Truck Load Rates Halt 8 Week Slide 2.0

If so, then the whole safety / FMCSA thing is a joke. I should have gotten that glider Cascadia a year ago, when I had a chance, and make myself exempted too.

 

ELD was never about safety. It was to “level the playing field” at the ATA put it. Notice how the ATA doesn’t care about the current exemptions? How they don’t fight against them?

 

Exactly right. This is the driving force behind all regulations and the powerful lobby groups that are behind them. Congress doesn't just decide to do an ELD mandate from the kindness of their heart and good conscious.

The exact same thing is happening right now before our very eyes with the speed limiter mandate. The ATA and other powerful moneyed interests of the mega carriers are pushing for this unsafe, unnecessary anticompetitive regulation that does not affect them at all. They want to limit small carriers again.

 

They're doing the same as before the mandate right now and holding out until late. The ELD mandate is effectively null and void right now. There's a LOT of trucks out there using the covid exemption on ELD for essential loads. Tyson loads conviently have it noted on the BOL. Lots of foodstuff loads the BOL's are like that.

 

On another subject, filled up my personal truck today and paid $4.55 for regular here in NorCal. Looks like the current administration is getting their way and we'll soon be over $5.00 per gallon. They want to make electric cars look more attractive. Good luck with that.

 

U.S. All Grades All Formulations Retail Gasoline Prices (Dollars per Gallon)

From what I see on this graph, gas prices are not related to who is president. The graph is actually pretty close to how I remember prices were at those times, so I don't think an evil government agent altered the website.

 

Normally that would be true, but the last administration had a huge impact on the oil futures market by greatly increasing US production and making us the biggest producer of oil in the world. We flooded the world market with our oil and China was buying a lot of it. Almost daily in the news, there is a story of how the current administration is freezing oil leases and stifling US oil production. There was a story just today about him doing that in Alaska. Obama and Biden both made it very clear that they want to put fossil fuels out of business and pour trillions of dollars we don't have into green energy, something that will ultimately destroy our economy and that of most countries in the process. You may not call that evil, but you'll have to excuse me if I believe that it is.

I also couldn't help but notice from the graph in your link that during the Obama administration, the average price of gas ranged between $3.50 and $4.00 whereas during the Trump administration it was ranging in the $2.00 to $3.00 range. Coincidence? I think not.

 

After looking at the graph closely for a second time, I've determined that he's also coming for your guns.

 

Speed limiters would be only another pain in the ###. I can easily see blockages for miles when two idiots are trying to pass each other at 64 mph and 4 wheelers passing them on the shoulder out of desperation and anger when their patience is overtested.
65 mph is a doable speed imo but not being able to go higher is just idiotsm and unsafe in some cases.
The problem is that we don't really know which limit they want us to be limited to. There are lunatics who would want us to go back to 55mph.

I still worry more about their attempt to increase the auto liability minimum. This could be a killer for many of us, not to mention new entrants. Make no mistake here, even if you can manage paying premiums for higher limit in auto liability now, while the mandatory minimum is $750 000 and standard is $1000 000 for the majority of carriers, it won't be the same when the mandatory limit is increased by 3 or 4 times. Even the insurance carriers are not able to predict the impact of such a drastic change.