Looking at the world through rose-colored lenses (or some other color)

Reed Black reported a little while back about research showing that intensely blue light produces alertness – and about researchers in Troy, NY, who are working on a device to take advantage of the light’s effect.

Shortly after that aired, I got a call from an OOIDA member named John Tolbert. John said that on the U.S.S. Missouri – the famed battleship on which the Japanese surrendered at the end of World War II – the bridge used blue lights instead of red during battles.

It thought that was pretty interesting – apparently, the Navy knew about this effect for quite some time.

But then John went on to say that he wears yellow-tinted glasses for better vision at night. Just like the blue lights, I had never heard of that before.

So I checked into it. Often, on the Web, they were referred to as yellow-tinted polarized lenses.

I also found a number of references to those lenses being used in hunting and shooting – and being prescribed for folks who have difficulty seeing at night.

Other sites refer to them being use for enhancing color contrast and depth perception.

But a lot of those sites also note that before you use yellow lenses, you should probably talk to your optometrist and make sure they’re right for you.

It may seem like something far less important than what we usually discuss on this blog – the more serious topics of trucking. But what could be more important than being able to see better at night?

Insult on top of injury

If you want to get truckers really mad, you only need a few words to do it. One example: brokers.

Another one sure to get a rise is the word, “lumpers.”

A recent call we received here at OOIDA headquarters is a good example of why.

The trucker said he recently delivered to a loading dock in the St. Louis area. The lumper fee was a whopping $120 – a figure that I find astounding, but which – unfortunately – I acknowledge is more common in some places than I really want to think about.

When our friend the trucker tried to pay the lumper with a ComCheck, he was told doing that would cost him $3 extra.

So let me get this straight: Truckers don’t get the surcharge for real increases in fuel costs, but a lumper – someone who’s probably not even reporting the income, someone who may not even be in the country legally – gets to charge him an extra $3 just so they can cash the check he paid them?

It’s ridiculous that you have to pay for a lumper at all; it’s even more ridiculous that you have to pay $120 for the lumper’s so-called service.

To be handed a $3 charge just because of how you paid them – that’s insult on top of injury.

Political horse trading

We all know about how the Canadian province of Ontario has passed a law requiring speed limiters on trucks there.

One of our callers recently pointed out that the same folks who pushed for the limiters have also pushed for longer, heavier vehicles there in Canada.

For a long time, OOIDA officials have said the push for limiters here was being made for several reasons. I’ve talked most about the competitive reasons, such as driver recruitment.

But here in the U.S., again, those carriers pushing for limiters are the same ones pushing for longer, heavier trucks.

It’s pretty obvious this is an attempt at a political trade. We give you slower trucks; you reward us with bigger trucks.

We need to make sure that our politicians understand what is happening here. Speed limiters make roads less safe. Trucks the same size as a Boeing 707 make highways less safe.

So this isn’t a trade off … this is a combination of two factors both of which will make our highways less safe for everyone.

I encourage everyone reading this to call your elected officials, and make sure they understand those basic facts.

Big truck insanity

Recently, the ATA and a number of shipper and receiver groups started yet another push to allow longer, heavier trucks onto our nation’s highways.

It’s not really a new fight for them, or for all of us. But this time, they are trying some new angles to get Congress to agree with their request.

But the facts behind this discussion haven’t really changed at all.

One of them I haven’t brought up lately is a simple matter of measurement – there are a lot of places where a double, much less a triple, wouldn’t fit on the existing streets, or into an existing dock.

A trucker recently called in to remind us about that. He mentioned some of the spots he drives in California, but what we’re talking about here isn’t unique to California – not by far.

In fact, there are plenty of cities where the whole infrastructure system is built around a single 48-foot trailer – where they even have trouble with a single 53-foot trailer.

Putting doubles or triples into that situation is insane.

What we’re seeing here is larger carriers whose office-bound bean counters have determined that this will save them cash. And that’s what this is about – their money.

It’s not about safety, it’s not about the environment – it’s money.

We were all taught in Sunday school that the love of money is the root of all evil. Seems sometimes that old wisdom is the best wisdom.

A revelation in Ontario: Heavy things go down hills fast!

The new speed limiter law in Ontario isn’t yet in effect. The province still has to create a regulation to enforce that law.

The proposed regulation contains the method officials want to use for enforcement.

Here’s how it will work, straight from the proposed regulation:

“A truck charged with a speeding offence … will be deemed not to have a functioning speed limiter.”

That and the rest of the regulation don’t indicate any leniency for a rig going faster due to a downhill grade.

But it’s pretty obvious that will happen. Heavy things go faster down hills, and those speed limiters don’t have a switch that activates the brakes (to all you folks in Ontario government: That was not a suggestion!)

Well, it turns out that not only are provincial officials aware of this little bit of basic physics; they even acknowledged that downhill grades can have an effect.

Another part of the proposed regulation says, “A speed limiting system is functioning properly if it prevents a driver from accelerating to, or maintaining a speed greater than 105 km/h on level ground.”

They seem to be acknowledging that a downhill grade can push the limited truck faster, but they offer no break if that happens.

We’ve encourage truckers to file their comments on this. I hope everyone who reads this will file comments and point out this obvious contradiction.

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.