Roses & Razzberries – August/September 2021
RAZZBERRIES to all of the media reports that still can’t differentiate between a pickup truck and a tractor-trailer. This problem was particularly evident in June, when headlines across the country blared news about a “truck driver” running into a group of racing cyclists in Arizona. Most of the stories had the apparently unimportant detail of the fact that it was a pickup truck driver buried so deep that most people likely wouldn’t read far enough to see it. Some stories omitted that detail altogether. Listen up, fellow journalists, because we’re only going to say this once – when people see the term “truck driver,” there is a specific image that comes to mind, and when so-called reporters out there can’t tell the difference, well, that’s not really good for your image, either.
ROSES to every truck stop and rest stop across the country that has held a vaccine clinic this year for truck drivers who wanted one. Truckers have been on the front lines of this pandemic since the beginning, keeping this country moving when everything else shut down. When the vaccines were first rolling out, one of the big concerns in the industry was how to get them out to truck drivers who can’t always make an appointment to go get one. Thankfully, truck stops have stepped up in a big way, hosting free clinics where truckers can roll in, get their shots, and roll out.
So thank you to everyone who has supported the truck drivers who supported this country.
RAZZBERRIES to the U.S. House of Representatives for their joke of a highway bill that did anything but support truckers. While they did toss drivers the bone of a bigger-than-expected chunk of money for truck parking, the rest of the bill made it feel like that funding was only there to soften the blow. One of those blows came in the form of language that would increase minimum insurance requirements for truckers.
And on that subject, we do have to hand out some ROSES to all of the representatives who spoke out in defense of truckers and voted for an amendment that would have stripped that language out of the bill. Unfortunately, the amendment failed, and the language remained, but so, too, does our gratitude for those lawmakers who spoke out against the language – and spoke FOR truckers.
RAZZBERRIES to the Canadian government for letting their ELD mandate go into effect with no devices even available for drivers to use. Seriously. At press time for this issue, there were still no certified devices listed on government websites and only two companies that were there to do the certifying.
At least they are doing a soft enforcement for the first year, but how can they possibly expect drivers to comply when the devices just aren’t there?
RAZZBERRIES to Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont for not only signing a truck-only tax in the state into law but for being extremely rude and disrespectful to truckers while doing it. In case you missed it, after he signed the slap in the face to truckers into law, Lamont delivered a kick in the shins as well, responding to a concern that truckers might avoid Connecticut in order to avoid the discriminatory highway-user fee by saying, “Well, that’s not so bad, either. We’ll have a little less traffic on the road, a little less asthma for those who live along the road.” You forgot one, governor – a little less brainpower in the leadership of your state.
RAZZBERRIES to the FMCSA for pushing back certain provisions in the Medical Examiner’s Certified Medical Registry rulemaking until 2025. They said they need the time to get their IT system up and running and to give states the time they’ll need to adapt to the new system once it is finally in place. These kinds of delays are becoming an all too common pattern for the FMCSA, and this one is particularly egregious when you consider that the original plans for this database date back to 2015. We’re talking a 10-year process to get this thing up and running. Imagine if you bought an iPhone in 2015 – do you think it would still be up to date with the latest and greatest software by 2025? Of course not. The FMCSA has delayed this thing so long the tech will be out of date before it even launches. LL