How did we get here?

We are still hammering out a letter that will be posted here shortly.....we are sending it to eveyone...media....senators and reps....the white house....and we will try to include email addresses so that more mad monkeys can join in......
even if it is just rattling the cage....let them see how pissed off this monkey is!

 

I am writing this on behalf of my industry, we are truck drivers and over the road truck drivers and we are in dire need of help and a strong voice to get us heard. We need a voice that stands out beyond the crowd and the voice that stands out is that of the media,senators,state representatives and our governors.

I have listed most of the many big problems that we drivers face and deal with everyday. Please read this and try to help us with as much as you can. I tried to explain and not just list the problems in hopes of a better understanding in order to get the attention of those that can help to do something in order to make some changes for the good for us drivers.
We truck drivers are in great hopes that if our word gets out and we are heard that maybe some changes can be made. Many drivers out here think that no one is going to listen to us or no one in the media will air or print any of the problems that we are facing out here on the roads.

We are the heart that pumps the blood through the veins of our economy and our nation and we are ignored and treated worse than animals. Animals have more rights and are treated with more respect, dignity and humanity than we are. Animals have more of a voice than we do as no one listens to us or asks us for help or our opinions. When changes come up and if we are given the option to give our input many of us do not even know about it or have the information we need to give our input. We simply do not matter to anyone any more. However without us our nation will totally collapse.

So many decisions, Rules, regulations, fees, fines and laws are laid before us on a daily basis and no one ever takes us as a human into the equation. No one asks us what we think or what we need or what we want and again when we are asked many of us are not even aware of it. Not enough is being done to make sure that we are heard and given the choice to tell our side and our input. We are not informed of what is going on or who or how to contact anyone to make our own case. Everything is forced upon us and we have no voice. We simply have to shut up and take it. Are we not the ones out here on the road knowing what we have to do deal with and live like?

If we stand up and try to fight for our rights and our needs or voice our opinions or if we talk about a strike we get fired and lose our jobs. Or the government threatens to open the borders to allow the Mexicans in to drive our trucks. We need to be heard our story needs to be told. Someone please come out here and talk to us not just a few of us but allot of us. Listen to what we have to say. hear what we have to live through and deal with out here on a daily basis and report it on the air give us the voice that we need. Maybe even take a week and go on the road with one or more of us truck drivers and see and experience it for yourself.
Most of us are being forced by our companies and even by some states not to idle our trucks. Some of these states say that we can not idle our trucks for more than 5 minutes at a time and must be off for a certain amount of time before we can idle again for another 5 minutes. Most of the companies out here tell us that we can not idle for anymore than 30% a week well that 30% can be used up in just an hour.

We as drivers out here do understand most of the reasons that some of the states have put these laws into place, But the states need to realize we are not the only ones out here on the road and us truck drivers are not the only cause and we are the only ones being attacked. Not to mention that these trucks are our homes our shelter and where we live and sleep when we are out here on the road. However the companies that are forcing these rules onto us are doing so to line their own pockets.

The people that have made these laws in certain states or rules in most of these companies Do they go home and turn on the heat when it is cold or the a/c when it is hot? Do they get into their vehicles with out running the heat or the a/c? If they are stuck some place where they have to wait for any reason do they shut off their vehicle and suffer in the climate conditions? Do they sit in an office with the heat or the a/c on? These trucks are our offices as well as our homes.

We are out here we are working and being forced to live under these inhuman conditions both by certain states and most of the companies that we work for.
In the winter it is cold and in the summer it is hot. What no one takes into consideration is that we live in these trucks these trucks are our homes as well as our work place not to mention that we are human. I would love to own my own truck and not have to drive for a company but I cant afford to pay my bills now with what little I make out here let alone to be able to save up to purchase a truck. This is the same situation with many drivers that would like to become an owner opperator.

We can not simply just run a fan or a small portable heater because our trucks will run out of battery after just a couple of hours. We can not just leave our windows down due to safety reasons not to mention bugs and rain. We simply can not just go stay in a motel room for one it is expensive and 2 we can not and are not allowed to just leave our tucks in a parking lot especially not when it is loaded. To be fair, Some companies will pay for idle air service, but the problem being that there are not that many idle air services out here on the road and sometimes when we are lucky to have found one they are full. The other problem with that is that some of these companies that we work for only pay for certain amounts of time such as 8 hours a day and up to 40 hours in a week some even less. The problem with that is first we are forced by law to take a 10 hour sleeper break everyday. That is 70 hours a week, far off from the 40 hours the companies will pay for and allot of times we are stuck sitting without a load for days and if we run out of hours we have to take a 34 hour reset break by law. So what good does 40 hours of idle air a week do for us? Yes it helps some but it sure is far from enough.

Everyone claims that all of the log laws that have been put into place are for the safety of us drivers and for the safety of others that are out here on the road...
If we are told to and forced to sleep in the heat or in the cold how can we as drivers be safe if we are tired because we cant sleep in these conditions? Sometimes the states and some of the companies will make exceptions in extreme weather conditions such as if the cold is around the freezing point then we can idle. but even with that some of the companies will still terminate you for breaching the 30% idling rule they force on us. There are even some companies that will not only terminate you but also charge you for idling over the 30% that they allow.
If you are in 78 degree weather it gets 10 to 15 degrees hotter inside your vehicles will you be able to sleep comfortably? or if it is 50 degrees outside will you be able to sleep in the cold? and not get sick?
We do not always get to sleep at night due to when we have to pick up or deliver a load so sometimes we have to sleep in the middle of the day so in the summer months when it is 80 degrees outside and 120 inside our trucks or in the winter when it is freezing we are told that we have to deal with it and we have to try to sleep under these conditions.
We are in our trucks 24 hours a day 7 days a week most of us are out here for a month or more at a time before we get to take our home times for a couple of days.

So many people have a false belief that truck drivers make allot of money... This is not so. If you watch t.v or listen to the radio you hear allot of commercial ads for truck driving schools that state that you can make 60 to 80 thousand dollars in the first year. If this is true I want to know where and with what companies especially a new driver with no experience. Not to mention that several companies that just a couple of months ago would hire new drivers are no longer doing so.

Most of the companies out here are paying drivers anywhere from less than 26 cents to 42 cents per a mile and allot of the drivers out here are only getting anywhere from 1200 to 2000 miles in a week. that is 312 to 840 dollars per a week. If you take the time that we spend in our trucks or even just the time that we spend while we are under a load we are making allot less than minimum wage. even just pennies per hour. Talk about sweat shops.

We drivers are responsible for anything that happens to our trucks and our loads while we are out here on the road. we are stuck in the truck 24 hours a day making sure it is safe and driving it from one destination to the next. We are paid allot less than we are worth and for the work that we do and the amount of time that we give of our lives to these companies.

Most of us out here are barely getting by and not making enough to pay all of our bills each month and some of us are not making it from one paycheck to the next. So many owner operators are loosing their trucks as they can no longer afford to make the payments on them. Many of us are loosing our homes and cant even afford to rent a place to live and we are completely living on the truck and take our time off in motel rooms or staying with family.

The cost of living out here on the road is very high and only getting higher. We do not have real refrigerators and stoves and ovens in our trucks to help cut the cost of living out here and eat in our trucks we have to eat out all of the time and most of what we end up eating is fast food that is both not healthy but very costly.

If we have a load to pick up at lets say 6a.m. and the shipper does not get us loaded until noon we have to sit there and wait many times without pay. And most of the companies that do pay for waiting/detention pay only pay after the first 2 hours and then it is only a few dollars at that. Yet we are also still expected to make the delivery on time. We give allot of free work time to our employers not by choice. It would make things so much easier on us drivers if they would allow us to stop our clock for situations such as these. Let us stop our clocks if we are stuck waiting somewhere for at least 4 hours or more, but no more than 1 time within a 24 hour period.
Sometimes we are sent to deliver a load to a city or an area that does not have much to no freight causing us to be stuck waiting for days to get a load and again with out pay as most companies will pay layover pay but not until after the first 48 hours and then it is depending on who you work for anywhere from 25 dollars to 50 dollars per day of layover pay and again only after the first 48 hours of layover will we begin to get paid and be expected to sit there the entire time without idling our trucks to be comfortable and safe in our homes. Not to mention that some of these shippers that we get stuck sitting and waiting for hours to be loaded do not allow us drivers to use or provide any rest rooms or even portable restrooms so that we may relieve our selves.

If you come out on the highways at night you will find allot of drivers sitting on the on and off ramps due to the fact that there is very limited parking for us truck drivers out here. In or around many cities especially the major cities in our nation it is hard to find any place to park our trucks and most of what you will be able to find is paid parking in the bigger cities.

Allot of the companies that we deliver our loads to will not allow us truck drivers to stay on their property for the night or even a few hours until we are to deliver the load to them. Parking is a major issue out here and it is only getting worse.
Many of the truck stops that are out here are very dirty inside and out. Most of the truck stops do not have enough restrooms for the drivers to use. Many of them do not have enough if not any trash bins for the drivers to dispose of their garbage. And allot of the the truck stops do not keep up on emptying the trash bins and they are always overflowing.

We are always lied to by our dispatchers and load planners. Not to mention that there is a major lack of communication from our dispatchers. Most of the companies out here have forced dispatching meaning if we are sent a load we have to take it. Sometimes it is a load that is impossible to make on time if we run legal to our log laws. So many of us run illegal for that reason. Then we also have the situations that when we are sent to pick up a load and it takes them longer than 2 hours to load us it causes us drivers to be shorter on hours available to drive on our logs and pushes us to run illegal.

Allot of the trucking industry problems especially for the owner operators are the brokers as they are taking larger and larger percentages of the profit from the loads giving less and less to us drivers out here. someone needs to make laws and rules against them and cap the amount of profit that they can make off a load and make it less than what they are taking from the drivers now. To many owner operators are losing their trucks and this is one of the biggest reasons, also due to the fact that the bigger freight companies are forming alliances to get all of the freight as cheap as they can trying to strangle out the owner opperaters and smaller trucking companies. Hurting our economy even more.

Many companies out there are putting false information on our DAC reports and many of us are not even aware of it until we apply for a job and are turned down due to the information that is on our DAC reports. These companies are getting away with destroying many driving records as well as some drivers ability to gain employment as a driver and we are basicly powerless to do anything about it.
Many special intrest groups are changing alot of the rules laws and regulations in this industry to get what they want to profit them and it hurts the drivers the owner operators and smaller trucking companies. Forcing and pushing such things as speed limiters and OBR's. That are not only extremely expensive but are going to create major problems within the trucking industry and cause alot more owner operators to loose their trucks and small trucking companies to go out of business.

yet another posting of our letter....the monkey is on the loose!