Black Smoke Matters

I'm a member on there and really the only way its gonna make a difference is if half the entire trucking industry shutsdown and try to prove a point.. at any given time there are 100,000 drivers that take weekends off... Christmas probably 1mil plus took off.... 500,000 of that 1mil are company men who are actually happy with their jobs and dont really see the need in protesting...
I hope it does do some good though

 

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Thanks for that great post! I believe you've nailed it with both our need for "BETTER PR" and how funding it will be difficult... especially the dollar$ part. Lots of folks like to sit/stand around today and complain, but they're not willing to take action and do anything to solve the problem(s). However, since there are some motivated people (like yourself) willing to speak out and get-it-done, we might just be able to gain some positive ground on this issue for our industry.

Needless to say, I hope you'll stay active with this growing group/movement... your ideas could be a key part of improving the trucking industry.

TRUCKERS KEEP AMERICA ROLLING!
----> ---> Let your voice be heard with 'Black Smoke Matters'
on Facebook @ BLACK SMOKE MATTERS

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Not seeing anything in the news about it happening and Google maps shows green on the traffic.
Anyone know if more than one truck showed up?

 

Considering the staging area is the Marion Pilot, only 6 trucks could get in there, so everyone else just kept rolling

 

Yeah it’s allright. There’s three things that deserve more of a rally; alongside hos
•restructuring CSA, where it is completely private away from brokerages and insurance companies (or at least restructure the point system where it’s not skewed against small carriers.
•Mega fleets are helping create the bad image and the unsafe environment in trucking by letting anybody be a trucker who raises their hand. We have trainees training trainees out here. A higher minimum training standard with higher leveled trainers is needed. Or even going back to the minimum of 3 months tech college, with a month of that just in the classroom learning the regs. Then going out, once hired, to be with an on the job trainer for a another three months. (Something along these lines, not all this fly by night 1 week truck school, then go to a mega to be “trained” by someone with 6 months experience himself type of stuff)
• BETTER PR. BETTER PUBLIC RELATIONS!!
All this shutting down on the roads is just making us look like an eye sore. I’m all for it, and it makes me happy to see us come together, but shutting down on the roads just reiterates our reputation of no good, cigarette smoking rebels of the road. Who would want to work with US? And change the name please! How can a group be taken serious when it’s just copying all these other overnight groups. Change it to “Black Smoke Delivers” or something. Because we’re not focusing so much on that we matter (because we do), we’re focusing on what we deliver. Be original and work on changing people’s perception on the trucking industry, the good and it’s flaws. Work on making America understand the devotion, the lifestyle and the training it takes for Black Smoke to Deliver. Maybe then will more people start to care about what is that could make this industry better.

(@Summit View Trucker this is not ALL intended at you, just a piggyback from your link)

 

Essentially herding cats.

The first big strike call I remember was when fuel was 2.00 a gallon for the first time.. The morning of 9-11 I fueled at a number that pretty much was ignored at that pump. Company paid it without complaint. But I tell you that was the worst timing ever for fueling. (Something around 7 dollars a gallon give or take... times 300+)

2.00 a gallon on up that year long ago the trucks rolled.

I worry about a big enough problem happening that will stop millions of trucks, then our Society will not be one after a certain period of time. You cannot find that many drivers willing to choose to stop long enough for the Nation to really feel the starvation. That wont take long in places like NYC. 10 million demanding bread inside a week.

We are a free country, anyone have something to say well... that's fine. There are all kinds. I just choose to try and be in a position that if something really big did happen we will cross that bridge when we get to it.

Last I counted there are about 400+ Cities in the USA, thousands more of towns and so on. That's why we have millions of trucks. Before that we had railroad into every little place until the Mail contracts were stopped permanently.

 

I'm all for a shut down, on one condition. The organizers of the shut down need to lose the lunch counter mentality, and actually put some thought into what needs to change and who's responsible for making that change.

The emphasis on the ELD is a fool's game. Anyone and everyone with a brain knows the only problem with ELD's is the underlying HOS and the inflexibility of those rules. Saying the "ELD mandate cost us money!" is merely admitting we weren't following the rules to begin with! The reason we're in this mess is because everyone involved from the trucking side acted as is if everyone was already running legal, when we all knew that wasn't the case.

You have to understand how bureaucrats think. The rules they make up are a box. Follow the rules, you're inside the box and a safe driver. Outside the box? You're a hazard to the public. Doesn't matter how many millions of safe miles you might have running on the fringes of legality (i.e., your book 'looked' right,) to the bureaucrat, you're outside the box and unsafe. Our demands need to be not about the box, but about the dimensions of that box. Not the ELD, the HOS.

The ideas on driver training and enforcement uniformity are definitely worthy of redress. Making harder to get a DL would save a huge number of lives, but it's not politically viable, and unlikely to ever happen. And getting enforcement standardized (CVSA has been a huge help in this regard,) more than it is now would probably require all inspectors to be Federal employees, and I'd just as soon not bloat the government any more than it already is, plus there's constitutional issues with states rights with that idea.

But this one: "Truck Parking availability with security and necessities (food, restrooms, showers) as citizens are provided." This demonstrates a lack of understanding on the role of government, It's not the governments place to provide those things. That's something else that falls on the carrier. Working for someone who sends you to areas where these are issues? Don't. While public parking areas are nice, they have to be funded, and by rights funded by the users. Few are willing to pay what it takes. For far too long, carriers have dumped the responsibility on the driver to find parking in congested areas, the carriers need to up their rates into those areas to pay for terminals, which is how it was largely done before deregulation. Yes, there were more truck stops around the major cities back east, but a company that sent 50 trucks a day into NYC would have a terminal nearby, too. So to reiterate, it's not on the gov't.

So how about picking the most important issue, and let's work on that? And lose the grievances that are outside of the governments province?

And a name that didn't instantly alienate a significant portion of the population would be rather wise move, too!

 

Even if the majority of drivers shut down for a day, it wouldn't do any good because it's only for one day. If we all shut down for 2 weeks, then the nation would really feel the pain.