Letters: Broker Bonds Again, Recruitment Revisited, Hours-of-Service

These Letters to the Editor appear in the June 20 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

Broker Bonds Again

In response to comments in the May 16 letter headlined “Broker Surety Bill” regarding surety bonds, I would like to ask the letter writer the following:

1. Can a trucking company file a $10,000 bond with a fuel company and then charge $50,000 in fuel cost before paying them?

2. Can he file a $10,000 bond with a truck dealer and drive five tractors off the lot?

3. How is taking a financially unsound broker out of the system affecting capacity? Most of them don’t own a truck.

4. If five of the largest insurance companies feel that providing a $100,000 bond to a freight broker is too risky, shouldn’t a small trucking company take the same approach?

I think we should first consider how the letter writer makes his living and his real motive behind the comments.

Second, let him own a trucking company as I have for 20-plus years and watch several brokers either shut down or walk away owing him many thousands of dollars he has paid out to drivers and for fuel, equipment and overhead.

And of course this all happens after he has done a thorough credit check on the broker.

As a footnote, I received a postcard from the Association of Independent Property Brokers & Agents asking me to help them stop a proposed $100,000 surety bond bill. Well, sorry, but I’m one of the small carriers trying to get the bill introduced. I’m not “a big broker” as they mentioned on the postcard. I’m one of a multitude of small trucking companies that have gone unpaid by brokers who have either closed their doors or declared bankruptcy.

John Goodman

President

H&L Cartage Inc.

Pearl, Miss.

Recruitment Revisited

Editor’s Note: The letter below is in response to an earlier letter whose writer took issue with truck-stop recruitment magazines, disputing trucking company advertising claims that included paying the highest cents per mile in the industry, providing a family atmosphere, having an open-door policy, providing quality home time and giving bonuses and vacations.

I feel compelled to respond to the letter headlined “Recruitment Claims” in your June 6 issue.

• If one company pays 35 cents per mile and one pays 40 cents per mile, obviously not all can have the highest cents per mile.

• My company has 175 drivers. I know 85% of them. I care about them, call them by name when I see them and always ask about their families — and I am prepared to listen if they are frustrated or need to vent. And, by the way, I will work to get to know the other 15%.

• All companies spend plenty of resources to try to provide as much quality home-time as possible. As we all know well, it is very expensive — but virtually all of us do it week after week after week, not grudgingly but willingly.

• I know many, many recruiters. Very few lie to drivers; they are intelligent enough to know it is in the best interest of neither the driver nor the recruiter.

• My company and many other companies provide attainable bonuses and vacations to their professional drivers .

Frank Debacco

Recruiter

Kennedy Trucking

Kearny, N.J.

Hours-of-Service

This never-ending hours-of-service regulatory process reminds me of a quip from a John Wayne movie: “We’re burnin’ daylight.” Trucks continue to roll down our nation’s highways, with drivers more confused than ever on pending legislation.

Current issues facing our nation have taught us that we cannot borrow our way out of debt. Why, then, do we believe we can regulate our nation’s commercial workforce into becoming better drivers?

Looks to me like we have an education problem. Perhaps “clairvoyance” of the issues is skewed by the equally never-ending onslaught of organizations intent on progressing their own political agenda.

One case scenario is the conference the Truck Safety Coalition held in May, using victims from tragic truck-related accidents to promote its political agenda. Not only was that a wrong tactic for our system of justice, it reminds me of the case of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, in which a judge admonished the defendant by saying, “You will not use my courtroom to advance your political agenda!” Yet the Truck Safety Coalition uses this tactic.

Quite frankly, as a commercial driver I tired of the politics surrounding trucks. It took me 28 years to become the confident, conscientious and pubic safety-minded driver I am today. Very unhappy with what I witness out there in command of commercial vehicles, I can only hope our leaders choose education rather than regulation.

Mark Yeskie

Driver

Sparks, Nev.