What did YOU do?

Well, here is is Sunday morning. The shutdown started a week ago and already most drivers I've spoken to in the past two days are heading back out tomorrow. We made a lot of fuss, and then it came time to to show up and speak up no one did. WV state police were planning on 600 - 800 trucks for the hillbilly convoy, fewer than 100 showed up. The convoy to Atlanta was planning on 250 truck, how many were there? I heard estimates of 50 - 75, what happened? My grandma has a saying that is so appropriate here, either poop (not her word) or get off the pot. If you're unhappy, tell the whole world. You don't need to come here and vent, WE know how bad it is.

I have offered to publish a newsletter that would be e-mailed to any driver, o/o, leased, company, farm or toyota camry. NO ONE acknowledged my offer, I was on 6 different chats at one point, no one answered. WE need an organization to provide communication and to speak for as many of us as possible, short of that, we need a central connunication, one which I offered to provide since it is something I do professionally anyway. Everyone wants a solution, but no one want to be the mechanism to make it happen.

I did THREE interviews on Tuesday. I was so sick I could barely talk, but I did THREE interviews, what did YOU do? I made over 250 phone calls, EVERY member of the senate, all the state reps from Georgia, the governor of GA, the big four presidental candidates, the WHITE HOUSE. WHO DID YOU CALL????

One more time, I am willing to put together and e-publish a newsletter addressing out concerns and "demands". We have to work together to make any difference. If we choose to sit and wait for everyone else to work, the we have and will continue to fail.

Bea Hall
Newington, GA

 

Basically I addressed 3 issues that some of us on one of the other boards had discussed for several days.

1. There must be access to contracts through brokers. We deserve to see the contracted price and fuel surcharge. If we contract a load at 85% and the load pays 1000 plus 200 fuel, then the driver should expect 1005 dollars for the load.

2. Investigaton of fuel prices. What has happened in the past year to cause prices to almost double?

3 No cheap freight. How can freight only pay $1 a mile as it did 5 year ago? Saying that increasing the cost of freight will increase prices is stupid I'm sorry. If a 53' trailer is getting paid one dollar to deliver 2000 cases of toilet paper, then even doubling the price to $2 will raise the price a negligable amount, NOT $2. A head of lettuce will NOT go up to $7, UNLESS everyone adds their own $2 to the cost, which makes no sense.

Everyone I spoke to last week listened to me, asked intelligent questions and made me feel like I was being heard.

Oh, by the way, I was not able to speak to anyone in Obama's campaign. I called probably 10 different numbers, starting with his headquarters and got answering machines and no answer. I did speak to a young lady named Stacey who admitted that she was a high school senior who was "just answering the phones and taking messages."

Bea

 

Mostly I hate to say they listened. The thing is, even if all they did do was listen, they are now at least aware that there is a problem, although anyone who drives should know that by now.

As for your 2 responses, you're lucky since you book your own loads. However, there are a lot of folks out in the world who are leased to companies who continue to only pay $1 loaded, $0.85 empty and $0.73 bobtail. Not everyone can run under their own authority for many reasons. In this area, we have a huge loggind industry. Not only are loggers jerked by the timber companies, they are stalked by DOT and now some of the yards are starting to charge them to deliver if they are over 84,000.

Unfortunately, there is no easy solution to the problem. Trucking is such a vast industry, with so many entities (the big 4, smaller companies, leased drivers, indys and co drivers) that coming to any consensus in going to be virtually impossible. The only other thing I can think of that comes close to the variety of entities is baseball. You have A-Rod and the t-ball league in your home town. Yeah, the rules are the sames, but the execution is vastly different.

I just hope that truckers can come to some community and support each other, whether they shutdown or just become more vocal about the situations.

Stay safe out there!

Bea