Detailed Info
Industry Scumbags: Government
Oh, the Government, the same Government that’s supposed to help and protect us, especially since we’re the only reason America is able to survive, but all they seem to do is make life worse, not just for truckers but for all Americans. Let’s start off by stating the obvious: the Gov doesn’t care about the OOSC, as long as the loads keep moving. That’s a very important distinction: as long as the loads keep moving. The Gov cares about the MC’s because they have their lobbyists greasing the palms of the politicians, so the Gov treats them as if they represent the whole trucking industry, but they don’t. Not even close. Let’s talk numbers:
- Trucks move about 72.5% of America’s freight, so our trucking industry controls 3/4 of America’s lifeline!
- The trucking industry earned a whopping $1.36T in 2022 and it’s rising! That’s $1,360,000,000,000! Did most of that money go to the OOSC?! Of course not
- There are about 3.5 million employed truck drivers and about 400,000 owner operators in the U.S. as of 2021. We have the numbers on our side!
- 91.5% of trucking carriers in the U.S. operate with six (6) or fewer trucks. In addition, 97.4% operate with fewer than twenty (20) trucks, showing that the vast majority of U.S. trucking carriers aren’t owned by large companies. We have the numbers on our side, but are not united in our efforts to control it. The OOSC should control the US trucking industry and should be profiting from it the most. The only way to control our industry is to join forces, which is where the Owner-Operator & Small Carrier Alliance (OOSCA) comes in!
- Based on the numbers, we wield all the power, but aren’t organized to use it to our advantage. You better believe the Gov knows this but is not on our side, but when have they ever been on anyone’s side but their own?! In any case, I’m sure most of you have seen this or at least heard about it, but let’s quickly talk about what the trucking industry represents in the US:
If our trucks stopped moving:
within 24 hours:
- Medical supplies deliveries would cease
- Hospitals & Pharmacies will run out of supplies
- Fuel stations will begin to run out of fuel, with no more fuel deliveries coming. Super long wait lines will form, and the price will skyrocket instantly
- Manufacturers will run short on supplies needed to produce their products
- Mail and package delivery services will cease
- Food shortages will begin to develop
within 2 to 3 days:
- Food shortages will happen all over, especially in the face of hoarding & panic. We all remember the toilet paper fiasco
- Essential supplies like bottled water, powdered milk and canned meat will disappear from store shelves
- Banks & ATM’s will run out of cash and banks won’t be able to process any transactions
- Fuel stations will completely run out of fuel, including diesel for our trucks
- Garbage trucks will also not be able to run, meaning garbage will start to pile up everywhere
- Container ships will sit idle in ports
- Rail transport will come to a standstill
- Theft, Crime & Murder will be everywhere from now on! Hopefully you’re a member of our Armed & Ready Club, in which case you should be just fine
within just 1 week:
- Most cars will not be able to drive due to lack of fuel, and fuel theft will happen often
- Hospitals will run out of supplies, including oxygen
within 1 month:
- Clean water supply will be gone
- Illness will greatly increase, further taxing an already weakened health care system
Scary thought, but not all that impossible, or even unlikely. As you most likely already know, grocery stores, like most stores, operate on a just-in-time inventory system to save on storage costs, and would therefore go out of stock of everything in just 3 days (most likely much sooner) if trucks stopped driving, not to mention medical supplies, ATM cash (which would become pretty worthless pretty fast), fuel… garbage would pile up, packages would go undelivered and even water treatment plants wouldn’t have the chemicals they need to make water potable. Hospitals would run out of supplies and medicine, not to mention pharmacies, and doctors and nurses may care more about being home protecting their families than going to work. You get the idea, total collapse of our way of life. Our whole civilization rests solely on our shoulders, but are we being treated fairly or even respected?!
Scary indeed, but let me get back to the point I made earlier: the Government doesn’t care about the OOSC, as long as the loads keep moving. Let’s face it, we all have to survive so we’re taking as good of a load as we can get just to attempt to pay our bills, which keeps the loads moving and the shippers, brokers & the Government happy.
But as long as the loads keep moving, the Government doesn’t care about the OOSC. If they cared, we wouldn’t be paying outrageous money for diesel or they would actually enforce the law and regulate the brokers a little bit to make them show their profit on every load, as per the law. I don’t think that’ll change anything because that still won’t stop them from taking our money, but that’s just me. It doesn’t help the bank to know how much money the robbers stole.
What about when they instituted all these emissions systems in our trucks that don’t work at all, except to line the pockets of all the repair shops that are half-assing repairs but charging hard-working truckers an arm and a leg, while not caring if we have to spend weeks waiting to get our trucks even looked at and then just patching up the problem so they can get paid and hope the truck can make it a couple hundred miles before breaking down again with the same issue, but being far enough from the original shop so the truck can’t come back?! What’s the point of all these American truck pollution regulations anyway?! America barely contributes to global pollution. While America is the world’s largest economy by a wide margin, it produces less than 14% of global pollution, and most of it isn’t even coming from trucks. Our Gov likes to pretend like they’re changing the world, but they’re doing nothing except duping people to vote for them. Climate change will have to be decided by impoverished nations like Asia (including India) and Latin America, by poor people, who couldn’t care less about climate change, because they’re poor and they’re worried about where their next meal is going to come from more than pollution. How can you make a person with no running water and an outdoor poop hole in the ground care about pollution? But those are the very same people who are, by far, responsible for most global pollution.
What about this new thing with adding trailer side underride guards to protect the idiots in cars so they are safer when they run into our trailers?! Or what about them trying to increase the legal weight limit from 80k lbs to over 90k, which I’m sure shippers and brokers won’t wait to exploit and will immediately result in higher repair and maintenance costs to us! Or what about the article I read that says cops are now giving out tickets to truckers who are eating while driving?! I can’t take a bite of a sandwich or drink water or coffee and drive? How is that any different from driving a manual truck with one hand on the shifter?! Anything to make a buck off the people everyone relies on to survive.
All the Government knows how to do is regulate us to death, by a pencil-pushing imbecile who’s never stepped foot in a truck, but thinks he knows how to run it better than the veterans who have millions of miles under their belts, not to mention putting all truckers into the same category to run under the same rules. No offense to anyone, but how can a 75 year old get tired at the same rate as a 21 year old from driving 11 hours?! Doesn’t seem likely. Also, does every single person need 10 hours of sleep per night? What if a driver is just not able to sleep more than 5 or 6 hours per night? What if he doesn’t want to take a shower and has food with him in the truck? Why does he have to waste an extra 4 to 5 hours of their day because some random guy in Washington said so?! I know you can split the sleeper birth time, but that adds a whole other set of issues which we shouldn’t have to deal with at all. The other side of this conversation is the drivers having to drive when they are told, according to the ELD, no matter if you’re tired and falling asleep. A driver can be tired, but has to drive because the ELD says so. We can’t listen to our body anymore, because we have this thing plugged into the truck that supposedly knows better. That means even if the driver is tired but the ELD says he has to drive, he’ll have to or risk losing his job or load or business. This is extremely dangerous, not only to us but everyone else on the roadways, and the Gov’s own accident research data proves it! This isn’t a conversation about the ELD or any other Gov shortcomings, however, once the OOSCA gains strength in numbers, I have a plan to make trucking the way it’s supposed to be and go after the Gov and their pollution regulations, HOS, ELD and so on! They’ll have to listen because if they don’t, I’ll refer them to that “what if trucks stopped running” section. They’ll have no choice, but to listen.
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