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We need to stop passing out bear reports over the radio. We only help the criminals among us. People that excessively speed usually tailgate and are probably behind in their logbook or have multiple logbooks. Why are we protecting these truckers?

I’ve heard the stories of people getting a 56 mph ticket in a 55 mph zone. I honestly think those are rare or if they did get one, it’s because the cop showed mercy and dropped it from what they were really doing. I am definitely not perfect. I’ve been stopped and I’ve gotten tickets, all deserved. That was mainly when I first started driving and I was ignorant like a lot of drivers. Thinking that the faster I drove meant the more miles I drove, which meant the more money I got. I have learned since then that’s not how you make money in trucking.

If a driver is being forced by the company or owner he drives for to rush to his appointments, he should drive for someone else. If a driver gets a ticket, the company is only going to use him until he is unusable then give his truck to someone else. He then has a record and no one will hire him.

Why do drivers still break the law for the companies they drive for? If they get caught or are in a wreck the company isn’t going to protect them and everyone knows this. Yet, everyone still does it.

One reason why people buy their own trucks is so they can drive faster than the company trucks they’ve been stuck in. If an owner-operator is driving too fast, it’s for the same reasons that company drivers drive too fast. They all think they are making more money by getting to their destination faster. That may be true. But you reap what you sow. Eventually it will catch up to you. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but someday you are going to get caught or worse, be in a wreck and hurt or kill someone. The troopers will find all your logbooks, find out your receipts don’t match, pull your qualcomm and cell phone records and you lose. You lose your truck, your job, your house, everything you were driving so damn fast for.

Why should the rest of our insurance rates go up to pay for the idiots among us? Why do we protect them? I actually heard on the radio the other day, someone saying that even slow trucks need to know where the bears are so they had time to move over to the other lane and go around them. That was about the dumbest thing I ever heard. How much warning do you need to change lanes?

The CB is still a good tool without bear reports. In between all the other crap, you can sometimes hear of wrecks, backups and weather ahead. I will tell other drivers of road conditions in a heart beat. I usually say there’s nothing to bother you if you’re driving right. That usually throws them off and they ask someone else.

So while we’re all running compliant in June, let’s stop protecting the drivers that aren’t so compliant. We should let law enforcement do their job and root out the unsafe drivers among us that continue to give us a bad reputation.