Trucking History – May 2024
May 17-22, 1920
National Ship by Truck-Good Roads Week was coordinated by the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company to promote the benefits of trucking and to emphasize the need for highway improvements. Parades featuring trucks were held in cities across the country, including in Washington, D.C., on the grounds of the Washington Monument.
May 2, 1997
“Breakdown,” starring Kurt Russell as the lead, was released. In the movie, a husband and wife driving across the United States wind up stranded in the desert after their car breaks down. A trucker offers the wife a ride to a diner to call for help. The husband later finds out no one at the diner knows where his wife is, including the trucker who gave her the ride. The movie debuted in first place at the box office, grossing $12.3 million. After its showing expanded to more than 2,300 theaters in the U.S. and Canada, it went on to gross more than $50 million.
May 2000
OOIDA membership reaches the 50,000-member milestone. Just a decade earlier, estimated membership was roughly 14,000.
“As we begin our 51st year fighting for the rights of truckers, we know the secret to our success is the support we receive from members – men and women who join and support the cause,” OOIDA President Todd Spencer wrote in the March-April 2024 issue of Land Line Magazine. “We also know from experience this is the only way to make real change.”
Today, the Association is comprised of approximately 150,000 members and counting.
“When I joined OOIDA 48 years ago, the membership fee was more than it is now – and it was the best investment I ever made,” Spencer wrote. “It will be for you, too.”
May 2015
Utilizing resources at OOIDA’s FightingForTruckers.com, members rallied together and called on members of the House of Representatives to defeat an attempt to raise the minimum insurance required of motor carriers. The amendment seeking to greenlight a significant increase in the insurance requirement was defeated 31-20. More recently, opponents of an increase of minimum insurance requirements, including OOIDA, have brought to lawmakers’ attention that most motor carriers already carry $1 million in insurance. They’ve also pointed to a study that found the current minimum provides adequate coverage in all but 0.6% of cases.
“I truly believe that the trucking industry is the most taxed and regulated industry in this country,” Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., said in January. “For far too long, we have been the recipient of overreaching, over-burdensome and over-out-of-control federal agencies.” LL