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.

I get treated like dirt and looked down on like I was lower than scum.

It could be worse, I’m not wearing a name tag slinging burgers or a mop somewhere.

I have nothing, but I owe nothing.

Society needs me. Not every driver can be home every day or every weekend. I work weekends and holidays like they were any other day.

I can help someone in trouble along the road, I can kill a family of six in the blink of an eye.

Kids look up to me as their parents drive by cursing.

I’m tied between government regulations and trying to keep the customer happy and still make a living.

I can see the wonder and excitement in kids eyes as they stare upwards towards the cab, their arms pumping up and down pulling imaginary air horns, wanting to hear the real thing.

I am part of a culture that everyone sees, but no one understands.

Truckers still have that same mystique and romantic image of cowboys of long ago. Just like cowboys, people see the best of the job. The travel and adventure. The handling of a massive piece of equipment like it was another limb.

And like cowboys they don’t see the boredom and loneliness. The long hours, the hard work and small pay. I don’t get paid much, but I work a lot so it adds up.

The road turns from being a driver’s passion to a driver’s addiction. Just like any other addiction, it’s a love / hate relationship.

I have a several million coworkers, yet I work alone.

I am cursed when driving too slow, I am cursed when I’m driving too fast.

I am feared, I am respected, I am hated and despised. But I am still depended on to help others when asked.

I am King of the road with ethics of the Knights of the Roundtable. Yet I am looked on as killer and vagrant.

I am not responsible for my coworkers. But, when one of us makes a mistake, it is a mistake done by us all.

I am blamed if something is not on the store shelf. But I don’t get credit when the shelves are full.

I cause the accidents, I prevent the accidents. I can save a life or take a life.

No one watches over my shoulder, but I still have tremendous responsiblity. I am my own worst critic and slave driver.

If I made a list of positives and negatives about this job, the negatives list would be ten times longer then the positives. But I love the positives so much that the negatives aren’t that important.

My coworkers like myself, are independent, yet dependent on one another sometimes for survival. Most times just for companionship.

My mistakes can make the evening news. My accomplishments are taken for granted.

I have abandoned the material and “normal” world. I have nothing, yet I have everything.

I have not abandoned society. I work in order for society to be what it is, yet society has abandoned me.

I am not religious, yet I am incredibly spiritual. Seeing all the wonders of life as well as all the death and destruction, one can not help but believe there is someone higher and someplace better. I firmly believe that
I am unconditionally loved and forgiven in spite of the wrongs I have done. That Jesus died in order for me to have that love and forgiveness.

I have that love and forgiveness, understanding and acceptance in heaven. A little of that here on earth would be nice. I am finding out that finding someone to share the above mentioned life and to give that love and acceptance unconditionally must be asking even God too much. If it happens, it happens. If not I’ll still survive.

I am, and try to be the Simple Man. A man with honor and integrity. A Simple Man that knows the difference between materialism and realism and the importance of relationships. All relationships.

The importance of people and those relationships are first and foremost. The relationship of family and friends, to the janitor or waitresses. I feel that I treat everyone with the respect any human deserves until given reason not to.

Wayne Weisser, Driver.

Originally posted 2008-05-18 08:35:26.

Since we live in Vegas and were on the road, our house was empty and we offered it to the boss and his family. When we came home we still shared our house with them. We had stayed with them when we were in town (in the old HQ) so it was only right we open our home to them since it was empty or we had the space even when we were home.

It’s a small but growing company. A few trucks has turned into about 25 with a brokerage and now a warehouse. It’s been a lot of work and he has been very open about everything. A HUGE education for myself. I’m definitely happy with what we are doing and am positive we made the right choice in who to drive for.

I’m sure all CEO’s start out with the same vision and intentions of treating everyone right. If that changes I’ll be the first one in his office to let him know.

Originally posted 2006-06-02 21:27:00.

MORE ON EUROPE’S POROUS BORDERS
When Poland and seven other former Soviet bloc countries joined the
European Union in 2004, Tony Blair’s government assured the British
public that the country would not be flooded by job-seeking migrants
from the East. At most, ministers asserted—at most—Britain could expect
around 15,000 additional immigrants per year.

Not for the first time, a government’s math has proven wildly, grotesquely wrong…

Sarkozy is an astute politican who understands that positionning
himself as an advocate of tighter borders makes the best electoral
sense. But he is also right: Europe will never get control of its
immigration mess as long as individual member states continue to use
amnesties as a way of making up for temporary labor shortfalls.

A lot of those Poles and Eastern Europeans made their way into American Trucking.  I love this story from Canadian Trucking telling about a German fleet owner looking to buy a trucking company in Canada, check out his reason for leaving Germany.

Guten Tag Canada! German truckers look for fresh start in the Dominion

TORONTO — Reinhard Hollenhorst, owner of 25-truck fleet HTI Spedition
in Munster, Germany, has gotten to the point where he believes he’s
seen the best trucking days Deutschland has to offer.
 
Thinking
of closing up shop and starting new somewhere overseas, Hollenhorst
sent his daughter Anja and associate Thorsten Schaefer on a scouting
expedition to Southern Ontario earlier this summer.

Worse, adds Thorsten, is the EU, which takes heavily from the
pockets of German taxpayers and businesses to subsidize the enrollment
of new, poorer, nations into the union.

Leaving are big manufacturing companies that move to cheaper
countries in Eastern Europe and Asia, and arriving in return are a
flood of truck drivers from those nations who Anja says are
cannibalizing the rates.

"The Russians, for example, will send their drivers and they don’t
go home for four weeks. They work in lots of European countries for
very cheap," says Anja. "At the moment you have lots of businesses
saying ’should I work? Why should I work?’"

It’s only a matter of time before American Trucking is plagued by the same or worse regulations and a flood of drivers. Replace the EU with NAU and this sentence …EU, which takes heavily from the
pockets of German taxpayers and businesses to subsidize the enrollment
of new, poorer, nations into the union. Who do you think is going to be subsidizing the poorer nations in the NAU???

Originally posted 2006-10-10 10:30:00.

For one, it’s not my taste in music, they play mostly old style country and old trucking songs. Between songs most of them take callers. This is usually the part I can’t stand, people that call in use their CB handles and it’s mostly just a late night redneck chit-chat / bitch session.

That was probably fine back when most listeners could only listen late at night on a hand full of super AM stations that broadcast throughout most of the country. Back then the trucker population was different then it is today.

Now there are a lot of immigrants from all over the world, there are more women and the age group has gotten younger as the truckers from yesterday have aged and are close to retirement. More drivers are driving school graduates and not from the generation that learned how to drive on their daddy’s knee. Personally, I would have loved it if my dad was a trucker, but he wasn’t and I had no other choice than to go to school. Driving school graduates in general are looked down upon by the ‘old timers’, but that’s another blog.

All three are on XM satellite radio and are on all times throughout the day, not just late at night. I feel that someone should change their format to relate to more drivers. Cut out the music and the free-for-all chit-chat format and have a more technically and industry oriented talk show. I understand it would be difficult for the late night shows to have industry type guests, but the times that I have heard Bozo have an occasional guest, they have been excellent shows.

I will listen once in a while just to hear the commercials for the trucking products. All three are fine shows, but trucking has changed and someone needs to step up to the plate make a change in their format. If nothing else, keep people on one topic at a time, have an information filled discussion then go on to the next topic. And cut down on the chit-chat.

Originally posted 2008-05-20 08:37:09.

I almost prefer some toll roads over some of the interstates. Ohio for instance lowered their rate for trucks and increased the speed limit on the turnpike and the Ohio service plazas have plenty of parking with pretty nice showers inside. And stopping in Illinois every four miles to pay a toll drove me up a wall! Now it’s hit the I-Pass lane and keep driving. Besides, it’s too cool when I pass everyone else waiting to pay a toll.

I know how to avoid most of the turnpikes, but usually it’s just easier to stay on the interstate and avoid the small towns and traffic lights. My time is worth something too! Except for the Northeast and Chicago where I usually get extra money for tolls, one toll road in Oklahoma or Florida isn’t going to matter over the course of 2800 miles. Plus it saves me from carrying a a lot of cash with me and now I get monthly statements instead trying to keep track of a bunch of tiny receipts.

And if you’re wondering, from left to right – Colorado (Okay, I’ve never been on E470 yet!, But just in case!), Oklahoma, Prepass, E-Z Pass, Florida, Kansas and California (for the Bay Bridges).

Originally posted 2006-08-07 16:48:02.