DOT and the State Boys have gone Mad!!!!!!!

With West Virginia's unemployment rate at around 7% and the largest private employer being Wal-Mart since 1998 with an avg wage of $9.98 an hour it aint to hard to figure out that they have to make up tax revenue from somewhere.

At one time there was a young Kentucky Commercial Vehicle Enforcement officer that would hang out close the the stockyard in my hometown and stop framers in pickups pulling groosneck trailers if they were loaded to see if the cattle they were hauling was theirs or someone else's. Many farmers got tickets for hauling someone else's cattle even if they were just helping a neighbor out. No matter what they told him he still wrote them a ticket for Hauling for hire without Operating Authority. Some he even weighed and wrote a few over weight tickets. Anyone who fought the ticket got them dismissed but he still wrote tickets for almost the whole summer. This stockyard has a restaurant inside of it and he was bold enough to eat lunch there from time to time, the last time he did he either forgot to check to did not check to see if his doors were locked and someone put a rather large amount of cow dung in his curiser. After that day that was the last time anyone seen him in this county.

 

A while back a KY newspaper had an article on DVE ticketing local contractors with one ton pickups . Once they hooked up to any trailer they were a CMV and had to meet all the requirements . Most tickets were dismissed but the drivers had to be compliant by the time they got to court . The DVE was an independent agency until the new governor made them a division of the KSP last year . Supposedly that would result in less patrolling by them and more revenue from scale inspections but I haven't seen any difference .

 

Randall,

That is one stupid officer. Not that I like more paperwork, but you should have called his supervisor for that one. Doing dumb things and making stupid comments are uncalled for. Yes when I get a pompous ##### who acts like a fool, he will get it back the same manner in which he gives it. Some people need to be spoken to in that manner, it is all they understand. You can say sir, ma'am all day and try to be nice but they just don't get it. Yes I have had to come down to their level so they understand or when someone escalates the contact from talking to screaming or wanting to go hands on, I'll step it up one level higher to control the situation. But this doesn't sound like the case with you. I will B.S. with driver's I stop and most, not all, start the B.S. Some driver's I stop have an attitude from the beginning and I barely speak to them. The other driver's have been very polite and courteous. Some start to B.S, even when they know they are totally wrong. Had one last night blow the scale, overweight, log three days back, no seatbelt, bad tires, etc. I stopped him, first thing out of his mouth, "I'm F'd up, I know it and I'm sorry." I can deal with a man that is honest and doesn't start lying about everything under the sun. I did the inspection, and ended up talking to the guy for over an hour about everything and anything. Yes he got two citations, but they were the smallest citations we write, total was under 80 dollars. Could have been around $3000 if wrote for all violations. Guy had numerous questions about his log book and other regulations that he was misinformed about. Yes I did tell the guy about this forum, hopefully he can get some other information he's not sure on.

 

Here's a clue as to how we did it: If a driver treated me as human I did the same. If you treated me like dirt, I did the same. We had 206 bones in our anatomy just like you after all.

If you were getting a citation I treated you like a gentleman/lady, but I must also admit that it took great restraint sometimes. If I issued a warning I'd tell you that if you ever did it again I'd throw the book at you.

From a retired federal DOT official

 

West Virginia is where I'm at. I own my own truck, and I hope to see things turn around here also. Most all of oour timber is sawed, not grinded as I suspect yours is. Alot of our timber is large and primarily used for furniture or vaneer, also alot gets shipped over seas. Right now we have about 12000ft of nice cherry logs stacked and cant sell them, and as I said the prices on everything else has dropped way down, except for pulp(wood used for osb,plywood) ,and we have a quote for like 40 sum ton a month for that, which comes to about 2 loads, now as for the hard wood pulp, around here 1 load a week, can truck it into PA and haul all we can cut but the distance and price paid per ton, well, you would be lucky to break even. Worst part is the log buyers are telling us the worst is yet to come, They think the months of jun/jul will be the worst do to the bark peeling off the logs as they cant set on them very long. As it stands right now our buyer can only buy 8000ft of oak a week, and they will not buy a cheery log no matter what grade it is. As of this week do to the weather here I have not moved my truck, things are getting very tight up here, I fear the worst is yet to come for us in the north. Coastal lumber has shut down several mills here and alot of other big co. are on there way out, Im sure you have heard of Weyerhaeuser, well their peeler plant up here is not recieving at all. I spoke with a forester of theirs that told me they have enouph in their yard to saw 1 load a day for 9 months and then they are done. Thats a huge co. my friend! And they cant get orders. So I dont know what to think right now. May have to go back otr

 

Here is a clue as to how I DO IT:If a DOT treated me as human I did the same. If you treated me like dirt, I try to keep my mouth shut. We had 206 bones in our anatomy just like you after all.

If I were getting a citation I treated you like a gentleman/lady, but I must also admit that it took great restraint sometimes. If I got issued a warning, I'd thank you. And as for "Getting the book throwed at me", I would do my best to catch it, and make it up on the next round. That money has to be madeup somewhere! My wife just showed me the art of "COPY AND PASTE" arent these contraptions just wounderful

 

Holy molly...at one time cherry would sale between 3 and 5 dollars a foot here. I noticed last week one of the saw mills here looks to have all but closed. Looked like they might have had two truck loads of hard wood logs on the ground.

An old timer told me years ago when lumber is moving it will be good times for every one and when than close down you better keep your chickens in the coop cause times are gonna get hard.

 

That's what happened in Tennessee back when. What was that, about 15 years ago that TN did that to eliminate the "good ol' boy" network?