From My Dash Cam

The double nickel speed limit didn't affect me much. Most of the trucks I drove barely did that loaded anyway. Thank you President Ford.

 

Most of the trucks I drove back then would run on out, but I bought an x oilfield cabover that would do a whole 56 mph, wide open. lol

 

I'm not sure what kind of dairy farms you speak of. I grew up working on a dairy and our cows were treated pretty dang good. If they're not, it's very difficult to get milk out of them. I remember sleeping with a calf or cow that got sick, lol. The only thing mother wouldn't let me do is bring them into the house.

 

I've worked or hung around mom and pop operations in N.Wis.( 50 cows?) that were humane, but a neighbor in S. Wis. had a big operation, (400 cows) I was the mechanic/driver, no animals, no crap, these cows never left the barn, disgustingly dirty, crap everywhere, they shot the male calves, bugs, stench, finally, I had enough. These big mombo operations now, 2-3000 cows are just milk factories. Biggest problem is getting rid of the manure. 2500 cows generates a LOT of crap. So much so, they hire their farmer buddies with old large cars and an old milk tanker, they drag tanker after tanker to the fields,,,for days, you've seen them. These big farms are buying all these mom and pop outfits, just for the land to get rid of it. My point is, it's not the milk itself, but if these milk lovers saw where it came from, be a different story.

 

Dairies are graded on cleanliness, those that are not clean, the milk is bought at a lower price and has to be used for things other than drinking milk.
All dairies have regular health inspections and are regraded on a regular basis. I have been around dairies that milked up to 6000 head, I have never seen one that kept there cows in the ban all the time, but any large dairy, the cows only see green grass when they are dried up and put out to pasture till they calve.

Good milkers are expensive, much more so than beef cows, dairies (large ones) can not afford to afford to have cows that give less milk, for the feed consumed, so while I would not call them babied, they are well taken care of.

 

They're always in the barn for a reason, they're Holsteins, which if you don't know much about those critters means they don't need much excuse to die. Used to be they knocked all the bull calves in the head because they were virtually worthless, I'm talking giving them away worthless.

 

Hey I drove one of those that was a triple digit truck! 59.9 top speed!

 

In the '70's, and early 80's, didn't matter what you had. A 300 Cummins or 3 two bits Cat, was considered a big motor, with most trucks having 237 Macks, 238 Detroits,and 250 Cummins. Plus, the speed limit was 55, and trucks were geared accordingly. Anything 350 hp and over was considered a "left lane" truck.