Black Smoke Matters

[Electric Chicken]

There is a defined direction. There is a plan. The convoys are being used to generate media attention. They take place above the minimum speed (50 mph), right lane only, proper spacing, during non-peak traffic times so as not to snarl traffic.

So basically you run like Prime, Swift, TMC, etc for a couple hours.


You expect this to accomplish something?

 

[Drifter McDuck]

All I hear with all the rhetoric....

This is my wife and I with Big Dad Rich, the lead singer for the Coalition

 

[Drifter McDuck]

So basically you run like Prime, Swift, TMC, etc for a couple hours.


You expect this to accomplish something?
[/QUO

Yes. It accomplishes media attention for the shutdown. The BSM leader, Joe Denny, has already met with Raymond Martinez (FMCSA Director) and will likely meet with him again to discuss changes. In the last week alone, a bill to exempt small carriers with less than 10 trucks from the ELD mandate has been re-introduced for discussion. This coincides with a new study that was just released showing no positive results from the mandate, in addition to increased instances of aggressive driving because of it. With each new convoy, news interest is building, placing additional pressure on law makers to expedite HOS and ELD changes. The momentum is building... do you want to be a part of the movement that got s**t done, or one of the guys who joked and said it couldn’t be done? Nay-sayers are changing their position and joining our ranks every day. So where do you want to stand? If it’s not with us, I know a yoga master that can give you some great stretching exercises that will help you bend over for the government you pay to dictate your life.

 

[ironpony]

So basically you run like Prime, Swift, TMC, etc me for a couple hours.


You expect this to accomplish something?

They pass you regularily. Be serious... these BSM guys just climbed out from under their rock, found out what a "highly regulated industry" is, and what jerks running outlaw do that screws it up for everybody.

 

[Electric Chicken]

They pass you regularily. Be serious... these BSM guys just climbed out from under their rock, found out what a "highly regulated industry" is, and what jerks running outlaw do that screws it up for everybody.

I guess you can't read.

 

[Ontario Outlaw]

@Drifter McDuck You didn’t answer-

Why not just run outlaw and skip following the “rules” you’re protesting?

It’s easier in the long run. Instead of fighting the Man, just do your thing and let him do his thing. Coexist without the angst.

If enough truckers went back to running outlaw the Man might realize their way isn’t working.

I used to try to follow the “rules”. Didn’t take long to figure out the decks stacked against us. So I quit following the “rules”. Never been happier.

 

[ironpony]

I guess you can't read.

I can read plenty well. I just don't live in the fantasyland the BSM people do. Where were they 5 years ago when this might have made a difference? None of this will get anything rolled back at this point.

And don't expect SNI to change your governor setting anytime soon.

 

[Electric Chicken]

I can read plenty well. I just don't live in the fantasyland the BSM people do. Where were they 5 years ago when this might have made a difference? None of this will get anything rolled back at this point.

Neither do I but you missed my meaning.

They're temporarily running like we slowpokes do all the time, thinking it'll make a difference.

 

[GAnthony]

I can read plenty well. I just don't live in the fantasyland the BSM people do.

 

[Mike]

There is a defined direction.

What is the direction?

I see lots of comments about the ELD, but that ship has sailed. The time to stand up and protest that was years ago. When it was important, nobody wanted to do anything but laugh about it and make fun of the company drivers who were being forced into it by the carriers they worked for. This is why any organization has be be here to support the entire trucking industry. The entire time these carriers have been using an electronic log, data was being formulated to push toward a mandate for the entire industry. It was foolish for the majority of owner operators to ignorantly think it would never happen to them. The ELD is here now, and the only thing that will ever take it away is overwhelming, well documented, proof that the ELD is making the roads unsafe. Not opinion, but overwhelming proof that will work to scare every organization that supports us having an ELD.

OOIDA fought the ELD harder than anybody could have ever fought it. They did it in the most organized and influential way possible. How much help did they get from the drivers in the industry? Very damn little.

Beyond the ELD, what else is trying to be accomplished here, in which convoy protests would ever do any good?

 

[Hanover Fist]

The ELD is here now, and the only thing that will ever take it away is overwhelming, well documented, proof that the ELD is making the roads unsafe. Not opinion, but overwhelming proof that will work to scare every organization that supports us having an ELD.

That might not be a far-fetched thing to prove at some point. Data already shows that driver accident rates are flat since the institution of the ELD. Next studies should look at accidents caused by drivers trying to push their limits to account for limitations realized because of HOS and the ELD.

Post-ELD mandate crash data a knock on hours regs, too

 

[ironpony]

OOIDA fought the ELD harder than anybody could have ever fought it. They did it in the most organized and influential way possible. How much help did they get from the drivers in the industry? Very damn little.

If OOIDA had left week enough alone after the FMCSA instituted the Bad Actors Rule with Werner and JBS, we wouldn't be here. Its my opinion, they were a major part of pushing the FMCSA into a blanket ELD policy.

 

[Duck]

They pass you regularily. Be serious... these BSM guys just climbed out from under their rock, found out what a "highly regulated industry" is, and what jerks running outlaw do that screws it up for everybody.

"jerks running outlaw" isn't what caused the ELD mandate.

Government simply wanted more control. That's it. No other reason.

The outlaw stuff is merely an excuse. Every tyrant has an excuse for their power grabs. Even the Nazis and the Boksheviks tried to excuse their behavior by blaming it on the people they were oppressing.

 

[Mike]

That might not be a far-fetched thing to prove at some point. Data already shows that driver accident rates are flat since the institution of the ELD. Next studies should look at accidents caused by drivers trying to push their limits to account for limitations realized because of HOS and the ELD.

Post-ELD mandate crash data a knock on hours regs, too

HOS, not ELD. It’s not both, it is simply the HOS being exposed. Only two things can come from that, and possibly neither. Either HOS changes, or rates adjust to account for profit loss by the trucking industry.

Oh yeah, and a 3rd thing. Shipment times being adjusted to account for longer transit times being needed in some cases.

People driving recklessly because they are accepting loads they can’t safely deliver will never fly as an excuse to get rid of th ELD.

 

[Mike]

"jerks running outlaw" isn't what caused the ELD mandate.

Government simply wanted more control. That's it. No other reason.

The outlaw stuff is merely an excuse. Every tyrant has an excuse for their power grabs. Even the Nazis and the Boksheviks tried to excuse their behavior by blaming it on the people they were oppressing.

Technology advanced. It happens in every aspect of every industry. Always has, always will.

 

[Duck]

Technology advanced. It happens in every aspect of every industry. Always has, always will.

Technology advanced, and enabled government to seize more power, and they wanted it, so they used some pictures of wrecked trucks on top of cars to invoke emotions in weak minded people and they rammed the mandate through, not giving one iota of fuck to the people who objected to it.

 

[ironpony]

The outlaw stuff is merely an excuse. Every tyrant has an excuse for their power grabs. Even the Nazis and the Boksheviks tried to excuse their behavior by blaming it on the people they were oppressing.

You're wrong on this @Duck - the demand for this eminated from serious fatality wrecks where the trucker was operating outside of the law. The Public has a right to know that they are sharing the highway with commercial truckers operating within the law - and this is the regulatory pushback from that.

 

[Duck]

You're wrong on this @Duck - the demand for this eminated from serious fatality wrecks where the trucker was operating outside of the law. The Public has a right to know that they are sharing the highway with commercial truckers operating within the law - and this is the regulatory pushback from that.

"Blah blah blah, whine whine, emotional bullshit, blah blah blah."

Crocodile tears.

Power grab, nothing else.

 

[mndriver]

You're wrong on this @Duck - the demand for this eminated from serious fatality wrecks where the trucker was operating outside of the law. The Public has a right to know that they are sharing the highway with commercial truckers operating within the law - and this is the regulatory pushback from that.

Which accidents were those.

 

[ironpony]

Which accidents were those.

You know damn well the history of serious wrecks that motivated the anti-trucking activists during the years leading up to the push by Congress (and Congressional critics of the trucking industry) to demand that the FMCSA make the industry more accountable.

You weren't living under a rock 19 years ago.