FW: Fwd: Karen's admonition counter point

[Gerry Storm]

Quite true, Clark. As a former king of the road I can tell you that: A. Many
of our trucks are dogs which cannot pass any kind of careful inspection, and
B. There are many Mex trucking firms with brand new spic and span equipment.
Percentage wise theirs is probably no worse than ours. Truckers shudder at
the sight of a DOT inspection station (DOT really looks and they will hold
your truck, make you pay fines and put up bonds). The fines are quite
strong, especially in California where many renegade truckers absolutely
refuse to drive. The other state inspection stations are often a joke.

The truth is that the trucking industry has the economy by the balls, they
have to run or we don't eat or have goods in the shops. Consequently, the
laws are quite lax and the real inspections are few. The drivers are
overworked and underpaid and under constant threat of big fines, even
encouraged to break the law by their dispatchers on occasion. I don't know
what would happen if trucks were really inspected closely on a regular
basis...it would probably bring on a state of emergency...total chaos.

I once drove a rig from the San Antonio area to Waco with no trailer brakes.
It was empty at the time and I didn't know how bad off I was until I took it
in for a look to find out why those lights on the dash wouldn't go out. When
you hook up to an empty trailer there is always something wrong with it,
just a case of deciding if it's too risky to gamble. I also experienced a
case where a warehouse refused to load the trailer I was pulling because of
obvious damage...happens everyday, many times, all over the USA--and
Mexico...no time to slow down and do it right...gotta keep on rollin'. My
tractor (drove it for 6 months) had an alternator problem which was never
repaired in spite of my putting it in the shop at the end of every
run...batteries would not hold a charge, so out on the road I never turned
it off, even while I slept. OK, I did turn it off while refueling, for about
10 minutes max.
G


---- Original Message -----
From: "Clark Santos" <clarksantos@argolink.net>
To: <frances_morey@excite.com>
Cc: <gHETTO2@LISTS.WHATHELPS.COM>; <austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net>
Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2004 3:19 PM
Subject: Re: FW: Fwd: Karen's admonition counter point


> Frances,
>
> You're  sounding like a bohemian who pretends to be a german from
> Castroville when you make a primarily political statement often made by
> republicans and democrats (especially from Tx and other border states)
> to keep the truckers and the large trucking entrenchment happy, by
> implying that mexican foreigners who build those trashy old Kenimexs and
> Dinas are somehow less able to drive on better roads than the American
> red neck. When the cops have the big truck crackdowns here I don't ever
> see any Mexican license plates in the news reports telling us how much
> safer we will be.
>
> On Tuesday, September 14, 2004, at 01:39  PM, Frances Morey wrote:
>
> > continues to expose us to Mexican truck drivers operating less safe
> > Mexican trucks adding to the traffic on our highways.
>
>
>