Is it my imagination or does it seem like Minnesota has a high percentage of shady companies?

Well I reckon there were quite a few folks that recently got out of the very profitable day care/“learing” center industry that are looking for a new business that can be run shadily so probably a few of them will take up trucking businesses

 

It's not the laws that favor them, it's there is a large immigrant community they can take advantage of. If you look at a lot of the hot spots for shady 1099 there are also large amounts of immigrants.

 

Rumor has it Minnesota is small potatoes compared to California. But Cali just passed a law banning the kind of citizen journalist investigations that exposed what we're seeing in Minnesota.

I have to think it's bad pretty much everywhere. Politicians love spreading money around to make themselves popular. Rush Limbaugh used to say politics is just show business for ugly people.

 

Everywhere has "shady" companies. Some of them are foreign owned, others are American owned. Everyone is about to come on here and rant about foreigners, but it ain't just them. The laws allow for anybody to start a trucking company, even if they know nothing about trucking or business. Perhaps your questions should be pointed to the root of the problem. It's too easy to do everything in trucking.

 

I don't think the problem is that it is too easy to do things. It should be easy to do things. The problem is ineffective enforcement of the rules we have. For example how you're suppose to be able to speak English to drive a truck; or how illegal aliens aren't even suppose to have a job, let alone a job driving a truck.

 

So let's go with what you're saying... if one can't speak English but can get a CDL, wouldn't that mean that it's too easy to get a CDL? Many truck driving schools are 3 weeks to get a CDL. You just memorize what to say during the pretrip part, show you can control the semi, and boom. You've got a license.

Also, how hard do you think it is to start these companies? Pay a few fees, taxes, etc and you’ve got authority. Sign a lease agreement with a company, you can play the role of owner operator.

The very thing(s) you, and many others fuss about ad nauseum....this whole immigrant thing, the illusion that all foreigners don't understand English, the over- saturation of drivers on the road, the danger on the roads, the narrative of the driver shortage, and you're telling me that it's not attributed to how easy it is to get a CDL and/or authority? You can't enforce anything that's loose to begin with man.

 

But the examples you gave are examples of non-enforcement. You can't pass a CDL exam if you don't understand English, so somebody wasn't doing their job.

Why should it be hard to start a company if you are legit?

What rules do you want?

 

Hey, like I said before.....the foreigner thing don't bother me. The shady company don't bother me. I don't really have a problem with the industry at all. CDL exams came in different languages so what was there to be enforced? That powers that be created that pathway.

As for starting a company, again, I don't really care one way or the other. Drivers don't have to work for these places if they don't want to. The only thing about starting companies is that it's so easy to do so that chameleon carriers pop up. It's only recently folks have begun talking about that. Thats been going on for as long as I can remember. Everyone turned a blind eye to it because Americans were doing it. Once foreigners saw the loopholes and took advantage. I ain't mad at em. Like dude said on a show before, you gotta get ahead of things to impact change, and our leaders are wayyyyyy too far behind.

As for the rules I want, maybe longer, better quality training. That's the only real flaw I see with the industry. You've got a lot of under-trained drivers out here and it gets the most exposed in the winter time and one mountains.