The Source for Trucking News, Opinions and Trucking Jobs

The title could also be Moron Fuel Strikes! I received this comment regarding my post about a strike for fuel prices and didn’t delete it for a couple of reasons. Mainly to show I don’t mind people disagreeing with me, but to call me names without backing it up is just stupid.

To back up my position (again) that striking for fuel prices is the wrong way to go, I want to point out a couple of articles from Canada –

MAY 1, 2005
OBAC Urges Owner-Ops To Say No To Cheap Freight

OTTAWA, ONT. (May 1, 2005)
– Responding to the recent protests and road blockages in the Vancouver
area, the Owner-Operator’s Business Association of Canada is advising
its members that blockades and protests will have little, if any,
impact on fuel pricing, and serve only to alienate truckers from the
communities they serve.

“Rather than clambering after governments to cut fuel prices,
owner-ops should be focusing their attention on the real problem –
inadequate haulage rates – and going after their customers to start
paying what it costs to have their freight moved,” says OBAC chief
Joanne Ritchie. “Tax exemptions and rebates are band-aid solutions when
what’s needed is open-heart surgery.”

These are watershed times, Ritchie says. With strong economic growth
driving increased demand for trucking services and driver shortages
squeezing capacity, there’s never been a better opportunity to improve
the rate structure.

“There’s plenty of evidence that customers are
willing to pay more to have their freight moved, and the vast majority
of shippers are paying surcharges to offset skyrocketing fuel prices,”
she says. “If owner-ops aren’t seeing the benefits, their carriers are
either not collecting appropriate surcharges or are not passing them
through to the contractors.”

They go on to explain how to run a business.

Read the rest of this entry »

Originally posted 2005-05-10 12:00:24.

If it’s such a good idea, why try and hide it?

Fredericksburg.com – Let’s debate, now, the president’s border schemes.

         Larry Johnson Date published: 6/21/2006
   
   

I would like to see Congress do something proactive for the people of the U.S. for a change, instead of covering their collective backs after the fact.

For instance, how about debating Bush’s commitment to a North American union, featuring the Trans-Texas Corridor–a 400-yard-wide privately owned toll road and utility corridor that will literally divide America in half, from ports in Mexico to Kansas City for the first leg.

The first Trans-Texas Corridor segment of the NAFTA superhighway is ready to begin construction next year.

The billions involved will be provided by a foreign company, Cintra Concessions de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S.A. of Spain.

Where is the support or opposition from Congress? Why are they sneaking this past the American people?

A good reason Bush does not want to secure the border with Mexico may be that the administration is trying to create express lanes for Mexican trucks to bring containers with cheap Far East goods into the heart of the U.S.

A foreign company helping build this and push this forward? I guess Congress and the President think we’re too stupid and jingoistic to realize what a great idea this is. I’m glad there’s someone that is looking out for us! You mean they’re not? It’s only for power and money and more power? Huh! Who would have thought?

Tags nafta superhighway

Originally posted 2006-07-02 03:00:00.

Today’s Trucking: News

“The Ontario trucking industry is deeply concerned about the looming crisis facing our industry as a result of a shortage of drivers. Our driver workforce has been aging for some time because fewer and fewer young people have been choosing the trucking industry as a career or have been prevented from doing so by restrictive insurance practices that deny insurance to younger drivers. As the older drivers retire, there have not been enough younger drivers here in Canada to take their place,” said OTA president David Bradley in a press release.

Somebody is probably making the same excuses here in the U.S.
Read the rest of this entry »

Originally posted 2008-06-05 08:36:02.

In my opinion Swift is one of the root causes of where the trucking industry is today, they take advantage of new drivers in a big way, they’ve been known to black-list drivers that wanted to leave.

Company fined $14,450 for rig on bridge (phillyBurbs.com)
Swift Transportation Co. of Phoenix, Ariz., was fined $14,450 on Wednesday because one of its drivers drove a 28-ton tractor-trailer over the deteriorating, 3-ton-limit, canal bridge on River Road in Upper Makefield, police said.

Probably close to 40 tons on a 3 ton bridge. I’ve been lost before, and Philly or anywhere in PA isn’t a good place to be lost in. Or maybe someone told him to go that way. In any case, you get what you pay for. (Cheap pay for inexperienced drivers.)

Originally posted 2008-08-24 03:30:00.

This is the trade show I picked up in Vegas and took to Garden City, CA (south of LA). One shows a flatbed being loaded while the other shows a bulldozer on the left loading the end dumps with trash and debris. This is all inside the Sands Convention Center. I’ve driven inside herebefore. Trucks have to drive inside because there are no loading docksand no space to load outside the building.

Originally posted 2006-02-24 18:12:54.

And this is supposed to save who money? I thought the whole idea of this was to bypass the ports in LA to save money. Between ships from China traveling further, the truck traveling further and now this really expensive toll road.

Truckers could pay $216 in Trans-Texas Corridor tolls
If the first leg of the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor is actually built paralleling Interstate 35, it could be a very expensive toll road for big trucks.

The Waco Tribunereported that the Texas Department of Transportation’s master plan calls for charging trucks 58.5 cents per mile.

If that were the case, it would cost $216.45 to run the full 370 miles of the corridor – nearly four times what four-wheelers would pay.

A manager with Old Dominion Freight Lines told the Tribune the company plans to send its trucks on the existing I-35 and avoid the tolls altogether.

Four-wheelers on the Trans-Texas Corridor would pay 15.2 cents per mile.

It’s not about saving money, it’s about destroying America’s sovereignty. I knew this before, this only confirms it.

Originally posted 2006-12-06 08:22:47.