California In A Nutshell

And that says it all really.
Freight rates have fallen off a cliff of late. Fuel has crept up, tolls are going to be placed on yet more roads and fuel tax is going to be increased (for trucks only).
Then we have the overzealous state of California beating the bejeezus out of people with their mad fines.
I looked at the link following your post. Only the first one. 2 fines $78,000 and $72,000.
Extinction level fines.
I started this thread to highlight a problem which I was facing a week ago. The answers to this thread have ranged from the informative to the ridiculous.
Trip planning has nothing to do with any of this. To suggest that it does demonstrates complete mental retardation.
To call people who choose not to run the risk of California 'haters' is childish.
California is a state no different from many others. ALL states have some punitive fines etc. However California has turned it into an artform. It might well be that somebody gets lucky and manages to avoid detection but sooner or later that luck will run out.
It seems to me that the core issue is being avoided in a lot of these comments. That core issue is that corporate America is in collusion with corporate California. Many states do this but CA is the most obvious. The goal is to force the small OO out of business and hand it over to the megas.
I write this while waiting for a bumper to be fitted to my truck. The service place is ripping me a new ahole to do this. Yet another rip off. Rip off followed by rip off right??
Why??
Because each one of us independent owner operators is wildly wealthy - right?
I use this as a demonstration of the financial rubbish that is dumped on us. Need some money? Just fine, overcharge or legally steal from the truck drivers, he doesn't mind paying 50% more for a fast food meal at a truck stop than he could buy it for on the street. So make up some nonsense about 'safety' and force him to empty his savings account - again - to satisfy your need for greed. While you are at it increase the cost of his life sustaining prescription drug by 1000%. This stuff makes me want to vomit. So much for the American dream. It is a dream because everyone is asleep.


Those on here who have said they have had enough and have gone intrastate have surrendered the very freedom that this way of life provided. I think trucking is being killed by states like California. It is being killed by too much oversight, massive fines, rule after rule, new expensive twist after new expensive twist.
Crete, Swift, Werner will take all this in stride in fact I believe it is they who instigate a lot of this garbage. They have the deep pockets to buy the right politicians to get the right regs in place to make sure that THEY get all the business and not the independent.

So for all those aggressive, obnoxious posters in this thread with your "we don't need ya or want ya. Keep out haters" baloney be aware you are folding and undermining the whole industry. Oh and btw I think you know which orifice you can insert your state and the paid for politician puppets you seem to love so much.

 

That link demonstrates in one single simple post why CA is a no go area. Anybody reading this click on it and actually read a little. California putting people out of business - your tax dollars at work.

 

Good luck and I mean that sincerely. If you are caught you will be out of business instantly.

 

I don't know rearview. I have a brand new Rand McNally and it had it listed as an independent. I guess RM's database is out of date - again.

 

It isn't a question of being an out of state driver who hates California. I do not hate California. It is just another part of the USA with people who are Americans the same as the rest of the country.
The problem is that California has become so in love with the idea of anti pollution and general societal progress that it has begun sawing through the branch it is sitting on.

California had very good reason to do something about cleaning up it's air and it is amazing that the Los Angeles basin has reversed its pollution problem so well. I never thought it could do that because according to a university class I took in the early 90's its very geographical location was working against it. So hats off for that achievement.

Let us be honest though. Was it trucks that caused the California pollution problem? No, of course it wasn't it was cars. California was ground zero for the American car culture phenomena of the 20th century. They poured gases into the atmosphere especially in the LA area causing easily visible demonstrations of all kinds of the effects of pollution.

The catalytic converter was the first step forward and a good one too. Then they looked around for someone else to target. Trucks was the answer. Trucks - everybody's favorite cash cow.

So it really isn't that folks hate California but more likely the other way around. I realize that you understand all this and sympathize with the out of staters but many don't.

I don't know what is going to happen but something is going to have to give. People and businesses are leaving the state in favor of places that aren't trying to make it so difficult. A balance needs to be reached. Cleanliness AND business. Punishment but NOT execution.
A few do gooders cannot be allowed to suffocate one of if not the greatest state in the union.