Letters: CSA Fallout, Mexican Tariffs
These Letters to the Editor appear in the Aug. 30 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
Fallout From CSA
The prediction by some people is that the new CSA rules will take 5% or more over-the-road drivers off our highways. To some folks that may be a good thing. (Click here for previous story.)
To others — those who realize they depend on trucks for everything from tennis balls to automobile parts to food and produce — the prospect of losing that many drivers is not so pleasing.
Nonetheless, this is the immediate future. This spring, we saw a precursor to what is likely to happen: There won’t be enough trucks available to handle the freight, and decisions will have to be made about what freight to haul and what not to haul.
My suggestion is a simple one: Let those who made the rule live with the results first. If a choice has to be made, make freight going to within 150 miles of Washington, D.C., be the last on the list.
As soon as the congressional movers and shakers in the District of Columbia and its Virginia and Maryland suburbs feel the pain, the rule will be revisited.
Unfortunately, by then, the damage will be long term.
Lewis Guignard
President
Tynat LLC
Charlotte, N.C.
I want to thank you for your newspaper’s focus on the trucking industry. It has been a valuable resource for my small business.
The following is an open letter to Anne Ferro, director of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, and Ray LaHood, secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation:
As a professional driver, I am very concerned with the pending rollout of this new CSA and what it will mean to thousands of otherwise safe, professional drivers like myself, as well as the hidden fees and taxes that it will levy on the transportation industry as a whole.
With unemployment in the transportation industry at an all-time high and the nation’s economic health on life support, it will mean more unemployed workers, namely drivers, who are put out of their trucks because of some misconstrued “math formula.”
How will this seriously affect your company’s driver recruitment efforts in the future? How will you compensate for those professional drivers who will have to meet these draconian new standards?
You’d better sit down and go through this law item by item right now. Remember, it’s better to build an ark before it starts raining.
I sense that as this new law is implemented, there will be a lot of young DOT officers with an attitude who are going to find themselves in a bad, possibly violent, situation if they start pulling drivers out of their only source or means of economic survival because of some vague technicality.
Many of these professional drivers have had their homes taken by foreclosure, so their trucks not only serve as a means to get around but also a lifeboat to stay off the streets. Take away their jobs, and they are at risk of being homeless.
You can see the potential for a “perfect storm.”
I certainly hope that your solution to the problem is not to make every scale house an armory, but rather to logically reconsider these insane regulations and clean it up.
Try spreading the responsibility around to the terminal managers and dispatchers and have them trained in the basic hours of service and be certified. Make all truck mechanics have a similar mechanic’s license like aircraft mechanics have.
You can use the Federal Aviation Administration’s blueprint and transfer it to the rail and trucking industries with little cost and in the process create a chain of command of traceability when accidents or safety issues come into focus.
The blame game on the professional driver has just about run its course. It’s time to look at the whole picture and start making others besides the driver responsible and accountable. Only then will safety and work conditions improve significantly in the transportation industry as a whole.
David Ritter
Owner
Semper Fi Transport
Klamath Falls, Ore.
All carriers are regulated by many governing bodies in the United States and Canada. These regulations ensure that the companies are held responsible for the equipment they operate and for their drivers.
Our drivers deal with a variety of loads. Depending on the load, the method of securement will vary, and the industry-governing bodies expect each driver to be knowledgeable about each of these methods.
Think of how many accidents, injuries and fatalities are the result of a shipper improperly loading cargo. Does it not make sense that the person loading the cargo, who is trained — or should be — in the proper placement of the product, be held to a higher standard and accountability? Why is it that the blame and responsibility isn’t placed squarely on the shoulders of the drivers and carriers?
And what if the driver picks up cargo that already is inside a sealed trailer?
In accordance with the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, better known as C-TPAT, the sealing of trailers is a crucial element in a secure supply chain.
In many cases, a driver picks up an already-sealed trailer at a secure facility. He or she cannot assess if the cargo has been properly loaded and/or secured, and yet, in the event of an accident, it is the driver, and ultimately the carrier, who is held responsible, not the shipper.
CSA is being called a game changer.
The game needs to be changed further; the field must be balanced. This is not about removing responsibility from the driver for ensuring the safety of his load. It is about doing the right thing and ensuring that drivers and the motoring public are safe — and remain safe.
Organization leaders must put pressure on the government to bring about this balance.
A precedent already is in place: When using rail transport, it is the shippers’ responsibility to ensure the safety and securement of the cargo.
If it is not secure, it does not go.
Shawn Jameson
Director of Safety
SGT 2000 Inc.
Brampton, Ontario
Mexican Tariffs
If Mexico wants to put tariffs on products because we do not want their drivers driving all over the United States, let them. I also think we should put an extremely high tax on any company in the United States that moves its production facility to Mexico. (Click here for previous story.)
Give companies such as Polaris or Gillette or whoever bought Young America (the company that does your rebates) a reason to stay in this country. Lower their corporate tax rate if they stay here and create jobs for Americans.
We need to support American workers first. The United States has got to stop the export of our jobs, whether it is to Mexico or some other country.
Rick Crosby
Owner
Tykatie Transport
Anoka, Minn.
