Protesters are making OOIDA work harder.

I have watched OOIDA since I bought my first truck in 1976. That was a couple of years after Mr Johnstone started his little enterprise. Genius he was, selling insurance in a market that had little or no bargaining power up to then. So far so good.
Then he branched into financing, marketing deals with suppliers, dealers, OEM's, always taking his cut.
One tends to forget that he was the all time champion of "deregulation". It was going to happen anyway, but his vision of letting a driver haul freight directly for a customer, and cut out the usual lease to a carrier or "trip lease" as it was known before 1982 has gone badly for owner operators.
Their absurd stance on ELD's put the icing on the cake. After wasting several years in a futile effort to stop them, then they zero'd in on changing the underlying HOS rules. Too late.
Take the whole broker thing. Either the free market is good, or it isn't. Johnstone/Spencer wanted minimum regulation, well, now you have it. You can't have it both ways.

 

I don't think ELD's are worth a toot from a safety standpoint. But the political reality was they were on the FMCSA wish list for over 20 years and inevitable.
Imagine this conversation during congressional hearings during the debate:
Senator Blowhard: Let me get this straight, you are using a pen, carbon paper and a ruler to keep track of how many hours this man has driven and where he has been.
OOIDA: Yes sir.
Senator Blowhard: And this procedure hasn't changed since 1938 correct?
OOIDA: Yes Sir
Senator Blowhard: And you want to continue this process. Can you still even buy carbon paper?
OOIDA: Yes Sir. From the Chinese.

It was a ludicrous indefensible position. And it made them look like fools. Finally 5 years later, no thanks to OOIDA we are getting some HOS reform due in September.

 

Ooida has done more than any other Organization for Truckers. They’ve won a lot of Lawsuits. Won Truth in Leasing reforms. I don’t care for any of their insurance schemes. Always overpriced. All in all, I think they’re pretty good. At least Someone’s doing more than just complaining. Given a choice, I’d rather be a Teamster, and just turn the key. But Power and money corrupts people. If Ooida gets too Corrupt, I’ll drop my Membership. Meanwhile I’m still a Teamster. Got the withdrawal card, ( cost me .50) to prove it. Lol. Neither has much to offer Me. As stated, can’t have it both ways. I’m Independent for a reason, and don’t expect much from anyone. At what point are you no longer Independent? They’re good for Lease Operators, made a Bussiness out of it. I can do without either one, Teamsters or Ooida.

 

They tell us ELDs are because we need safety in the industry.
Well if that is the case how come they give exemptions to certain segments of the industry?
Take for example bull haulers exemption.
The cattleman’s association successfully argued to Fmcsa that it would not be humane and livestock couldn’t be sitting for 10 hours with out food or water so they would be in constant violation if they had to run an eLog.
So Fmcsa answers the claim by acknowledging that in order for bull haulers to not sit for 10 hours they need to be able to cheat the hours of service laws.
There has been no hours of service law change for livestock hauling but they can use paper logs.
So Fmcsa knows dam well the paper logs are being used to cheat the hours of service regulations and yet elects to look the other way.
But it’s all about safety right?

 

If they can afford all those lights, they can afford animal care on their 10.

 

I know, still I’m a member of both.