Letters: Fast-Thinking Trucker, Simple Manners, TSA Fees & Red Tape
These Letters to the Editor appear in the May 23 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
Fast-Thinking Trucker
On May 9, I was traveling north on Georgia highway 15/121 between Blackshear and Bristol at about noon. I wish to compliment a trucker for his attention to the traffic pattern and considerate (or well-taught) driving. He may well have saved a life on that day. I regret that I did not get to identify him.
I was traveling north on a two-lane highway in my private automobile, and the trucker (an unladen log truck) was traveling south, followed at safe distances by two private automobiles. The last southbound vehicle moved into my lane to pass the car ahead of him. There was plenty of room for him to do that and to re-enter the southbound lane behind the truck. What that driver did not know was that the truck planned a left turn onto an unpaved, unmarked road.
I’d seen the southbound passer pull into the northbound lane and judged that he had plenty of time to pass. However, the trucker, knowing that he needed to stop to make his left turn, pulled off the road to his right on the shoulder in a safe, deliberate move that cleared the southbound lane for the passer.
I didn’t realize what was going on with the trucker until I saw him make his left turn in my rearview mirror after all three private cars had cleared. Had the trucker not done what he did, the passer would have had no place to re-enter the southbound lane and an emergency situation would have developed where both he and I would have needed to decide quickly how to resolve our dilemma. The trucker’s action prevented that emergency situation from developing and may have avoided a collision betweentwo or all of the three private automobiles — with attendant risk of injuries or deaths. I was totally impressed with the trucker’s awareness of a potential emergency of which he could have known only by checking his rear-view mirror and assessing the implications of what he saw there for all four vehicles. I wish I could thank him personally. Failing that, this is my best guess at how to call attention to his skill and training in a complimentary way.
Thank you for your kind attention.
Spencer Mathews
Spartanburg, S.C.
Simple Manners
The single biggest key to driver retention in 2011 is simple manners.
In a civilized society, we say “please” and “thank you” as a means of showing respect to our fellow citizens. Unfortunately, this basic custom has fallen by the wayside as we’ve become a more hurried and hectic collective and race about cutting — and flipping — each other off on the freeway in the name of spending more useless time in whatever venue we’re risking our lives and property to arrive at.
We’ve forgotten our manners and the respect they convey because we’ve become overloaded with demands on our time. We’ve forgotten the simple fact that there are only 24 hours in a day.
Want to hire and retain qualified drivers with little or no cost to your company? Build a twofold reputation:
• Build a culture of safety. Yes, the really good drivers you want to employ do care about safety, and they want to work for a company that creates a culture of safety and supports it. At every turn, insist on safety.
• Build a culture of respect. Respect is about simple manners. In addition to saying “please” and “thank you” when appropriate, remember to say “excuse me” and “I’m sorry.” Expect maturity and responsibility from your drivers and your dispatchers.
The process of building a culture of safety and respect will raise the bar for all of your employees, both labor and management. After raising that bar, offer help to those who have difficulty achieving the new standards. You’ll be surprised when employees you’ve already written off come to you for help rising above their own failures because they want to better themselves.
All people deserve the opportunity to succeed, and most will, if given the motivation and opportunity.
Jeffrey Allen
25-Year Safe Driver
San Diego
TSA Fees, Red Tape
The Transportation Security Administration’s bureaucratic foot-dragging is legendary, so thank you for highlighting in your May 9 article, “Costly Fees, Red Tape Discourage Drivers From Getting Hazmat Credentials, Hill Told”, the agency’s failure to process drivers’ applications for TSA hazardous-material endorsements in a timely manner.
When I first applied for my Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) card and hazmat endorsement, the process was so inefficient that, out of frustration, I finally appealed to U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine to light a fire under TSA’s sorry excuse for public service.
That worked, but TSA’s procedures are still inexcusably slow and time-consuming.
In my occasional capacity as a freelance journalist, I have interviewed oil-transport terminal managers who have told me nightmarish stories of how their drivers have had to wait so long for their TSA hazmat endorsements that they almost had to pull them off the road because of the delays.
Ted Cohen
Class A Commercial Motor Vehicle Operator
Old Dominion Freight Line
Portland, Maine
So I read in Transport Topics that the Transportation Security Administration already has spent $420 million on the years-behind-schedule Transportation Worker Identification Credential program and could spend another $3.2 billion more (“House Committee Upset With TWIC Delays; TSA Unlikely to Issue Rule Until Late 2012,” 5-2, p. 4). And so far, we have something “about as useful as a library card,” said Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee.
Those millions are tax dollars paid to the government by hardworking Americans. This is money wasted. Why are we letting this happen?
I am one of those “library card” holders; I took off from work twice, spending time, gasoline and money to get this TWIC card — when better options were available and presented to Congress.
TWIC isn’t making our nation more secure, but someone is benefiting from TWIC already — and it needs to stop.
Danny Schnautz
Operations Manager
Clark Freight Lines
Pasadena, Texas
