Farmers may need CDLs

DOT changed their mind.....

http://equinelaw.alisonrowe.com/201...egulation-requiring-cdl-for-farmers-ranchers/

 

Nevermind - Emily Latella

 

I commend you for getting your CDL & prorate plates but why would you haul for dirt cheap????? Unless your gonna make decent money why even start the truck up?????

This is not a pot shot at you but there's alot of people out there who need to decide if they wanna farm or be a cut rate trucker. I mean if some farmer wants to cut my rate to the point where neither of us are making money just so he's got something to do when he's not farming, maybe I'll go around and raise land prices way up so neither of us make money........it's the same difference.

 

That was my entire point. I didn't want to truck, I wanted to ranch. My truck sits idle a lot, I haul when I want to commercially and when I need to privately. I need to be capable of hauling my own stuff to run my business so I already had the equipment. The regulations for me to haul my own cattle across state lines came so close to the regulations for me to haul commercially that I made the jump. Dot wanted to beat me over the head with the interstate commerce clause (I'm sure at the request of commercial truckers) so I took the step and now I'm in a position to compete with people using trucking as their primary gig.
The reason I can haul cheaper than I could if I was primarily a trucker is that my ranching operation has already had to eat the cost of the excessive licensing and insurance costs. I already had to keep my equipment in good enough shape to pass inspections. I was already running road fuel and following the rules. I already had to get my cdl, med card, etc. Last year I had to pull my flatbed all the way to town and get its annual done, it didn't even leave the ranch except for a few miles of highway to one field I hauled hay from. Since it's licensed, insured and inspected, I may as well use it. I broke my arm recently and can't get much of my ranch work done. I'm licensed, insured, inspected, and tested up one side and down the other, and I can sit in a truck with a broken arm.

Don't worry about me making your Peterbilt feel inadequate. I run a fifteen year old FLD that's worth 6-7K according to the dealership, although I have put 18k into keeping it road worthy in the last few years. As far as land prices go, there is a huge bubble in ag land and it will deflate. These flashy farmers you're talking about (they irritate me as well) are living on bank notes made possible by over valued land and will end up the same way everybody else has that got too high on a bubble.

I would gladly drop my commercial loads in exchange for being able to haul my own cattle unmolested.

 

How about a system where each individual is responsible for their actions? If you cause damage, you are liable to fix it. Remove corporate shelters that shield a person from the consequences of their actions. Carry insurance if you want to, but if not you have to be bonded or some such thing to prove financial responsibility. Smoke weed if you want to but you have to shoulder the responsibility of anything that happens as a result. I hate to break it to you, but there are truckers using drugs on the road even under the system we have. No government inspection requirements, but you are responsible for the safe operation of your equipment. I'm fine with use taxes as long as they go to pay for the road that I'm using. Government should have no role in deciding whether you are a competent driver or not. If I was your insurance company, I'd want to test you however. Government regulation is never the solution.

 

So a free for all.

Get drunk as all hell but if people manage to avoid your swerving butt it's all good. Well then I should be able to target practice on the highway so long as people stay out of my line of fire.


Speed limits? Oh heck no we just start a drag strip on your street with your kids playground.



No inspections?? Hell we need to have more including the crappy four wheelers with no lights, brakes pouring oil all over..........Oh wait you dont care if they can stop before they squish you in that intersection. Until they don't. Well I'm sure your family will enjoy that check much more than your company.




I am well aware of the drug addicts running the road with my family both legal and illegal. I'll settle for the system we have though I would like better enforcement considering my kids are also on the roads. For that reason the government, which includes every tax payer and me" have the absolute right to ensure you possess the skill to participate in the privilege of public road use. We do a poor jod of it, but you nor I have the right to these roads.It is a collective privilege predicated on your proof of responsibility, and proficiency in operating any vehicle.

 

If it weren't for laws against it, would you drive on oil soaked brakes, drive drunk, target practice on the highway, and drag race on a residential street? I wouldn't. That makes two of us, lets start a coalition of responsible people that agree to not hurt other people. Now what do we do about the people who aren't going to be responsible no matter what? We already have a huge federal government that is in the business of forcing people to be "responsible" and they are failing. Maybe time for a different approach. It's hard to imagine for people who have never been free, but Liberty does solve a lot of problems and tyranny creates a lot of problems. The laws only apply to the people like you and me who do the right thing whether there is a law for it or not. The money we spend enforcing laws on people who were going to do the right thing anyway is incredible and should be spent prosecuting people who actually hurt someone or damage their property.

As nerved up as you are about all the things that might get you, how do you even pull out of your yard?

 

Because I am good enough to avoid them

I would agree the federlies need out of the local law market. Privatize roads and let the owners set the rules


Fixing something after the fact sounds all good in theory until you face the family of someone killed by the innappropriate actions of another.



Trust me I understand your reasoning. But in a collectively held property(public roads) you get to follow the collective's laws.

 

And yet somehow harvest gets done every year. I'm not saying that there aren't problems out there. I just think that bringing everyone up to the standard of a commercial hauler will have a negative impact on the people trying to make their living in commercial trucking. If you could wave a magic wand and make trucking completely safe, how much do you think it would pay? A job needs to have some level of difficulty and danger to make it pay a decent wage. If 19 out of 20 trucks coming off a farm are in such a state of disrepair or run by inadequate drivers, why aren't there farm trucks piled up along the highways like road killed deer? Most of these trucks are obviously making it to and from without incident. I wonder if people working for fmcsa make more than the people out here driving the trucks.