A few weeks ago I blogged about how so many people go on to do extraordinary things after, or even while they're driving truck. Perhaps there's a link there - miles of open road and solitude gets the creative juices flowing.

After finding out this past weekend that Oscar-nominated Canadian super director James Cameron once drove truck before, get this, Star Wars inspired him to go into film, I thought it might be fun to research which other truckers and industry folk went on to become famous. (We've pretty much put our April Truck World issue to bed, so, as you can tell, I have some time this afternoon).

The most famous former trucker of all, of course, is Elvis. I should have known this before today, since my mom is, like, the biggest Elvis fan in Canada. (She used to make an annual pilgrimage to Graceland and somehow, someway, befriended Elvis' first cousin Patsy Presley, who was The King's first cousin on both sides -- don't ask).

My favorite contemporary fiction writer, Chuck Palahniuk, never drove a truck but he wrote the manuscript of his first breakthrough book, Fight Club, while lying underneath heavy trucks as a diesel mechanic at Freightliner's Portland plant.

this webpage lists a handful of actors who used to haul freight, including Rock Hudson, Richard Pryor, Viggo Mortensen and two of my favs, Liam Neeson and Sean Connery.

Before playing 007, Connery's wheel jockey skills got him a major role in the 1957 flick, "Hell Drivers."

Also, Johnny Van Zant of Lynyrd Skynyrd apparently owned a couple of trucks and drove himself before getting into music.

Which begs the question: If he was behind the wheel instead of inside the tape player, just what the heck were truckers listening to before that??

Feel free to add any others you think of..

Edited: 03/10/2010 at 03:48 PM by MarcoBeghetto

When it comes to the soap opera that is the Windsor Detroit Gateway, I've often said that the owner of the private Ambassador bridge who monopolizes commercial cross-border truck travel has every right to protect his interests.

I've also said that I'm not entirely convinced that, from a pure economic POV, we even need a second bridge right now.

Trade patterns are shifting rapidly and there's a decent argument to be made that increased coastal containerization and hub 'n spoke intermodalism, plus the reduction of Great Lakes-based auto manufacturing, could offset any projected rebound in freight volumes going forward.

We just don't really know how it'll all play out.

At the same time, it's absolutely absurd that in a post 9-11 world there's no crossing redundancy at the most vital trade gateway in the world -- one that controls 25 percent of our land trade with the U.S.

It's nonsensical to reply solely on a private bridge, which operates with near impunity and to which we have virtually no oversight on security and safety.

There were rumors that the Canadian government has approached the Moroun family about buying the bridge. If the company is serious about selling and we're serious about buying, I'd say it's a no brainer.

Somehow, though, my guess is that neither is true, not to mention that Michigan is broke and the cost of buying the current structure and then building a much-needed twin span down the road is too steep.

This column from the Detroit News points out another flaw of private ownership with no public alternative.

In it, Kirk Steudle, director of the Michigan DOT, alleges that the Ambassador folks have refused to partner with the nearby public Blue Water Bridge in Port Huron in providing real-time traffic information for the benefit of drivers and truckers crossing the border.



Ambassador President Dan Stamper has since responded by denying that his boss has ever rejected such a plan. "If Mr. Steudle is serious, tell him to pick up the phone or send me an e-mail and we'll sit down and work it out tomorrow," Stamper said.

Who know what's true? I doubt any deal that takes toll dollars away from the Ambassador will ever happen.

I'm all for protecting private, proprietary business. But this isn't exactly McDonald's keeping its secrete sauce away from Burger King. This is a not-so-insignificant part of our economy at stake, here.

Edited: 03/03/2010 at 02:42 PM by MarcoBeghetto

Who's seen the Super Bowl ad from Audi that depicts normal everyday citizens being arrested by the 'green police' for such infractions as throwing away a battery or using plastic shopping bags? (BTW, weren't paper bags ditched once upon a time in the name of, ahem, save-the-trees environmentalism?)

Well, there's a pretty interesting debate going on here at the office over the commercial, which you can see by clicking here.

Both me and my friend David Menzies, who's also editor of our sister book, Canadian Technician, are so-called global warming skeptics.
'cept he loves the commercial and I certainly don't.

David thinks the ad is a proverbial middle finger to the eco control freaks that are bent on regulating every aspect of our lives. He likes that in the end the sustainability Stasi are "tricked" by the sporty 'green diesel' Audi A3 TDI, which my pal Dave says is depicted as a "wolf in sheep's clothing."

I don't see it that way at all. While the commercial is quite funny, and I agree it takes some lighthearted shots at smiley-faced green fascism, my interpretation is that Audi is acknowledging -- and thereby accepting -- the future eco order. It isn't saying, "stop this madness, drive what makes you happy," it's saying "well, joining them if you can't beat them isn't a bad thing if you drive Audi."

Hey, if driving a A3 TDI would truly make the green snobs leave me alone, I'm in.

But that's not the message here at all. It's very peculiar that after a century of marketing the automobile based on such themes as the wide open road, individuality, expression -- in a nutshell, pure freedom -- Audi is arguably the first manufacturer in history to market a vehicle based on compliance and conformity -- with the authorities!

So far, the few people I've asked about this agree with me that the driver in the commercial isn't trying to trick the cops, but he's allowed to proceed through the "green light" only because his clean diesel car has been given the green stamp of approval.

I wonder what the great P.J. O'Rourke would say about it?

Jonah Goldberg, the conservative commentator, had the same reaction, first thinking it was a fun parody from a free-market think tank "about the pending dystopian environmental police state" before realizing that ...



And it's not only conservatives who saw it that way. Over at the 'progressive' Huffington Post ultra liberal David Roberts agrees the "ad only makes sense if it's aimed at people who acknowledge the moral authority of the green police."

Exactly. So, count me out.

Jonah sums it all up for me:



At the very least, Audi is trying to balance itself on the fence here. At the very least.

What say you guys?

Edited: 02/16/2010 at 05:19 PM by MarcoBeghetto

Every decade or so, the 'consensus' experts seem to drum up a new apocalyptic disaster scenario to send us running to the hills.

In the late 60's Paul Ehrlich's influential tome argued that the world was 10 to 20 years away from gross overpopulation and massive global starvation. Thanks for that.

Ten years later, in the late '70s, more than a couple of the scientists who today obsess over global warming were warning of global cooling and a new coming ice age.

Of course, as Lorne Gunter mentions today in the Post papers, no doom 'n gloom thesis had the wheels fly off faster than Y2K.



You'd think that policy makers would have learned to add a dash of skepticism or realism to their political pallet? But again, they and many who vote for them, I assume, continue marching on like Lemmings over the cliff.

A truck-writing friend of mine in the U.S. agrees with Gunter and a growing number of so-called 'skeptics' who think that, similarly, the wheels are starting to come off the anthropogenic global warming VW minibus.

Based on the salvo of revelations of fraud, manipulation, distortion, charges of group-think and intimidation of peers that has rocked the climate change industry -- and, make no mistake it's a growing mega industry -- I'm tempted to agree.

However, I can't help being skeptical that the skepticism is finally taking root in our mainstream. While the UK and a select few other media markets (including at left-lib publications like The Guardian) have done an adequate job of reporting on the series of controversies, the North American media has reacted painfully slow, if at all.

The most recent charge that the supposedly prestigious and authoritative IPCC based much of its recent report on melting glaciers on the anecdotal 'eye witness' accounts of environmentalists and naturist hikers, is the latest example of activism posing as science; and other than a handful of columnists, the story has been hardly touched by news reporters on this side of the pond.

My journalist friend thinks that the house of cards will inevitably cave in on the UN's IPCC: "Either the UN kills the climate change nonsense," he says, "or the climate change nonsense kills the UN. Do you suppose ... the UN (has) enough of a clue to see the handwriting on the wall yet?'"

You would think, eh?

Edited: 02/04/2010 at 10:30 AM by MarcoBeghetto

Lawfare is a term that's been getting a lot of play lately. These days, it mostly refers to those who employ hideous pro-censorship bodies like so-called human rights commissions to threaten litigation against anyone who speaks or writes anything they don't agree with.

But it's a tactic that's been used in the business world forever. Big corporations threaten to bleed dry small players in court until the big guy gets what he wants or, alternately, forces the small guy to back off of some sort of infringement complaint.

Ambassador Bridge owner Manuel (Matty) Moroun is no stranger to lawfare. By many accounts, he's been on both sides of the trench, and he doesn't necessary only go after low hanging fruit. He's battled federal governments in both Canada and the U.S., despite their (or should I say 'our') near bottomless pockets.

As this Detroit Free Press article explains , he isn't backing off of the legal blitz strategy, not even in these tough economic times, in order to halt the construction of a new public toll bridge in Windsor-Detroit.



The payoff might not even be that far off. There's increased concern among the pro-DRIC crowd and industry watchers that the budget-hamstrung state of Michigan could kill funding this spring, as it almost happened last year. (In the end, DRIC hung on after the Legislature approved a modest budget at the 11th hour, provided no money on construction would be spent).

In the meantime, Moroun recently bought a swath of land that overlaps part of the footprint of the proposed bridge site on the U.S. side. Transport officials say they aren't worried about the move, citing eminent domain as an option (something that, despite all of DRIC's good intentions, does not sit well with this libertarian blogger, actually). In any event, what would expropriating the land lead to? More court battles and delays, of course.

If nothing else, it's one of the most fascinating games of political chicken I've observed, pitting a reclusive billionaire against the State.

Perhaps, for the first time in a long time, I sense momentum could be swinging back Moroun's way. I also realize how strange that sounds considering just how much has been invested in the public bridge project to date and how how most people on both sides of the border think that a publicly controlled bridge is in the best interest of long-term CanAm trade.

But, as The Freep states:



Fire in the hole.

Edited: 02/12/2010 at 12:10 PM by MarcoBeghetto

By no means are the current HOS rules perfect, nor will they please every type of driver or carrier in all vocations.

But I think it's safe to say that they're generally acceptable for a wide variety of carriers and drivers and even original skeptics in the owner-op community have gotten used to them.

In fact, the biggest complaint I hear over and over again from drivers and owner-ops -- you know, the folks that the gadfly special interest groups, who trying to destroy the current HOS system, claim they are here to protect -- is that the rest periods aren't flexible enough.

Knowing their own bodies and sleep habits better than a Public Citizen litigator, many drivers want the split sleeper berth provision back which allowed them to split their off-duty rest hours in two periods of their own choosing (as long as one was at least two hours long).

Ironically, the DOT -- most likely in an effort to keep the special interest watchdogs satisfied -- dumped the split sleeper in 2005.

But throwing that bone didn't exactly work. The opposition in the form of Citizen, the Teamsters and CRASH kept coming, until their tenacity paid off with what I think is a much more sympathetic Obama admin.

There's been half a decade of truck-related (not faulted) crash figures that show fatalities and injuries have steadily improved in the last five years despite overall increased miles and congestion on the road.

And as we report today, truck fatality rates in the U.S. posted the largest ever year-to-year drop on record from 2008 to 2007. No doubt, another inconvenient truth the special interests will continue to ignore.

As I've said before, there's currently no qualitative data to confirm that the HOS rules are the direct reason (though, there should be), but clearly, anyone with any sense at all can conclude that they play a role, or at the bare minimum, are bolstering constantly improving safety rates achieved by other means, like better and safer equipment and technology.

There's rumors that DOT will cave in and 'tighten' up the rules -- perhaps even drop driving hours to 10 and alter the 34-hour restart -- but Obama's DOT needs to review the available data as it is rather than return political favors for the folks who got their boss the top job in Washington.

Edited: 01/21/2010 at 12:35 PM by MarcoBeghetto

In case some of you still think that Big Environment's interests aren't as political as, say, Big Business check out this interesting item out of Windsor today:



You can read the whole thing here, but basically the Sierra Club, which claims a new bridge would harm "species and habitat" along the Canadian shore of the Detroit River, is helping the owner of the existing, private crossing maintain his toll monopoly at the Windsor-Detroit Gateway.

For bridge owner Matty Moroun, God Bless him, he's well within his right to do what it takes to protect his business interests. In fact, I have to applaud his determination and creativity.

Here, though, is Sierra's take, according to Toronto director Dan McDermott: "For the life of me, I can't see why this project is attractive for government to fund. We need to move away from (vehicles) as a means to get around."

So, let me get this straight: Having only one crossing in downtown Windsor -- where on busy days a long queue of idling trucks can bottleneck along Huron Church, spewing diesel into residential air, is the preferred system, environmentally? Or, as I'll bet green-loving Sierra will argue, the lesser evil?

Odd.

Or, what of Moroun's own (possibly withering) hope to twin his Ambassador? Would that project not have similar environmental impacts; and will Sierra try to block that in court as well?

After the Sierra Club shows just exactly how and what species of ameba, or whatever, will be destroyed from the Detroit River shoreline, maybe it can answer those questions too.

Edited: 01/15/2010 at 01:36 PM by MarcoBeghetto

Tim Costello was a Boston native, long-haul truck driver who went on to become a labor advocate and respected author.

Costello, who died this week, was a blue collar, hard working trucker whose personal experiences with deregulated trucking and open markets also led him to become a union advocate and harsh critic of globalization.

You can read the complimentary N.Y. Times obit here .

As an aside, I don't agree with Costello's and other anti-globalization advocates' premise that open markets hurt workers here at home while exploiting the poor in Asia and south America.

While some on assembly lines and factory floors undoubtedly absorbed bumps and bruises, to argue that globalization, overall, hasn't made nations around the world wealthier while at the same time exponentially growing the middle class of poor, third world countries, is patently absurd.

To suggest, for example, that NAFTA hurt future generations of Canadians or that India was better off in the 1970s is something only the most old school of Marxists or balaclava-clad Seattle college kids still believe in.

Trucking sure still leaves scars. But 50 years ago, my grandfather could come to Canada and put scraps of food on the table by hauling gravel up and down some unpaved road.

Fast forward: Today, because of globalization and large scale consumerism, there's plenty of drivers that (with some personal sacrifices in all likelihood) can actually send their kids to university by doing essentially the same kind of work. On the face of it, I find that remarkable.

I don't post all this to take cheap shots at the departed. Costello leaves behind a far more important lesson than his economic views.

He did and thought extraordinary things from the inside of his cab. He had a great mind and he used all the time a trucker has to himself to his advantage.

His path is a reminder that there's plenty of learning and self-fulfillment to be done just before bunking for the night or during that hour while you're waiting for the dock manager to wave you in.

Edited: 01/07/2010 at 08:22 AM by MarcoBeghetto

The wretched 2009 year is officially behind us and while things are expected to chug along ever so slowly, the economy should awaken in the latter half of this year.

Of course, there's going to be plenty of obstacles and pitfalls along the way. Some will make you better, leaner, greener in the long run, while others are, well, simply a pain in the 'cost-of-doing-business' butt.

Be sure to pick up a print copy of the inaugural 2010 print issue of Today's Trucking magazine for a alphabetized rundown of the top issues affecting you this year and, likely, beyond.

Here's a taste from the middle part of the first-ever TT Alpha Log:

Best wishes to all my readers and contributors and your families.
This last year, in all likelihood, hasn't been the most profitable for most of you. Hopefully you've hung in there. Even better, if you've done it by standing firm (as much as possible) on your rates and services.

Here's hoping you'll see some light at the end of this recessionary tunnel in the New Year.

In the meantime, I hope the greatest trucker of all, Santa, leaves something special for the family under the tree this year.

God Bless.

In a report downplaying somewhat the net benefits of switching freight completely from truck to rail, I was glad to see that Noel Perry of FTR Associates also made brief mention (albiet indirectly) of made-made CO2's relatively minor contribution to GHG emissions compared to other pollutants.

Water vapor (which, like powerful climate-altering sun spot activity, is never factored into AGW modeling) makes up about 70 percent of GHGs, of course. But in this case, Perry refers namely to NOx (a real pollutant, by the way not just a politically classified one).

As Perry points out:



I'd also add, it's pretty much the only GHG that a legion of climate industrialists in Copenhagen are using (on dubious grounds) to completely overhaul the western world's economic-tax systems. Just had to throw that in.

Any way, Perry is right in suggesting that for rail to be truly environmentally superior to trucks, it would have to comply, as trucks currently do, with far more stringent engine emission standards governing soot and NOx output.

Edited: 12/17/2009 at 11:17 AM by MarcoBeghetto

Sleep apnea is the trucking issue getting the most attention these last few months.

As you can read in the current December print issue of Today's Trucking, U.S. regulators recognize undiagnosed OSA (Obstructive Sleep Apnea) as being a growing problem and plan to address it with a regulatory pen. Canada, it's said, will have little choice but to draft a "Made in Canada" version that passes muster with the Americans.

In all likelihood, ongoing treatment for OSA could be required to keep your CDL. There are several options, but the most mainstream right now is a Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) device. They're supposed to be effective, but can be bulky and uncomfortable for many people.

Upon seeing one next to his grandfather's bed, my five-year old asked his nonno why he "sleeps with a vacuum cleaner on his face."

Luckily, for more moderate, manageable forms of OSA, dieting and healthy eating can go a long way -- something truckers should try, with or without sleep disorders.

According to a recent Harvard Medical School study , sleeping and eating are intricately intertwined in shaping truckers' health. Addressing one aspect of your lifestyle, greatly improves the other:



Edited: 12/14/2009 at 10:03 AM by MarcoBeghetto

Say it isn't so! Climate change scientists are cooking the books in order to overstate the threat of global warming and perhaps, even worse, juke the stats to "hide the decline." By decline, of course, I mean the falling off of global temperatures during this decade..

I can't say I'm at all surprised (But more on that below).

For those of you who haven't been following this story out of the UK, someone apparently hacked into computers at the Climatic Research Unit in England -- one of the global warming research Mecca's in the world -- and collected 3,000 emails from CRU scientists. A bunch of them were posted on the Internet and, to say the least, are quite embarrassing for the global warming mongering movement.

Read the story here, complete with email examples. Basically, more than a few emails suggest that the scientists -- claiming to be under pressure from us right-wing denialist types -- consciously manipulated or "tricked" their data to better support their agenda; ignored evidence that didn't fit their theories; deleted material under request of the UK's Freedom of Information Act; and pressured scientific journals to blacklist dissenting scientists.



(You can click here for a more extensive view of the exposed emails).

Whenever I mention in conversation my suspicion that this stuff occurs routinely, I'm often asked 'why?' I'm anything but a conspiracy theorist, so I offer that the explanation is hardly Machiavellian.

What's happening in science -- particularly within the climate change movement -- isn't all that different than what pervades many other institutions -- such as media, education, and, of course, government -- when they are overrun or heavily influenced by lawyers, unions, NGOs and other interest groups (although I will say that the religious-like zeal affecting climate science is unprecedented).

Time and time again, we've watched, quite apathetically, institutions in the modern age pursue solutions in search of problems. Truckers, so very accustomed to redundant over-regulation, know this better than anyone.

There several forces at play. Behind the scenes, there's the overarching, Al Gore-types who lead the movement purely for profit. In part, they're lawyers who have recognized environmental law is a better bet than personal injury. They're unions who try to secure placement in new sectors as they fade in traditional industries. And the left-minded politicians and lobbyists who correctly view the movement as a perfect wealth-transferring vehicle.

Then, there's what I call the silent majority of processors. And, I must say, I sympathize somewhat with this group. They're the enviro activists that are truly interested in a greener world and climate change is the best chance they have to be heard; they're do-good scientists and researchers who understandably followed this discipline because that's where the grant money is. They're the bureaucrats who were just answering calls to fill up swelling enviro-based government agencies; They're the science teachers who are reading out the course material mandated by the school board.

Now think about them. The millions of them who are directly or indirectly tied to the industry. And think whether it's in their best interest to treat the 'evidence' that exists before them honestly, which is to say with a degree of skepticism.

There is another pillar among the processors: The media. While it's understandable a newly-named "environmental" reporter might not want to undermine the specific beat he was hired to cover, I singled these professionals out for a reason.

But National Review Jonah Goldberg's thoughtful response to the email scandal says it better than I could:



When trillions of dollars from the world economy are being siphoned off to fight man-made, carbon-driven global warming -- some of that money is directly your hard-earned money, dear truckers -- you'd want to think that the science would be sound enough on its own so that scientists wouldn't need to juke the stats. Wouldn't you?

I'm just saying...

Edited: 11/25/2009 at 10:14 AM by MarcoBeghetto

U.S. truck operators are under pressure to improve energy efficiency as rail companies tout their green credentials and bid to win more freight haulage.

That's the lede from this Reuters story. The article will give any fleet owner who'll have to spend 10 Gs more per smog-free truck in 2010 a nasty case of the eyerolls, but here's my favorite part:



Really? It's truckers that don't want to talk green?

From a purely economy of scale perspective, is rail more fuel efficient than trucking? Well, sure. Because rail, obviously, hauls a lot less freight and naturally utilizes less carbon-producing equipment. Keep in mind, as well, that trucks can safely get a lot bigger and thereby more fuel efficient per unit if governments allow it.

But from a broader perspective, it's silly to completely ignore that, while rail moves more tons of product per gallon of fuel, you're hardly removing any trucks out of the system. You're just shifting the freight from over-the-road trucks, to, eventually, drayage trucks -- more of which will be required to put freight on the tracks and take it off for distribution and then retail.

Sure, the hauls are shorter and engines running less, but you're also taking trucks away from where they're most fuel efficient -- the highway (where trucking routes are more direct than rail) -- and putting them in more congested stop-and-go, mega-idling situations.

Also, constantly missed by the media is how much more environmentally friendly trucks generally are than trains, considering the myriad of engine emissions and fuel regulations trucking has been made to comply with.

Rail, air and marine are way behind in meeting similar environmental standards. In fact, the latter mode has to be pulled kicking and screaming towards even the most basic pollution reduction benchmarks, while trucking is adopting-- many times voluntary -- new, expensive, technology like altfuels, wide-base tires, aerodynamic add-ons, APUs and hybrids.

Going forward, trucking gets greener at a rate no other mode comes even remotely close to.

Edited: 11/12/2009 at 01:49 PM by MarcoBeghetto

Today, there's not much else to say except 'thank you' to all the soldiers and their families who sacrificed for our country in the past and present.

There's been lots of noise this week about rail making a big comeback after Warren Buffett -- one of the world's savviest investors -- went "all-in" by putting over $34 billion down on the tracks.

While his confidence in the future of the general freight market should be encouraging to truckers as well, much has been made by freight analysts that, long-term, the scales could be tipping away from highways.

This interesting Forbes article says as much:



I believe many of these points, along with the fact that diesel prices will skyrocket once again, are mostly true. But what's missing -- and what's always missing whenever we hear about an inevitable rail renaissance -- is that the sector has been here many times before.

Fuel prices cripple truckers and related surcharges frustrate shippers every few years; congestion is mostly an urban issue and, arguably, more trucks would be needed at those major rail stops along the line to load and offload the additional freight; plus, trucks have been coping with far more stringent engine and fuel rules than rail for years.

Yet, over and over rail has failed to react. It hasn't been able to take advantage of similar friendly market conditions before; it's slow and inflexible and, in Canada at least, bogged down by union grievances all the time.

So, we'll see..

Edited: 11/05/2009 at 11:39 AM by MarcoBeghetto

The Obama admin seems willing to make friends with everybody from Hugo Chavez to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Except for Fox News and the Dalai Lama, of course).

Anyway, according to this revealing story from the American DC Velocity magazine, the Obama admin's FMCSA caved in to special interest groups because a senator loyal to unions was delaying action on the nomination of Anne Ferro as FMCSA Administrator.



I like the pick of Ferro for the FMCSA top job (and defended the nomination from some of the more excitable, misinformed media critiques), but is getting her the nod worth flipping the entire HOS regime on its head, especially as the industry has spent the last five years adapting to it?

No one knows just how the FMCSA will overhaul the rule, but you can bet it'll be significant (most likely involving revisions of the 11-hour driving time and 34-hour restart provisions.). One thing's for sure, though: If Public Citizen and the Teamsters don't like what they see in the rewrite next year, the government agency will definitely find itself in court once again -- something it's trying to avoid by making this deal in the first place.

I wonder if Ferro knew what the stakes were? Or did she just get thrown under the bus?

Edited: 11/02/2009 at 02:07 PM by MarcoBeghetto

Sometimes, it's not fun being right. Really. The new Obama-led DOT will reconsider the hours-of-service rules -- again -- and, as we report today, could quite possibly rewrite them, maybe from scratch, if long-time opponents get their way.

The handful of you that read this blog, might recall that predicted this months ago.



My theory was that after exhausting so much energy in Bush's second term, the left-leaning groups (to put it quite mildly) finally had an ideological ally in the White House.

Whenever I brought this up among industry types, more than a few politely brushed it off, insisting (quite logically, actually) that after five years the HOS rules were too far along, especially after evolving in reaction to a succession of court challenges.

My response, basically: Do not underestimate the ability of these groups and unions to cash in the political capital they have with this administration and other high-ranking Democrats, especially with the backdrop of an abetting media.

It's still early to say for sure, but that's what appears to have happened: The Obama admin has borrowed a page from its foreign policy playbook and eagerly caved in to former government opponents.

You know what they say about payback don't you?

The final price is anyone's guess, really. Who know? Maybe the rules will be safer for drivers and more efficient for carriers in the end.

I wouldn't bet on it, though. And considering how fiercely the 11-hour driving limit and 34-hour restart provisions were attacked , I wouldn't hold my breath that they'll be spared from the rewrite -- at least not like anything resembling their current form.

Just a hunch, yeah. But I'm good at them.

Edited: 10/28/2009 at 11:39 AM by MarcoBeghetto

So it's come to this. The government effectively controls what hours a trucker may sleep; the kinds of engines he can spec; what speed his truck should be programmed at (unlike anyone else on the road); and now, as I'm sure you read here a couple of weeks ago, whether he can smoke in the privacy of his own truck cab.

I'm no longer a smoker, by the way. But as I have argued many times, once you create a bureaucratic Leviathan state it's virtually impossible to ever scale it back. There are simply too many interests at stake: people's jobs; special interest groups' existence; and many lawyers to feed, just to name a few.

So, it was only a matter of time that some overzealous enforcement officer (in this case, a real OPP cop if you can believe there is no crime fighting to do or speeding BMWs to catch), pulled over a trucker and fined him for lighting up, despite the fact that Ontario's workplace smoking laws exempt the majority of truck drivers.

This isn't the first case either. Meyers Transport was hauled in by the smoking Stasi a couple years ago. The company quietly fought it up to high court, where the prosecution didn't want to touch the case.

Still, it obviously hasn't stopped officials from going after targets who are much less equipped to defend themselves.

It's on this note that I pass on an interesting prospective from a London, Ont. columnist. Read the whole thing here, but he essentially wonders whether people could theoretically launch a human rights defence for smoking, just like alcoholics and drug users have to be 'accommodated' for their addictions:



For the record, I have little time for human rights tribunals or their commissions, especially since they've overstepped their authority in recent years and with the utmost arrogance, have run over individuals' real, fundamental rights to free speech . If you've been following recent events, including the battles being fought by Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn, you'll know it's all very Orwellian.

I think our society has evolved far enough that we could have long ago done away with most of the investigative provisions in the Human Rights Act -- after all, we don't need the state ruling that a fast food employee has the human right NOT to wash her hands at work -- so, philosophically, I can't support most so-called human rights complaints.

Still, purely based on the protections offered to others, wouldn't it be fun to watch smokers, who are already treated like they're 'disabled' by everyone else, turn the tables around and start acting like they are?

Edited: 10/21/2009 at 11:41 AM by MarcoBeghetto

Just sell it to Woody Harrelson. Here's one environmental initiative truckers can get on board with, without having to feel like they got ripped off by Al Gore (more on that front tomorrow).



For kicks, read whole thing here.

Edited: 10/19/2009 at 12:26 PM by MarcoBeghetto

I don't mean to be insensitive, but this following story goes to show you don't necessarily need to be behind the wheel to endanger yourself or anyone else and there's little the law can do about it.

You can read the entire story here, but here's a snippet.



So then, does the nanny state ban cell phones and ipods for pedestrians too?

With all the chatter in Ontario and south of the border on banning everything from truckers' dispatch communications devices to CB radios, it's worth pointing out that there are literally thousands of ways to get distracted out on the roadway: Provocative billboards and bus ads, and the first wave of summer dresses to hit the street in late spring are just a few off the top of my head.

As my boss Rolf Lockwood said in response to this story, semi-facetiously (I think):

"I'd guess there are thousands more injuries caused to cell-using? pedestrians by irresponsibly handled bicycles than by trucks. So I vote to ban bicycles."

I'd settle for scrapping arguably overzealous laws that disproportionably target only a minority of the population, whether they're behind the wheel or not.

Edited: 10/09/2009 at 02:53 PM by MarcoBeghetto

It appears that The New York Times has taken a break from Obama worship. Too bad it comes at the expense of the trucking industry.

The Grey Lady (and probably getting greyer judging by its junk stock status) is taking exception to Obama's nomination for Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration top boss, Anne Ferro, who is former president of the Maryland Trucking Associations.

The editorial tsk tsks the president for going back on his word to make "a clean break" from appointing business-centric former lobbyists to high-ranking government jobs.

While acknowledging that Ferro's safety record includes some "pluses," the Times simply assumes that because Ferro is pro-business she must be anti-safety.

Ignoring the countless safety and environmental initiatives launched or backed by the ATA (from seatbelt campaigns and drug use crackdowns to advanced safety technology promotion, mandatory speed limiters and tougher carrier entrant standards), the Times focuses on ATA's mission to "thwart and defeat policies and programs needed to protect the public and promote the health and safety of truck drivers." Specifically, "the Bush administration's loosening of regulations on drivers' schedules and driver fatigue in defiance of considerable evidence of danger and two court decisions."

A few years ago, I sent a letter to a Times reporter who authored a feature that hit all the same themes, with the obvious attempt to paint the Bush Administration in particular as anti-highway safety.

I pointed out that the newest HOS rules (which he ran over via quotes from gadfly groups like Public Citizen and CRASH) originated as Clinton era rules. Bush's people basically put the finishing touches on a regulatory framework that began in the mid to late '90s.

This latest Times editorial repeats many of the same 'mistakes.' Like that previous HOS hit job, it also completely ignores the overwhelming road safety improvements in trucking over the last decade.



What "considerable evidence?" Surly the Newspaper of Record could be more specific.

In fact, most of the research (based on circadian rhythm science ) indicates the opposite is true. What's more, truck-related fatalities have fallen steadily since the new rules took effect in 2004 and are at this point the lowest on record. Is there a direct correlation? Unlike the Times, I'm not willing to make that conclusion without specific qualitative analysis even though the available data makes such a theory quite possible. But I think it's absolutely defendable to suggest that the HOS rule as it currently stands hasn't made the roads any more dangerous, as the Times suggests.

Plus, the Times' uses the oft-repeated stat of 5,000 truck-related deaths in the same way unions and special interest rabble rousers do: Without any context. The vast majority of those 5,000 "truck related" deaths are the fault of car drivers or no driving error at all, as we know. The same is true in most other parts of the world.

As well, the Times, with its limited scope, mischaracterizes the two court decisions to throw out the rules just after they took effect in 2004, implying that the judges agreed with the critics who insisted that the rules were dangerous. They did no such thing, of course. The rules were thrown out mostly on technical grounds related to the sleeper berth provisions and once that was corrected by the FMCSA (following up on a stern recommendation to include EOBRs in the rule didn't hurt either) subsequent courts rejected further challenges to the rule's other pillars, such as the 11-hour daily driving limit and the 34-hour restart provision. Again, the Times doesn't mention any of that, leaving the impression that the FMCSA is still in defiance of two court orders.

The Times reporter I originally sent that email to ignored it and offered no response to any of these points.

I wasn't surprised. And I doubt that on this occasion The Times will change its stance once industry groups make many similar arguments in the coming days.

This isn't your daddy's NY Times. This once proud newspaper has been reduced in recent years to coddling known plagiarizers in the name of political correctness; and lifting hearsay quotes from blogs and reporting them, unsubstantiated, in print as hard news.

Unfortunately, while it's lost credibility with many readers, the rest of the MSM still views Times editorials as gospel and recycles the same mistakes in pages and airwaves all over the world.

I don't claim to know an awful lot about every subject the NY Times covers, but I do know a little bit about this one. So, it begs repeating the same unanswered question I asked that reporter a few years ago: "What else are (they) getting wrong?"

UPDATE: (SEPT 30)

It appears that the NYT, regarded by most MSM journalist types to be the most respectable and influential newspaper on the planet, can't seem to stop making the most basic mistakes when it comes to the trucking industry.

Only days after the Times was blasted by me and others in the industry for its shoddy and probably biased coverage of the trucking industry's safety record ('mistakes,' as I point out in my previous post, that it's been making for years), it was at it again.

In this article on distracted truckers, another reporter skews truck crash data to portray the industry to be more dangerous than it is; and, as usual, ignores the context of those stats, which shows relatively speaking truckers are significantly safer than car drivers.

This time the ATA noticed too and apparently the group is getting the paper to print some corrections.

Maybe the next time -- the third or fourth time, by my count -- the Times will get it right.

Edited: 09/30/2009 at 02:36 PM by MarcoBeghetto

On the lighter side of things, I bring you this little blurb from the Hamilton Spectator. Local fleet owner of Fluke Transport, Ron Foxcroft, did on the golf course last week what most amateur golfers spend a lifetime trying for -- and he almost did it twice in one day.



Fluke Transport has one of the more clever slogans in trucking. On the side of its trailers it reads: "If it's on time, it's a Fluke."

I wonder if Foxcroft is going to stick it on his golf bag too?

The government agency that's responsible for overseeing so much of your business and collecting a share of your money apparently doesn't have the checks and balances to and least spend it properly.

This story today from the Globe & Mail shows that the Conservatives didn't learn much from Ad Scam, the Liberal boondoggle and money-laundering scheme of a few years ago.

Granted, this Transport Canada business isn't as conspiratorial, nor does it involve high profile cabinet ministers and political operatives like Ad Scam did, but seeing that Harper's Conservatives were elected in a minority status because born and bred Trudeauopian Canadians felt they had to punish the 'naturally governing' party, you would think they would be extremely diligent about keeping an eye on this kind of abuse.

Despite my obvious political bent, I'm not a party partisan. Just as I think it's totally creepy to wear a T-shirt of a president or other national leader, I'm uneasy with being a paid-up, card-carrying member of any political organization. Besides, they always disappoint anyway.

This is precisely why people like me have a hard time voting for any Canadian party. Strip away the rhetoric, and there's little difference.

Anyway, that's something to think about the next time part of your fuel expenses heads off to Ottawa.

Speaking of which: What happened to slashing the diesel excise tax in half, Mr. Harper?

Any functioning society needs independent interest groups like Public Citizen to keep an eye on and report mismanagement and corruption in government and even the corporate world.

The problem is when monitoring food safety or coal mining standards isn't enough and the so-called 'citizens' watchdog -- like any other over-lawyered institution trying to justify its own existence -- becomes too self-indulgent, powerful and political itself.

Public Citizen, the leftist 'consumer protection' group founded by Ralph Nader has a new leader. American carriers, a favorite target by PC, and Canadian cross-border truckers that have to play by American rules, should be wary.

It's not just his anti-capitalist, grievance-mongering biography that should be disconcerting for any trucker who believes in the free market (after all, that sort of so-called 'progressivism' is exactly what the top job at PC entails), but that, unlike his predecessor, Robert Weissman has a very sympathetic ear in the White House.

Weissman's penchant for victimology and "responsive law" and pledges to lobby for reformation of NAFTA and mandating a national 'climate change' initiative speak directly to fellow travelers in this administration and Congress.

Throughout his life, Obama has been way too comfortable associating with some of those who walk along the leftmost fringes of his party, although I'm not suggesting Weissman is in that camp, necessarily. That hasn't changed (far from it), despite his winning campaign platform to transcend race, partisan politics, and ideology.

The Department of Transportation has successfully(ish) fought off PC's six-year assault on hours-of-service rules. But if we should give PC credit for anything, give them big points for tenacity.

I'm not convinced the battle over HOS is categorically over (and the fight over NAFTA and LCVs is just beginning). If I'm right, are you betting Obama's DOT will hold the line as it has until now considering the political capital that groups like PC have with this administration and with the president in particular?

Edited: 09/09/2009 at 08:50 PM by MarcoBeghetto

It could only be a Kennedy who would have enough media attractiveness to steal the not-so-figurative halo from President Obama.

Reading more than a few obituaries on Ted Kennedy, the once-disgraced, cowardly lion of the U.S. Senate, I was disturbed (but not surprised considering the fawning media these days) at how few of them even bothered to mention Chappaquiddick, which surly, an objective observer would suggest, is the most significant chapter in Kennedy's personal life.

OK, Beghetto, get a grip. What does Kennedy have to do with trucking, right? Well, the mention of Chappaquiddick is just me taking my shot since so few others will, but it's quite true Kennedy's influence on North American trucking is both significant and underappreciated. And on this note, I'm complimentary.

Kennedy was instrumental in deregulating the interstate trucking and airline industries. Canada eventually followed suit six years later, in 1987, and as a country, we're better off for it.

Despite all its dog-eat-dog repercussions, deregulation has allowed more people to feed their families through this great industry and, more importantly for society at large, the policy has made most goods affordable for just about everyone.

As the libertarian, free-market Reason magazine states in an otherwise critical obit:



RIP

Edited: 09/03/2009 at 01:13 PM by MarcoBeghetto

PBS will air a special Blueprint America report tomorrow night which is said to examine the viability of freight movement in the U.S., and by extension, North America.

I don't know if many of you get American PBS (incidentally, I do through my HD cable package), but if you do, look for a segment titled 'Who Pays the Freight?' It will supposedly focus on whether taxpayers should continue investing in "highway infrastructure that's crumbling and bursting at the seams," or "redirect freight traffic off congested highways onto more environmentally friendly and fuel efficient trains."

Gee, I wonder how that "debate" is going to go?

Edited: 08/27/2009 at 02:01 PM by MarcoBeghetto

So, let me get this straight: First it was cars and trucks we weren't supposed to drive, or planes we couldn't fly on, in order to stave off global warming- conveniently-turned to-climate change. (Unless, of course, you're an A-list celebrity whose feel-good side projects involve traveling around the world in private jets and stretched limos to preach to the rest of us what we need to scrap from our lives -- and technology poor nations shouldn't attempt to adopt in the first place -- in order to save the earth).

Now, according to this Canadian 'environmental consultant' we should skip steak and eat vegetarian, not because it's good for you, but because it's good for .. drum roll please ... the environment.



On his own, Carl Duivenvoorden says he'd never dare raise the spectre of the environmental impact of meat. So he uses a "source far more credible": Ah, yes, a United Nations report entitled Livestock's Long Shadow. Because the UN has been so trustworthy peddling its 'consensus' on climate change in the past, right?

As part of the reasoning that livestock is bad for the planet, the report suggests..



OK. But what about the fertilizer and other 'inputs' involved in planting? And how about the additional petrol-based energy it'll take to clear-cut, cultivate and plow more tracts of land? Did the IPCC consider those factors? Umm, no -- just like it completely ignores the sun spot activity theory (a far more logical theory than human-produced CO2, I might add) in the variable global temperature debate.

Of course, there's also the methane argument -- the one that states that methane gas from livestock burps or flatulence is a far more harmful GHG than carbon. That's true, as even this "environmental reporter" admits (BTW, how the heck is there any unemployment when we keep inventing jobs in the 'environmental' sector?)

As the reporter so cheekily puts it:

(You gotta' love the British media for just wearing their stripes on their sleeve like that. I actually respect it).

Still, the truth is that the concentration of methane in the atmosphere has hardly budged since 1990.

Environmental guru Carl Duivenvoorden knows we won't stop breeding, trucking and eating beef entirely, but he suggests we eat too much and should "adjust our intake."

No thanks. I'd eat rare grilled steak for breakfast 6 days a week if my wife would let me. And, quite frankly, only she (and the doctor who tells me my heart is about to explode) are the only ones who have any sway with me. Al Gore and the legion of growing environmental regulators and lawyers sure don't.

Edited: 08/24/2009 at 02:24 PM by MarcoBeghetto

Surf around Youtube and you'll find dozens of videos of drivers doing really dumb things -- most of them drive small four-wheelers, of course. But let's not let spoked two-wheelers off the hook.

Check out this video. There's countless like that. You may want to keep them handy the next time some whale-kissing, Toronto Star letter-writer starts complaining about 'dangerous trucks' on the streets.

I'll leave you with that until after next week. Like half the fleet of an automotive carrier, I'll be parked along the fence for a while. Take care.

Edited: 08/14/2009 at 10:31 PM by MarcoBeghetto

Much was made way back when Dubya chose to visit Mexico rather than do the traditional Canadian voyage for his first international trip.

While Bush certainly didn't have the friendly relationship with Canada Bill Clinton or his father did, Obama certainly isn't interested in improving things. As I've argued before, this administration seems warm to advancing a two-tired border policy, and surprisingly enough, it's the non-drug-cartel-controlled nation that seems to be getting less love.

Take two U.S. protectionist polices affecting both Canada and Mexico: Buy American and the decision to scrap the Mexican truck border program. Obama now claims he wasn't in favor of either law (although he, just like Jack Layton, campaigned on 'amending' NAFTA), and he says the rules are the drawbacks of "hastily-passed" packages.

[As an aside, there seems to be far too many gargantuan, "hastily-passed" packages that no one in Congress, including the President, even reads anymore. These gross, pork-filled bills undermine democracy, which alas, is sort of the point for politicians and bureaucrats hell-bent on creeping statism.]

Anyway, Obama's public responses to both policies at this weekend's NAFTA summit in Mexico are telling. On the Mexican truck issue, he promised Filipe Calderon a resolution and his administration officials have been working on a new cross-border proposal for weeks.

As for Buy American, Obama doesn't see it as a big problem at all considering what the two countries already do in trade. Translation: Suck it up and be happy with what you have.

Oddly enough, Halton Hills mayor Rick Bonnette, who spearheaded a municipal campaign to get Canadian products included in Buy American, applauded Obama's message because, well, it's the first time "the President acknowledged that there is an issue."

Humm. That's kind of like being giddy that the girl you have a crush on in high school finally talked to you -- by pointing out the big zit in the middle of your forehead (not that that's happened to me, err -- much).

Completely lost on the Mayor is that Obama admitted that, yes, it's an issue for us Canucks, but he's totally cool with it -- or at least cold to the notion of applying pressure to repeal the provisions.

PM Harper is still holding out hope that there is room for amendments in Buy American to allow individual provinces and states to work out their own procurement agreements. It's a topic he plans to bring up with Obama in future meetings. Meanwhile, a draft resolution along these lines is the works.

My advice to its Canadian authors: Make sure it's 1,500 pages long, full of legalese, has lots of references to the environment and is generally unreadable. It'll get a pass by American rulemakers faster than Obama racks up deficits

Edited: 08/11/2009 at 02:02 PM by MarcoBeghetto