Surfer Dude Trucking

Today's Thoughts 7/14/12 Surfer Dude Trucking
By Jeff Head

Well, as most of you know, I have been out of my truck for a couple of weeks. I found myself out of the real world of trucking and into helping out some kids that needed a truck driver for a while. I really did enjoy meeting all kinds of cool people. Especially the three women that ran the food trailer and kept everyone fed each day. It was awesome helping them out as best I could and if you think about it, very smart on my part. After all, they have control over the food and of course, I like eating so there you go.

The kids themselves were way too cool and I fell in love with their spirit. Of course, we had a full staff of people that worked each and every day to keep things running. I was surprised at the level of professionalism that I found in the bus drivers that transported the kids around. I thought I was a nut about running a legal logbook but these bus drivers, they were defiantly on top of their game. I think we went through about three different groups of them and each group had a firm grasp of what needed to happen to keep themselves legal and the kids safe.

Then there was Surfer Dude as I called him. He was young and full of energy and a heck of a nice person, but everything as a trucker that many of us including myself have been fighting for years asking the FMCSA to get off the road. Instead, as many of us know, they voted in the Electronic On Board Recorders punishing safe and legal drivers once again for the action of drivers like Surfer Dude.

From the very beginning, Surfer Dude was telling me how he wanted to start a trucking company and his plans to run it under the radar of the DOT so that he would not have to follow any of the regulations. As time went on and we talked, his plans would change as I fed him information about how they would end up catching him. I would talk to him for hours about the unsafe way he would drive the truck. To him though, wide open was the only speed to travel, weaving in and out of traffic pushing and shoving his way through. I was afraid of what might happen at any moment with this guy behind the wheel of that truck. I was glad that the director stood behind me though as I demanded to run my truck safe and legal as I always do. That was very cool indeed.

I guess though what really gets me about all this is that while I was watching Surfer Dude terrorize the highways, up on Capitol Hill they once again pushed through more regulations that work towards bankrupting safe and legal drivers like me while Surfer Dude in his own words has no intention of following any regulation. Once again, our government unwittingly supported the bad guy leaving us good guys to foot the bill.

Face it, Surfer Dude will be in business much longer then I will. I simply cannot compete with truckers that will not follow the regulations and if governments only answer to this problem is more regulations, then I am finished. The governments own actions are killing the ability of safe and legal drivers to compete in the open market. They win and I lose.

I guess It is time for me to make a decision. Do I want to comply with the new EOBR rules or is it time for me to walk away from the industry. Leave it to the Surfer Dudes of the trucking industry because as I see it, comply with this mandate and next year will be something new. Another mandate that they have been pushing for for years and that could be CPAP machines or who knows what they will come up with next. All I know is that whatever it is, it will not do a thing to make the highways safer until they finally address the truckers that absolutely refuse to follow the rules. And to that end, now that they have made the rules so tuff to follow, no one can survive if they try. To try means certain bankruptcy. They have created an environment that only a Surfer Dude can survive in. Safe and Legal drivers like me no longer have a chance.

I have some soul searching to do in the next few months. My CDL drivers license is due to expire and I have done nothing towards renewing it. I simply do not have it within me at this point to even try. If the only way I can show a profit is to drive like Surfer Dude, then I would rather walk away from it. I have spent too many years working toward drivers to be able to run safe and legal to let the government revert me back to the renegade I started out as.

Whatever I decide to do, I will never stop working to save lives out on that highway, this I will always find a way to be involved with. Each and every day new drivers enter this industry and they need to know that if they chose to run safe and legal, that they will have the support of drivers like me. That they will eventually be supported by the government, as they should be, not used as political pawns as we are now.

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