Roses and Razzberries rationale

I shot a RAZZBERRY into the air. It fell to earth, I knew not where.

Excuse my waxing pathetic there, and my deepest apologies to Longfellow, but a lot of times when I send out Roses or Razzberries – be it in the magazine or on the radio – I never know if anyone is listening (or reading).

And then there are times when I am made all too painfully aware of the fact that, yes, someone is listening. And they are not happy about it.

Take this RAZZY we gave out on a recent radio show, for example:

A tow truck driver in Troutville, Virginia gets a big, fat RAZZBERRY from OOIDA member Steve Pina.

Steve was hauling a load of insulation not long ago when the load shifted and came loose. He stopped and called for help. The police called for a tow truck. Steve was billed for more than $1,600 – $450 an hour for a wrecker that was never used and $100 an hour in labor for the two men driving it. Plus fuel and a fuel surcharge.

Steve said he was billed for 2½ hours of work, when the men were only there for a little over an hour. He asked if he could pay the bill in installments and the towing company refused and called the police, threatening to impound the truck. The police were no help, either, telling him to shut his mouth and get his stuff because they were impounding the truck.

Pretty outrageous stuff, right? Well, I got several calls wondering why we didn’t give out the name of the towing company and that’s a good question.

The answer is, not that we doubt Steve’s claim, but being journalists we have to verify it. And we get so many of these kinds of Razzberries that we just don’t have the manpower to verify them all. But every once in a while, one comes along that’s so outrageous it needs to be said.

Now, if Steve himself wants to shout the name of the towing company from the rooftop or, say, post it in the OOIDA member’s only forum, well, who am I to stop him?

A backdoor path to tolling?

The price of fuel is driving the national debate over many issues right now. It’s even made its way into the presidential campaign.

Not that it’s a big surprise, with fuel topping $4 a gallon.

A recent round includes a proposal by Sen. John McCain – the presumptive Republican presidential nominee – to drop the fuel tax between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

One of our listeners wondered if the idea wasn’t just a backdoor scheme to promote more tolling and privatization.

After all, if the Highway Trust Fund – which is where the fuel tax is supposed to go – runs out because nothing’s coming in, it would justify all the folks who say we should do away with it and replace it with tolling.

I’ve wondered myself if some folks in DC look at the senator’s plan as a path to getting their way on tolling. Even if that’s not the intention, it probably would have that exact effect.

We already have so much money diverted from the Highway Trust Fund that it’s going to go empty not far in the future.

And please note the reason it’s drying up. It’s not because the fuel tax can’t fund our highways. It’s because they keep taking fuel tax money meant for roads and spending it on God knows what.

No one likes taxes. But if the tax is actually spent on what we paid it for, I think that would be fine.

One other problem with this idea: Fuel taxes aren’t what caused the price of fuel to be so high. OOIDA Executive Vice President Todd Spencer pointed out recently that the fuel tax per gallon now is the same amount it was when fuel was less than a dollar a gallon.

How do we know the price of fuel will really come down? How do we know the oil companies won’t just charge the same price and keep the extra money? Would this idea just be a new way for oil companies to make more profit? I think they have more than enough profit now.

A fuel tax holiday, good as it sounds, won’t help. We need a real solution.

Oh, and one more side note. Some folks have the impression that this trend toward tolling is the work of one political party – the Republicans.

Unfortunately, this is a bipartisan effort to screw us. Remember that one of the biggest advocates of tolling free interstates and then selling our roads is a Democrat – Gov. Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania.

In the matter of tolling and highway privatization, we have opponents – and friends – in both political parties.

Maybe the FMCSA should sleep on it …

A recent decision by the FMCSA’s Medical Review Board that recommends all truckers above a certain body mass index be tested for sleep apnea has plenty of folks up in arms – and rightly so.

We’ve even heard from some truckers who think the new proposal would disqualify anyone above a certain weight.

That’s not the case. In fact, it’s far more insidious than that.

The proposal would require any truckers above that body mass to undergo testing for sleep apnea, a process that costs thousands of dollars. That makes it unaffordable to any trucker whose insurance doesn’t cover it, or who doesn’t have insurance.

Plus, for those few who actually do have apnea, this proposal would require CPAP use.

If you actually have apnea, that’s a good idea. However, some of the discussion I saw on this revolved around monitoring the use of that machine. And I have a real problem with Big Brother watching me while I sleep.

That being said, I agree with what one of our callers said. Government rarely thinks about the consequences when they look at one of these regulations – even though the law requires them to consider the costs to small business.

Truckers will get the chance to speak out on this. And when the time comes, we’ll make sure you know where, when and how you can make your voice heard.

A matter of clarification …

We don’t often run calls about what’s said on other shows. We figure if folks have a question, or comment or complaint with those shows, they should contact them.

However, recently, OOIDA headquarters has been flooded with calls about radio host Kevin Rutherford, particularly about some of the comments he’s made about OOIDA, and about the fuel surcharge legislation the association is supporting.

As I said, we normally wouldn’t run calls about another show, but as our own Reed Black once said, if you get this many calls about any topic, you ignore it at your own risk.

So I hope you’ll indulge me if I take this opportunity to clarify some things.

First, some of the callers – and folks writing on our forum and others – claim that OOIDA has asked XM Satellite Radio to take Mr. Rutherford’s show off the air.

The association has not asked for that to happen, and would not ask for that. XM controls their own programming.

We disagree with Mr. Rutherford on the fuel surcharge issue. And he has a right to his opinion.

What we encourage all truckers to do is listen to all sides of the debate, do your own research as well, and come to your own conclusion regarding any issue.

As far as the fuel surcharge bill, The TRUCC Act, I can’t understand who would oppose it – outside of the brokers and carriers who stand to profit even more if it doesn’t pass.

The only thing this legislation requires is transparency, so everyone involved knows what is being paid; and it requires it to be passed through – that money collected for increased cost of fuel to the person who pays for that increased cost. What could be simpler?

If I understand Mr. Rutherford’s argument correctly, it’s that he doesn’t want the government involved in the fuel surcharge – or any other part of the business of trucking. I believe his contention would be that it distorts the free market.

However, I would say this: The debate over OOIDA’s fuel surcharge bill is not a debate about the free market.

It is not a distortion of the free market to allow everyone involved in a contract to actually see the contract.

It is not a distortion of the free market to ensure that consumers and shippers actually get what they pay for.

It is a distortion of the free market to fraudulently collect money for fuel when that money’s not being used to pay for fuel.

And that’s what collecting a fuel surcharge and giving it to the middleman is … It’s fraud. Government has a legitimate role in preventing fraud.

We used to call that kind of activity law enforcement. Now, Mr. Rutherford calls it stifling the free market.

Another point of contention are comments Mr. Rutherford made regarding OOIDA. I wanted to hear those comments myself, and I have listened to that conversation, which took place on his show.

Mr. Rutherford said he thinks OOIDA has harmed the trucking industry. He says he doesn’t want to belong to a group representing owner-operators or other truckers because a group like that would distort free market forces.

That’s a very fine ideological stand. However, that type of ideology doesn’t work in the real world, and the real world is where truckers live.

The thing Mr. Rutherford misses is that everyone else, including the big carriers, will and do have representatives in Washington.

He misses the fact that there will be regulation of this industry by our government. It doesn’t matter whether we like it or not. That’s reality.

So do you want owner-operators to be the only people without representation when those regulations are written? Do you want other truckers like company drivers to have no representation as well? Isn’t that a little like unilateral disarmament?

Do you want regulation that screws you and rewards your competition? Or do you want regulation that provides an equal environment for all?

I guarantee you, the other folks who take an opposite side will be there, will have representatives, will ask for a regulatory environment that favors their members, will ask for new regulations that restrict truckers in their daily activities.

And if no one else is there, if there is no voice, a voice like OOIDA, those people and their representatives will get what they want.

Mr. Rutherford seems to live in an ideal world where we live in a truly free market and the government stands to one side, hands off, to allow all businesses to compete in a perfect environment.

I’m sorry, Mr. Rutherford. That world doesn’t exist. Not anywhere on Earth.

Here in the real world, OOIDA exists so that truckers have a voice.

That does not mean we expect the government to do everything for us. It does not mean we oppose anything free market.

And likewise, supporting bills like The TRUCC Act does not mean that we’re socialists. Trust me when I say, nothing could be further from the truth.

But like it or not, the government is already involved in this business, up to their ears.

The only thing we’re trying to do is to ensure that the government’s involvement doesn’t destroy otherwise viable businesses.

Mr. Rutherford often says that when someone has a grievance with him, they should call his show and talk it out.

It’s clear Mr. Rutherford has a grievance with OOIDA. So we’d like to do the same – We’d like to invite him to be a guest on our program and to discuss the issues with someone here from OOIDA.

Green with envy over this fuel …

Here at the show, we’ve been dealing with the high cost of fuel by talking about what truckers themselves can do to survive the current fuel price crisis.

But we all know about the bigger issues involved. The price of oil and fuel is higher than it’s ever been. And while many think speculation is primarily to blame, others have pointed to different reasons.

The lack of refinery capacity in this country is one. Over the years, because of strict environmental laws here in the United States, more and more have closed, and few if any have opened.

That led one of our callers to ask: Why not locate those refineries just over the border in Mexico?

That would create plenty of jobs for people there, which hopefully would mean fewer entering our nation illegally. It would provide us with plenty of refinery capacity and yet keep those facilities where the EPA frankly doesn’t care about them.

It seems like a win-win. If our environmental laws are holding back construction of new refineries, why not put them there?

I hesitate, however, to suggest moving any business out of this country right now. We really need the jobs here.

The better solution is for them to work out the environmental concerns and build them here. But as everyone knows, we have little control over that.

That same caller asked about the latest trend in supposedly environmentally friendly fuels – using algae to produce biofuels.

Unlike other biofuels that are falling out of favor, that’s pretty interesting stuff – and for a number of reasons.

First, the stuff thrives on carbon dioxide, so the output of power plants could be funneled into it. It would make the stuff grow like mad, and prevent that CO2 from getting into the atmosphere.

Second, growing that algae doesn’t take a fraction of the land required for other biofuels. Farmland could be dedicated to food crops. Land that has little use for crops could be used for algae.

There are still concerns about even this idea – and it’s important to note that it has to stand alone in the long run. Government subsidies may be an option to get something off the ground, but in the long run, no fuel can make it if it continues to require those subsidies past the research stage.

Even if everything goes well, algae-based fuel is still quite a ways off. But it does have some promise.

If you want to read more, click here.

Let people have their grief in peace

Sometimes, the bills that come out of states irritate us. Sometimes, they anger us. And sometimes, they just seem silly or frivolous.

A recent bill in Missouri struck one of our listeners as belonging in the last category.

The measure aims to replace the makeshift roadside memorials families place along highways with official state ones. However, only memorials to victims of drunken driving would be created by the bill.

Frankly, I thought this was much ado about nothing myself. But I think we have a duty as a news outlet to let people know when lawmakers spend time – and therefore taxpayers’ money – on things like this.

The lawmaker involved thinks these little crosses are a safety hazard. Does he think encouraging people to read the little blue sign instead of paying attention to other traffic is any more safe?

And on top of that, what’s with making a grieving family pay – much less pay up to $1,000? Funeral expenses are bad enough these days. Why are we adding more expense to folks already under incredible personal stress?

We have serious problems in this country. Fuel prices are bankrupting people. The economy is in shambles. Our roads are deteriorating.

Let people who are in grief put up their little crosses and flowers, especially if it helps them get through it. Let’s get out of the business of putting up memorials for them.

Truckers and millionaires do have something in common

We try to keep you up to date on everything that can affect your life as a trucker – on all the issues linked to transportation.

However, as you can imagine, things happen all the time that you would never think of as transportation issues, but which are very definitely linked to this industry and its interests.

One of those is the so-called tech tax in Maryland.

The concept was simple – the state extended its sales tax to computer services, which previously weren’t covered.

The tech industry had a cow. After a major lobbying effort, they had it repealed. But it’s how they paid to make up the income lost that interests us.

The state diverted 100 million dollars out of transportation and other programs to pay for half of that tax cut on computer repair and other tech services.

The other half was paid for by what the state calls a “millionaire’s tax” – literally, a tax on incomes of 1 million dollars a year or more. I supposed I’m OK with that one, if we have to have a tax. But I think it’s silly to link highway users together with millionaires. I don’t ever recall seeing a trucker light an expensive cigar using a hundred dollar bill.

In reading about this, I saw something interesting. The tech community in Maryland, the businesses small and large in that industry, all worked together to get the tax repealed.

John Eckenrode is the president of Catonsville, MD, computer services company CPSI and a leader in the movement to get the tax repealed. He told a local newspaper that the tax would have a disastrous effect – his words – on his business and others like it.

He added, talking here about the repeal effort’s success, ‘‘If there is any … lesson, it is to get yourself a good publicity team, a good grass-roots team, a good lobbying team and get your fundraising lined up.”

Another leader in the repeal movement, Thomas Loveland, told that same local newspaper that lawmakers in the state didn’t understand the economic impact of taxing computer services. He added this: ‘‘It became all about educating them that this is a huge component for success in the economy.”

Folks, that is what OOIDA is doing every day. Our folks in Washington, DC, are making the case for truckers, and we are always trying to encourage a grassroots effort to back it up. In this case, grass roots means phone calls by truckers like you to Congress.

Those computer folks in Maryland blasted the state capital with phone calls, all talking about how that tech tax would affect them, how it would hurt their business, how it would cut their profitability – and therefore, cut their ability to pay taxes to the state.

Truckers need to learn from that example.

When OOIDA’s DC staffers speak with a congressional office and say truckers aren’t receiving the fuel surcharge paid by shippers, those folks are far more willing to believe that if they hear the same thing from truckers who live in their own districts.

We’ve shown that this works. We’ve done it before, with great success. If we can keep doing it again and again, we will make incredible, positive changes in this industry.