Let's face it, the trucking industry is just pretty screwed up. The entertainment industry is screwed up, the media is pretty screwed up along with the retail industry being screwed up. We all spend our lives waiting on loads, waiting in traffic and a %20 across the board improvement in efficiency would do us all a world of good.
We hate Wal-Mart because we have been led by the media to hate them. Has anyone reported anything about the driver of the bus Tracy Morgan was on? Do we even know who he was? Was there any reports of the drug tests on any of them? No. We have a wealthy celebrity who had an accident with a trucker and we fellow truckers are so easily drawn into the drama because we have been trained to take sides and give our opinion. I am sure there were plenty of autos around when this happened....where are they? Who is gonna speak up first? The one who shops at Wal-Mart but at the same time wants to see Wal-Mart taken to the cleaners?
I am no lover of Wal-Mart. I think Sam Walton created an empire and his children have picked up the ball and ran with it. But who knows what this driver did on his own personal time before he went on duty? None of us do and we never will because it was HIS PERSONAL TIME. Anyone willing to allow the companies you work for chip you so they can control you during your 10 hours in the sleeper? Not me. If the driver didn't get enough sleep it is because the driver himself chose not to. Wally has a sound safety policy, if drivers don't follow the policy what can the company do? How well do any of us follow our companies safety policy? Most of us truckers hold the safety department in contempt because they actually never drove a truck and have no idea what we go through in a day. Why would we expect the children of Sam Walton to be any different than the rest of the corporations we drive for? Most companies die of neglect and the ongoing quest to get comfortable at a job so as to ride it out and retire. The company heads get lazy. They don't attack the job like it matters. Mediocre drivers say the right things and get a set of keys. Anyone who actually really cares about the company is branded a trouble maker.
Our safety department doesn't know a king pin from a clothes pin and the head of it is a young man who has absolutely no practical knowledge of trucking at all, but he took up smoking so he could take a smoke break with the girls in the office. All he knows is to send you down for a drug screen AFTER the accident. Trucks fly out of the gate with lights not working, loads not weighed and many times on flat tires. But the safety department has pac man on their computer and after all that is where the real life happens after all!
The only time anyone takes safety seriously is after someone gets killed and even then it will take someone with notoriety to get our attention. If Tracy Morgan was a struggling comic at the Ice House, we wouldn't give his death another thought Tracy was human, just like the Wal-Mart driver who gets to live with this the rest of his life. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
We hate Wal-Mart because we have been led by the media to hate them. Has anyone reported anything about the driver of the bus Tracy Morgan was on? Do we even know who he was? Was there any reports of the drug tests on any of them? No. We have a wealthy celebrity who had an accident with a trucker and we fellow truckers are so easily drawn into the drama because we have been trained to take sides and give our opinion. I am sure there were plenty of autos around when this happened....where are they? Who is gonna speak up first? The one who shops at Wal-Mart but at the same time wants to see Wal-Mart taken to the cleaners?
I am no lover of Wal-Mart. I think Sam Walton created an empire and his children have picked up the ball and ran with it. But who knows what this driver did on his own personal time before he went on duty? None of us do and we never will because it was HIS PERSONAL TIME. Anyone willing to allow the companies you work for chip you so they can control you during your 10 hours in the sleeper? Not me. If the driver didn't get enough sleep it is because the driver himself chose not to. Wally has a sound safety policy, if drivers don't follow the policy what can the company do? How well do any of us follow our companies safety policy? Most of us truckers hold the safety department in contempt because they actually never drove a truck and have no idea what we go through in a day. Why would we expect the children of Sam Walton to be any different than the rest of the corporations we drive for? Most companies die of neglect and the ongoing quest to get comfortable at a job so as to ride it out and retire. The company heads get lazy. They don't attack the job like it matters. Mediocre drivers say the right things and get a set of keys. Anyone who actually really cares about the company is branded a trouble maker.
Our safety department doesn't know a king pin from a clothes pin and the head of it is a young man who has absolutely no practical knowledge of trucking at all, but he took up smoking so he could take a smoke break with the girls in the office. All he knows is to send you down for a drug screen AFTER the accident. Trucks fly out of the gate with lights not working, loads not weighed and many times on flat tires. But the safety department has pac man on their computer and after all that is where the real life happens after all!
The only time anyone takes safety seriously is after someone gets killed and even then it will take someone with notoriety to get our attention. If Tracy Morgan was a struggling comic at the Ice House, we wouldn't give his death another thought Tracy was human, just like the Wal-Mart driver who gets to live with this the rest of his life. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.