Editor’s Page – February 2021
I have a couple of jokes I frequently crack when asked what it’s like to have to forecast out what the news might look like in six to eight weeks. One response is that we have a crystal ball. Clearly that’s a joke, because there is no such thing. The other response is: We follow the playbook.
You really don’t even have to be a sports fan to understand the concept of a playbook. It details strategies for various scenarios. These playbooks grow and morph over time as things and probabilities of success or failure change along with them.
With the changing of the guard in Washington, D.C., so-to-speak, there are going to be different issues truckers need to be ready to either fight or support.
That’s what this issue of Land Line will do. It will prepare you to get involved and be a part of making sure that truckers’ rights are at the forefront of issues being considered in Congress and by federal agencies.
Collin Long with our Washington, D.C., office kicks things off on Page 10 talking about one of the single-most-important issues we will face with this new administration – efforts to increase the minimum insurance requirement on truckers. This will be a hard-fought battle, no doubt. And it’s not one truckers can afford to lose.
A few pages later starting on Page 14, Senior Editor Mark Schremmer takes you through the top trucking issues pinpointed by OOIDA as top priorities for truckers. It is an in-depth six pages. Read it, and hang on to it. Refer to it before you talk to lawmakers.
Oh yeah, talking to lawmakers. Time for a serious talk. How many of you reading this hate electronic logs? How many of you, before all was said and done, actually made a call to a lawmaker or wrote an email? Most of these battles are won by killing legislation and not letting it get enacted.
In trucking regulations there are rarely 11th hour plays like the Kansas City Chiefs’ Jet Chip Wasp play that turned around Super Bowl LIV. You have to be in the game from the beginning and slugging it out every step of the way.
So, we have your Political Playbook in this issue to help you navigate how to be an effective advocate for yourself and your fellow truckers. That starts on Page 42. This is another one of those things that you need to hang on to throughout the year.
Now for a couple of housekeeping updates. We have two new team members who joined Land Line in this issue. First, welcome Staff Writer SJ Munoz. Read more about him on Page 12.
We also welcome Barry Fowler, EA, founder and president of Taxation Solutions Inc., and TruckerTaxTools.com. He will be writing our “Trucking and Taxes” column. His first one is a doozy with info about all of the changes truckers will face on their 2020 taxes. Check it out on Page 76.
Finally, I have to hand out a Razzberry – to us. In our November issue, we handed out razzies to the Nebraska State Patrol for their surprise blitz inspections last summer. One reader took offense to that noting how important those inspections are for safety.
Having spent some time with the letter, the Razzberry, and looking back over NSP’s news releases, our reader had a pretty good point. Honestly, it was a stronger one than I feel like we made.
At the time that was written, we were still COVID-19 punch drunk from all of the changes, juggling all of the waivers and exemptions to keep trucks moving. It was a regulatory mess. Our collective emotional response was feeling that NSP was being unnecessarily aggressive in a challenging time. That’s a fair reaction.
What we didn’t even start to consider were those who were taking advantage of the situation. Couple that with NSP’s record of targeting the bad actors who skip around weigh stations, and that’s what turned this swing into a miss. Thank you, dear reader, for calling us out. We’ll do better. LL