Change the channel on this idea

We continue to get calls about the enforcement effort by Arizona against truckers who use laptop computers in the cabs.

Once again, at this point, the state has declared a moratorium on enforcement, pending a ruling from the FMCSA and CVSA.

A lot of truckers are still hopping mad about this. But some are not so sure.

I have heard from some truckers who talk about folks texting behind the wheel, diverting their attention from the road for long periods while moving, looking at videos on Web sites … the kinds of behavior that I think we’d all agree are best avoided.

But if you glance occasionally at the screen, just as you would glance at any other gauge or meter or device on your dash, and if you only glance, and don’t stare at it – in effect, if you use some common sense – it should be no problem.

We can’t legislate common sense. I wish we could.

But those who act responsibly with their laptops will continue to do so, while those who act irresponsibly about this will either continue to do so in spite of the threat of tickets, or they’ll act irresponsibly in some other way.

Cutting off a useful function for truckers who do act responsibly won’t fix this.

And incorrectly enforcing a regulation meant for televisions on some other unrelated device won’t fix it either.

Disposable people

A while back, we reported on the show about a problem with drive-through scanners used at border crossings.

The scanner operators are supposed to wait for the cab – and the trucker – to pass through before turning the device on, so the truckers won’t be exposed to the scanners rays.

One trucker called in recently to say operators at some border crossings were being more careful.

I had hoped that was a sign that media attention and complaints had caused them to be more cautious. And while that may be true in some cases, it turns out it wasn’t in all cases.

We heard this week from one of our regular listeners that at least one border crossing in Washington state hasn’t changed their behavior at all. And that is terrible news.

This is plain irresponsible. And especially in light of a sign that same trucker saw posted there. It read, “Caution, High Radiation Area.”

We see this attitude all over – that companies, government agencies, and others regard their workers as important, set up safety protocols for their people, take steps to keep those folks from harm, provide them with benefits and facilities.

But, at the same time, those same people regard truckers as disposable people.

It’s bad enough when a shipper or receiver won’t give a trucker the simple decency of using a clean bathroom. To expose directly them to danger, to risk their health out of pure laziness … that is inexcusable.

I’d urge any other trucker who’s facing this to call the agency involved, call your state lawmakers, call your member of the U.S. House and both your U.S. Senators.

If you don’t get action, call again.

We need to put some public pressure on the workers who are being so careless. It’s worked in some cases, and hopefully it will finish this problem off for good.

All truckers suffer from the high price of fuel

What is the impact of fuel prices on your life?

It’s a question everyone has an answer for. And none of the answers are good.

We’ve actually heard from some truckers whose carriers pay for their fuel, saying that the price doesn’t affect them.

I wish that statement really hadn’t been made. It seems pretty obvious to me that we are all affected by the high fuel price, no matter what we do for a living, or who we work for.

Even if you don’t pay for one ounce of fuel in that truck, you and your family eat. You buy groceries. You have to pay for fuel to drive to the store, and you have to pay at the store for the extra cost of fuel to haul it there.

Here’s the real kicker, pointed out recently by a trucker named Floyd Miller: Very often, the person who paid for that fuel doesn’t get the extra money you paid at the store.

Pretty much everyone in trucking knows that brokers absorb a lot of the fuel surcharges paid by grocery warehouses, food retailers and other shippers and receivers.

So why does that matter to you, or to your husband or wife, or to any other trucker or their spouse.

Simple. Here’s just one example.

If your carrier isn’t getting that surcharge, you can bet you won’t. Maybe large carriers are getting that money, but what about smaller carriers that often get their loads from brokers.

If you work for one of them, you can bet that raise is even further off than it was before.

Once again, this is an issue where all truckers need to stand together. If we don’t, we’ll all be in a world of hurt.

Remember what Benjamin Franklin said: “We must all hang together, or assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

It’s a bad idea, I ga-ron-tee

Lawmakers in the state of Louisiana recently considered a bill that would have kept tractor-trailers from using all the lanes on multilane highways in the state.

For those who haven’t heard of this yet, or who missed our broadcast the other day, the bill is SB341.

The bill is dead now, but it could come back in the future – and we see this kind of bill come up in other states on a fairly regular basis.

It makes no sense to do this. It could have an effect we’ve described on our program many times – an impenetrable wall of trucks in the right lane, keeping cars from merging on or exiting off.

Does that really sound safe? Should we really be doing this? Or is this just a way to make some four-wheelers feel like something’s being done when, really, nothing that actually improves highway safety has happened.

Like we haven’t seen that trick before.

Some states handle this with signs that say “slower traffic stay right.” The problem is all those drivers who simply think to themselves, “I’m not slower, so I’m OK here in the left lane.”

By the way, for any four-wheelers reading this, if you’re going 55 miles per hour in the left lane, and the speed limit is 70, you are slower traffic.

Just a little tip for you there.

In Kentucky, the signs say “stay right except to pass.” You can debate whether you are slower, or what that word is intended to mean. Whether or not you’re passing is a little less subjective.

States that pass this kind of bill aren’t moving ahead … they’re taking a giant step backward. Let’s hope that before any other state considers a measure like this, their lawmakers wake up and smell the coffee.

‘Nobody does anything about it’

There’s an old quote from a man named Charles Warner. He said, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”

The problem – and the irony – is obvious. No one does anything about the weather because they can’t.

The same can be said about the price of oil. We can’t change it. The only thing we can do is cope.

One of the ways truckers are coping with current fuel prices is by asking for a fuel surcharge.

I don’t need to tell anyone here that truckers aren’t all getting it, that, in fact, most aren’t.

Now, one of our regular callers has found a new aspect to the situation. It turns out that some shippers have been listening to XM Satellite Radio, and heard some of the folks there saying that they’re on a mileage contract, and pay only $1.25 – or a similar, incredibly low figure – for their fuel … no matter what.

The shipper our caller talked to was furious. Why, he said, should he have to pay a 58-cent surcharge for fuel when the trucker was paying a buck 25?

Good question.

I hope our caller explained the reality of the situation as most truckers experience it.

A very limited number of truckers have that deal, where they only pay a set price for fuel, and are insulated completely from the free market forces the bulk of other truckers face.

To those truckers, I say good for you. I’m glad you found a carrier who’s willing to shoot you that deal, and I wish all truckers could get the same deal.

But we all need to be careful and explain to folks outside the industry how this really works. We need to explain how rare that situation is, how most truckers really do pay the price at the pump.

If we don’t, we risk a misinformed public turning on the whole industry. And that would be very bad, indeed.

The only thing limited here is brainpower

You can always count on truckers to come up with reasons for or against something that you never thought of.

The debate over speed limiters has been no exception.

The big argument being pursued now in Canada is the green one – that speed limiters will save fuel and cut emissions.

One trucker who called in ran the numbers. And he points out that if big carriers are interested in saving fuel and cutting emissions, why not install an APU on every truck in their fleet?

That would save far more fuel than the limiters would. Again, he ran the numbers – and it’s not just a little more savings … it’s a huge savings over what limiters would do.

Yet larger carriers are often the slowest to adapt use of APUs or other idle-reduction technology. We hear from company drivers every day who don’t have any alternative to idling on their trucks.

The fact is, the large carriers who are pushing for speed limiters do it for this reason:

Their bean counters have determined a speed that they think is optimum for fuel mileage. Mind you, this is a figure that leaves out the effect of driving techniques on fuel mileage, but that’s what they arrive at.

So the company limits its trucks to that speed.

Well, turns out many truckers don’t like to drive limited trucks. So recruiting becomes tough. Those truckers who don’t like the limiters sign on with other companies.

So how does a big carrier solve this dilemma? By getting their government to pass a law forcing all trucks to have limiters. If all companies are the same, there’s no recruiting advantage.

The best way to do that? Take some hot-button words – safety, environment, green – and plug what you want into those issues.

Let’s face it folks – speed limiters don’t make you safer, they don’t make you greener and the environment won’t get any better if you have them. There are things that accomplish those goals, but this isn’t it.

There is science for these conclusions – studies conducted, for example, by Professor Stephen Johnson of the University of Arkansas.

His research shows that while the one limited truck may use less fuel and put out less in emissions, because the rest of the traffic has to accelerate and brake and then accelerate again to get around it, they all use more.

Want to get green? Buy an APU. That will actually have an effect.

The arguments used to support speed limiters are false. Those debate points are created to hide the real reasoning; they are smoke and mirrors, a magician’s trick meant to distract you with illusion so you don’t notice the reality that’s about to bite you in the behind.

It’s time to shatter this illusion, break down this false argument, and stop a proposal that will do the exact opposite of its stated purpose.

Don’t forget the hot fuel

With the price of diesel fuel and gas at an all-time high, with crude oil finding new and exciting ways of rising in price, and with no sign of relief in sight, we need to keep an eye out for any method, any idea that will help truckers get through.

Which brings us to a familiar subject – hot fuel.

A regular caller to our show reminded us of hot fuel recently, and I agree – we will never see a better time to ask lawmakers to address this problem.

There’s a great explanation of how hot fuel works on OOIDA’s special web site, TurnDownHotFuel.com.

The basics are this: When you buy a gallon of diesel fuel at 60 degrees, it contains 139,000 Btu, or British Thermal Units. That’s a measure of how much energy the fuel contains – essentially, the stuff you buy the fuel to get, the energy that makes the truck go.

If the fuel you buy has a temperature of 100 degrees – not really a stretch, as we’ve seen this in a number of fuel outlets – it contains 2,000 to 3,000 fewer Btu.

Now, let’s put it in even more concrete terms.

Let’s say you run 2,500 miles a week – 10 hours a day at an average 50 miles per hour, over five days. Some may run less, but for our example, let’s use this.

Let’s also say you get 6 miles per gallon on average. We usually use 5 mpg, but most truckers who have survived this long are working hard to increase that. So we’ll use 6 mpg.

That means you’re using roughly 417 gallons a week.

If your fuel comes out of the pump at 100 degrees instead of 60, you better make it 428½ gallons. Because that’s how much 100-degree fuel it will take to get you across the same 2,500 miles.

Doesn’t sound like a lot, does it? Try this on for size:

At $4.50 a gallon, that’s $52.50 extra a week.

And over the roughly four-month summer season, when hot fuel is most common, that adds up to roughly an additional $830.

If you faced that extra expense for the entire year – say, if you strictly drive along the southern tier of the United States – that could add up to an extra $2,700 a year.

Sounds like real money now, doesn’t it?

Lawmakers are looking for ways to help consumers with high fuel prices, not only at the pump, but also at the grocery store, the department store, everyplace where the price of fuel affects the costs the general public pays.

And that makes this a perfect time to call your elected representatives about this issue.

The number to call your U.S. senators and U.S. representative is (202) 224-3121.

Call your elected representatives today. And ask for change.