Public Awareness

Oh man this is an eye opening thread, I am posting in order to subscribe to it. Learning alot with this one. Just starting school on 8/20, to team with my other half, he has years of experience and tends to like the old HOS, before the 14 hour rule. Me, I have alot to learn. I am paying close attention, peeps!

Cari

 

Seems to me their ultimate goal would be to force every company to run teams this way the truck keeps moving and helps eliminate the problem with driver fatigue. Although we know you can't get a true good nights sleep bouncing down the road. This would also help create jobs for the 20 million Mexican's that Bush would like to let into the country to help pay taxes. Just my 2 cents worth.

 

BobC, what great points you made, I could not have even hoped to say it better than you. Our job is a very thankless one, and all we can do about it is to do the best job we can. I drive truck because I love it, and the most thanks I have ever gotten are: seeing the little kids faces' lite up when they wave, and I honk back, or the very occasional 'thanks for getting the load here so quickly' from a customer or dispatcher.

As for public education, the average workaday slob could care less about our problems, as they have many of their own. So again, it is up to us, to stay on top of what is happening in our industry, and take all the actions we can to keep it from getting anymore screwed up than it is.

 

Hi my fellow truckers.I to think we need to make the public aware,I and agree that it will also be a hard road to travel when we have are fellow truckers on tv shows like most shocking videos getting hit by trains and getting high speed chases do to drugs,or are fellow truckers littering are roads & highways with trash and pee bottles etc.I to would like old days of trucking back that I keep hearing about from old school drivers but times are changeing and we will have to change with them.

 

Do you know what stress really is?
I'll tell ya'.

It's the pain your mind endures when it's trying to stop your body from choking the livin' sheet outa someone desperately needing it.

The fact that you haven't killed anyone thru any fault of your own should really be enough for you to hold your head up high in public.

Non-commercial drivers know about as much about the circumstances involved in driving a truck as I do about nuclear physics. All I know about that is I don't want any nuclears on me just like they don't want any trucks on them.

People don't really want to know anything about trucks. It means diverting their attention away from the coffemugs on their laps, reading the newspaper, putting on make-up, getting dressed, calling their someone's on the cphone...all while driving to & from work.

Just because I make those things look easy doesn't mean anyone else should try these on their own. Ok, I don't use makeup. I just have to wipe it off sometimes though.

It's not so much the 4 wheelers trying to do you in as it is your own company, the feds & a number of psuedo-safety orgs.

Watching out & protecting yourself from the foibles of 4 wheelers has become second nature to me. I can almost always foresee a flag of stoopidity about to unfurl itself in my direction from many car lengths ahead or around me. Defusing that situation is almost automatic anymore. I don't give it a second thought as I position myself away from impending disaster.

As vociferous as you may think the non-commercial motoring public is in demanding the creation of rules or regs, you have more to fear from the quieter, "behind the scenes" folks. These people are smooth. They have lawyers, money & cohesion. You can't hear them sneakin' up on you.

The company you work for, the ATA, the feds, the psuedo-safety groups etc. They are the ones that have a lot to gain from keeping you down. These are the one's that require your attention. They're considerably more unpredicatable than most any 4 wheeler.

Until or unless drivers finally remember one of the basic but seemingly forgotten aspects in life; There's strength in numbers; Drivers really don't have much of a voice in government or in public.

Everyone else gets it. Companies, the ATA, gangs, psudeo-safety groups like PATT, CRASH, Public Citizen, OOIDA, police, troops, even bugs all get it.

Unions still understand it.

Everyone but drivers get it.

When drivers can finally find a way to become a cohesive singular entity, like they used to be for the most part, thats's when the public, government & companies will finally hear their voices & be made to respond in positive ways.

I can't tell you if this is ever to be again. But...that's what it's going to take to really affect the publics' perception of trucking.

Sure, you can chip away at their hardened heads ..errrr... hearts by being nice to them but that goes only so far. You might even lower the number of truck crashes a little bit more. They'll never know that & they'll forget all that "nice" the very moment you slow 'em down.

In the meantime, concentrate on doing your job the best you can without scratching the paint, bending any metal or killing anyone...especially yourselves. Become knowledgeable about the workings of the agencies & orgs I mentioned...especially when it comes to their petitions to the feds. Get on your local reps, Senators, Congresspeople.

Who knows? In a short time, it could work.
Certainly better than sitting still.

 

AMEN, my point exactly!

Then hold your head up high, GHG and don't give a flying F about what anybody else thinks. Do your job well, be happy and enjoy it.