Thank you for visiting Dallas! Here’s your ticket

Idling regulations are – pardon the pun – a hot topic right now.

In part, that’s because of the weather – we’re in the heaviest of summer heat, and we’re not that far from winter.

But more important, it’s a big issue now because so many cities, counties and states are continuing to heap regulations onto truckers, despite the truckers’ basic human needs for heating in the winter and reasonable cooling in the summer.

It comes up in all kinds of situations – even in places you might not think about.

For example: the Great American Truck Show in Dallas.

Several truckers have called here to OOIDA headquarters saying officers are enforcing idling restrictions around Dallas. Since the truck show, and the lot where truckers will stay while there, are in the heart of that fine city, I think we can rest assured enforcement will happen there as well.

I was curious as to the exact regulations in effect there in Dallas, so I checked the latest issue of Land Line Magazine.

Dallas has a five-minute idling limit running from April through October every year, so the truck show would certainly be included.

But I found some good news in there as well.

The rule has a number of exceptions – including one for complying with the hours-of-service rule.

Frankly, though, if there’s a question, I would err on the side of caution.

I think we all know that enforcement officers who have a question are likely to write that ticket and ask questions later – and, as one of my co-workers here said, sometimes those exceptions aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.

Border Fix

There’s been a lot of activity lately regarding the Mexican Cross-Border Trucking Pilot Program.

Most important, the House Transportation Committee acted on a bill designed to end the program once and for all.

The members of the House who introduced this bill designed it to avoid the wording problems the administration used to get around previous attempts to stop the program.

But that situation has many truckers skeptical … and concerned. What’s to keep the Department of Transportation from playing word games again.

I understand the concern, and I think it’s a valid point – especially because the Department of Transportation is already very clearly in violation of the law … a fact they refuse to acknowledge.

The only answer I can give is the part of the bill that forbids the DOT from granting operating authority to any other motor carriers based in Mexico, unless the DOT gets permission to do so from Congress.

I think we can all rest assured that Congress isn’t giving that permission any time soon.

It’s a sticky situation. But there’s another light at the end of the tunnel.

In less than six months, most of the current leaders of the U.S. DOT will be out of a job when a new president takes office.

Hopefully, whichever candidate wins, the new administration will be on that takes a dim view of what the current DOT has done.

Speed limiter laws and the encroaching ‘nanny state’

A few weeks ago the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Highways and Transit had a hearing entitled “Improving Roadway Safety ...” One of the panelists was a safety advocate who argued that stricter speed limits on our national highways should be placed on the national agenda. He argued that this measure would save both lives and energy.

When the debate is framed this way it is difficult to argue against these seemingly noble objectives. It follows that safety and public health are held up as paramount concerns for the government. Although I’m sure that safety advocates have good intentions, much is at stake in this complex debate, including many personal freedoms, standards of living and the livelihoods of small-business truckers.

Small-business truckers are again having to confront burdensome legislation – under the banner of enhancing highway safety – when conducting their occupations. In Canada, the provincial governments of Ontario and Quebec have approved legislation requiring heavy truck engines to be limited to a maximum speed of 65 mph. This legislation was originally pushed in the name of promoting highway safety, in spite of research to the contrary. Unfortunately, these efforts are insidious in several ways: they create congestion, impact the livelihoods of drivers, and make highways less safe.

In the U.S. Congress, there is a bill that seeks to establish a national maximum speed limit of 60 mph on highways (HR6458). Though this legislation is a long shot, it embodies the core dilemma of this debate. The thought behind this bill is that reducing the speed limit will reduce fatalities on our nation’s roads, but with this logic, we could lower the national speed limit for highways to 25 mph and reduce vehicular fatalities even further. Of course, this outcome would also cripple trade and commerce. There are obvious tradeoffs in this debate and a need to strike a delicate balance that promotes safety while not overly burdening highway users.

This issue carries great salience because it represents broader themes of political philosophy. One side of this debate talks about the morality of social protection and the other side talks about the morality of personal responsibility and individual liberty. In addition to calls for speed limitations, many other issues are caught in this philosophical tug of war, including mandatory seatbelt laws, prohibitions of smoking in buildings, mandatory helmet laws for bicycle riders, and laws to combat obesity. What makes all these issues similar is that they share the goal of enhancing safety and “public health.” The social protection camp would argue that one role of the state is to allow people freedom to do what they want up to the point where other people are harmed.

With all this in mind, the question is: At what point are we venturing into “nanny state” territory, where the government attempts to run the private lives of its citizens? To this end, it seems patronizing to make decisions for people in areas that should be subject to individual choice and discretion. One example of governmental over-reaching is the trend toward public health laws aimed at attacking the scourge of fatty foods. It seems to me that if we justify laws based on what’s good for people, there is no end in sight. In the end, life is about living. Many good people willingly choose to drink, smoke and eat fatty foods, and are well aware of the health risks.

Granted, there is a keen need to strike a balance when serious public health issues are at stake. The question remains whether excessive speed limit laws fall into this “nanny state” category. I would argue that excessive speed limitations on highways represent the encroachment of the “nanny state” into the personal lives of citizens.

Now what’s the difference between laws targeting fatty foods and excessive speed limit laws? While the former can be blamed for thousands of deaths, increased disease, and a loss of productivity, the latter has an affect on other people, not just the individual. Surely, one could attempt to argue that the thousands of deaths on our nation’s highways every year call for a more strict scrutiny and regulation of speed limitations for commercial vehicles. Although a persuasive case can be made to the general public in this direction, it is altogether unconvincing because vital philosophical issues hang in the balance.

Safety advocates may push for national speed limitation laws under the banner of increasing highway safety, but they would also be pushing for limiting personal freedom, livelihoods, and individual discretion.

Stopping speed traps

Florida lawmakers recently announced an effort in that state to cut down on speed traps.

That sounds great to most people. But others ask an obvious question: Why are those speed traps a problem as long as you’re running the speed limit? As one trucker said, “If you break the law, you break the law.”

The problem, and what makes these speed traps and not just speed limit changes, is when a town puts a sign where it’s hard to see till you’re right on top of it, dropping the speed limit so far that you can’t possibly get your speed down in time.

Let’s try a scenario that I’ve actually seen: You’re going right on the speed limit for hundreds of miles. You suddenly turn a tight corner and see a sign just a few feet up the road dropping the speed limit 30 or 40 miles an hour.

You tell me how likely you are to succeed at that task driving a fully loaded rig with 80,000 pounds and a 53 foot trailer.

My view: No way.

Some of these towns deliberately set up that very situation with a goal of raising their city budget not from honest taxes, but from fines on out of town truckers and other out-of-town drivers.

That’s the kind of thing Florida’s lawmakers and lawmakers elsewhere are trying to stop. And I think they have a point.

Cash or credit?

Cash or credit at the pump? It used to happen at fueling stations all the time. Many thought the practice had gone away. But it never really did.

And it’s raised another question in the mind of some truckers. How is it that a station can charge less based on how you pay? To one trucker who called our program, it sounded like a form of price gouging aimed at credit card-using customers.

But in fact, it’s not.

Most of the discount they’re offering for cash payment is due to how the credit card companies make their money. They charge a percentage of the purchase.

I remember it used to be 4 percent of retail purchases. So when you paid a dollar, 4 cents went to Visa, Mastercard or whoever.

Now that a gallon of fuel is more than $4 … that 4 percent becomes 16 cents to Visa, not 4 cents.

I’m not sure 4 percent is still the number, but I’m pretty sure it hasn’t gone down.

Part of what’s driving this as well is the incredibly thin profit margins local fuel stations have on diesel purchases. Some only pull in a few cents per gallon in net profit. So 16 cents off that becomes a make or break situation.

I’m not trying to justify what they’re doing. I don’t think I could look myself in the mirror in the morning if I tried to justify anything fuel companies did right now. But this is why they’re offering that discount.

That being said, I think one more point needs to be made: If you are charging more for credit card purchases, you should have to put the higher price on your sign.

If cash buyers get a discount, bonus! It’s like Christmas.

But no one should ever be subjected to pulling in for one price, only to be charged another when they walk in to pay.

Getting the priorities straight

More and more states and cities are passing laws against hand-held cell phone use.

And while there are some studies to indicate using a cell is distracting to drivers, and therefore constitutes a safety hazard, some contend that other, more serious problems should take precedence.

I do think those critics have a solid point. With murders, robberies and violence in the streets, we would seem to have plenty of work for our law enforcement to do. Certainly I think most would agree those would take precedence over stopping Johnny from talking with Buffy on the cell phone.

However, to the credit of the folks in California (you won’t hear me say that often), I do think we need to do something about many four-wheelers’ driving habits.

How many times have you seen someone putting on makeup, turning completely around to discipline a kid, doing paperwork from their job, bending over to pick up something off the car floor … or nearly hitting your rig because they were gabbing on the blasted phone instead of driving?

That’s what the folks in California are trying to put a stop to.

Of course, if instead of that, they required driver’s education, that very well might solve that problem – and a whole mess of other problems.

But I guess that would be too hard for them to do.

Barn door closed, horse long gone, while foxes guard hen house

U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters recently traveled to Atlanta to “unveil the Bush administration’s comprehensive new transportation plan.”

Her big announcement came only 174 days before the 2,920-day-long Bush administration will end.

Odd timing, it would seem, to announce with fanfare that the administration is, at long last, “completely overhauling” the nation’s transportation system.

The truth is that if Bush and Peters were the parents, and our highway system was the child, they’d both be hauled off by social services for parental neglect.

The only things they’ve done for the system in eight long years is to allow the Highway Trust Fund to go bankrupt and to urge the states to sell off their roads and bridges to Wall Street and/or foreign investors.

OOIDA’s Todd Spencer says they “hung out the for sale sign.”

So, Peters’ insistence that – in 174 days – they’ll fix our “broken” system would be laughable if it weren’t so condescending.

The truth is, they left the barn door open for eight years and, sure enough, the horse (read highway system) that was once the envy of the world galloped off (read went broke).

But, if you can handle mixed metaphors, the foxes who’ve been guarding the transportation hen house will scamper back to their dens in 174 days.

Then maybe that ol’ horse can be coaxed back into the barn.