenon. I want to know.

Another thing I want to know is if these people keep running into us because we are running safe and legal. If they are injured and if they die because we are following the rules. Why are the people that are making the rules and force us to follow them not being held responsible for these accidents involving trucks? They in their all knowing wisdom demanded of us to be where we are at the time of the accident. Doing what they say we should be doing, yet we find ourselves in an accident. Years of experience has taught us not to be here yet years of experience has taught us that if we make a safety decision to keep us out of this situation and it goes against what they say we should have done, we will be fined and eventually run out of the industry. I want to know why the people calling the shots are not being held responsible for what happens out on that highway when safe truckers follow their rules, their regulations, and their laws.

Well good luck with that Sunny Boy. If you do not like it, then you are most welcome to park your truck and walk away from the industry. So far this has been the answer. They will always bend their response away from the question and paint any trucker that wants to know as a whinny trucker just trying to make an extra buck instead of caring for the lives of the families that we share the road with. It is time though for an answer. It is time that somebody up there figures out just what happens around big trucks that run safe and legal out on that highway.

No matter who wins this upcoming election, chances could be that the FMCSA and others will have some sort of change in who is running things over the next four years. Now, right at the start of their regime, I think would be an excellent time to demand some answers to these questions. To educate them on the real facts of highway life, before they start just pooping, yes I meant pooping; out more politically correct regulations.

Be safe peeps.

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