Comments By Brett Aquila

Kearsey:

A lobbying group? Who can influence state & federal laws, as well as trucking companies and truck manufacturers?

Possibly. I've never been involved in lobbying efforts, so I don't know what that would entail, but we obviously belong at the table for any discussions involving the laws that govern trucking or infrastructure.

For instance, it was painfully obvious they had a ton of sleep experts at the table when they created the 14-hour rule, the 30-minute break rule, and the prior sleeper berth rules, but they didn't have everyone they needed because those rules were complete garbage. I knew it was a joke before I finished reading the new regulations for the first time. Most drivers could easily see that they had made a major mistake, but it still took many years to revise the rules back toward their original state. They should have never changed the logbook rules in the first place, but unless you're a truck driver with years of experience, you wouldn't understand the effect it would have.

So it's in everyone's best interest that we have a seat at the table for these discussions.

How would we verify employment and "top tier"? Legally, employers can only say certain things about an employee. If including owner ops.. how would you verify their abilities since they only report to themselves.

None of that would be difficult. There are extensive systems in place to verify identity, past employment, driving record, criminal record, and more if we want to. We can even get social media histories, personality analyses, and all kinds of stuff. We're living in the age of data. It's all out there.

What would be member benefits?

That, of course, is the million-dollar question. Literally. What would be the point of our existence, and what would be the financial model?

When you assemble a large group of top performers, you have a powerful force. I don't care what area of our society you're in - family life, education, business, sports, politics - an organized group of the top performers is powerful.

So, what is the best use of our strengths?

Kearsey asked:

What "training" would be better than what companies already do on the equipment which they drive?

As an entrepreneur, I always ask this question: What can I build that would create far more value than it would cost to produce?

Well, we can build an online training program to educate our drivers. I'll just copy/paste my previous description:

Teach drivers a holistic approach to increasing their productivity and improving their lives. Includes everything from nutrition and fitness to time management strategies, stress management, scheduling, getting in and out of customers faster, mastering logbook rules, communicating better with dispatch, managing your relationships at home, working through challenges with your employer, and so much more.

We can also build a strong online community (like this one) to exchange ideas and support drivers throughout their careers.

Our drivers will be healthier, safer, more productive, more efficient, easier to work with, and they'll change jobs less often. If we can prove that our drivers help trucking companies make more money and provide better service, they'll gladly pay for that. Just giving them access to a group of high-level, experienced drivers is immensely valuable, even if we provide no training. But add our training to it, and now you have something powerful.

In this model, everyone wins. The trucking companies and their customers, as well as our drivers and our organization. We all win in this scenario. No one makes enemies, no one gets hurt.

I consider this the only type of business model I would participate in. I would never participate in a predatory business. I'm a very competitive person, but not a confrontational person by nature. I love to compete, but I don't want war.

So Kearsey, when you said "lobbying group" my eyes got wide for a moment. I pictured myself in Washington wearing a suit and threw up a little in my mouth. But you're right. If we wanted to be included in lawmaking decisions, we'd have to wiggle our way to the table in Washington. I have zero knowledge or experience in that area, so I would love to learn more about that.

We could lobby as part of our mission, as well. It doesn't have to be the core of what we do, but one of the many services we provide.

So, would we be a lobbying group? An educational organization? A business organization? A non-profit? I'd say it's all on the table, and we could end up a mix.

My nature is to approach things from a business perspective because I like being able to knock on someone's door and say, "I have an idea that will improve your life, and you'll get more from it than it will cost."

Competing in business when you're providing great value is a fun way to live. I enjoy it. What I don't want is courtroom battles, political fights, or enemies.

Ok, we're off and running!

BK, I'm not sure of the answer to any of your questions, but I like the idea of a grassroots effort.

Davy, a few thoughts about your ideas:

basically a representative based structure that is made up of drivers

You're severely limiting your talent pool if it must be current drivers. I'm a retired driver with 31 years in the industry. I have immensely valuable knowledge, experience, industry connections, top-level computer/photo/video skills, and 15 years of running a trucking community that gets over 2 million visits per year. So you don't want to limit yourself to current drivers. Even if you can find drivers with the needed skills, they simply would not have the time to run an organization like this.

Leadership would be elected with term limits so that the organization remains by drivers for drivers.

That would sound nice on a marketing brochure, but in reality, I'm not sure it's the best approach. For starters, this turns it into a democratic organization and all the fun that comes with politics. You would have to find candidates, educate everyone on the candidates, get everyone to agree on what the organization's agenda should be, allow the candidates to campaign, hold the voting, and much more.

Such an organization, that had a focus on education, and fostering top tier drivers would justify the higher labor rates paid to drivers. The carriers would be able to do more with less. It's actually a much higher ROI for them. Walmart obviously has figured this out.

The Walmart thing is a conversation to itself, but to keep it simple, it's not that simple. Highly experienced drivers are not the best candidates for many trucking jobs because lower-level candidates can often do the job just as well for less pay. Just like with anything in life - sometimes it pays to have the best of the best, sometimes you're better off saving money by using lower-level stuff. Walmart would not exclusively hire top-level drivers if they were going to create a general freight division to compete with the likes of Swift, Schneider, and the rest. They wouldn't be competitive. But for hauling their own freight, it's worth having the best drivers because transportation costs are a very small percentage of the cost of running Walmart as a business. So it helps the business as a whole make more money by investing more in high-quality drivers. Their goal isn't to make a profit moving freight. Their goal is to make a profit as a retailer. Our experienced top-tier drivers would provide an incredible value for the right positions.

It would behoove us to bargain rather than simply attempting to force rates higher. In turn, the carriers would be getting something substantial for the expense.

Unions bargain. They don't just force rates. However, management teams at large corporations are not that cooperative when you suggest they hand over some of their salary to the workers.

If they sense there are no consequences for saying no, they'll just say no. Sometimes, you must show you can make life tough for people who treat you unfairly, or they'll continue to treat you unfairly. So unions strike. Well, the local corporations are the ones advertising on the local news, and advertising pays their salaries. So the news backs the large corporations by making the workers seem unreasonable, as if they're forcing the company to comply. It's propaganda.

Anyhow, negotiations get ugly sometimes. That's business. If your negotiations always go easy and you always get what you want, then you're asking for way too little.

I envision an organization that works with carriers and authorities to foster safe professional drivers and practices. The certification standards and process would carry weight....Drivers would be motivated to attain higher certification because it would mean higher pay, psychologically higher status and respect. It's the very definition of performance dictates pay.

Yes to all of that. One thing we can do is educate experienced drivers to be more efficient. Teach drivers a holistic approach to increasing their productivity. It takes everything from nutrition and fitness to time management strategies, stress management, scheduling, getting in and out of customers faster, mastering logbook rules, communicating better with dispatch, and so much more. If we could prove that our drivers are more efficient, more productive, safer, easier to work with, and they stick around longer, then we have a powerful force for positive change.

In a broad sense I have a vision of drivers being a professional highly trained group that are known to be the good guys again. We were once called the Knights of the highway. A living that were proud to be a part of.

A big 'yes' to this as well.

How is the organization set up, ie 501 c3, non profit, etc?

I'm not sure. As a business owner, I'm always thinking about ways to bring people value and then make a profit from the value I provide. I think there's a lot to be said for finding a profitable way to make something happen.

You mentioned a volunteer management structure, but I can't imagine that happening. No one with the know-how to bring a huge amount of value to tons of people will do it for free. Why would they? The job they're doing is making life better for so many people. Don't they deserve to get paid for that, as well? How would it be fair for the members to benefit but not the people who are making it happen?

Maybe that's why you want the organization run by truck drivers, so the management also benefits from it without being paid directly. That leads back to the problem of finding current truck drivers with the time and expertise to run something like this.

This is great because I can see we have different ideas coming in already. I'm thinking about it being more like a business organization. Davy, you're approaching it more from a union perspective. Kearsey, whom I'm about to reply to, is thinking in terms of a lobbying organization because I mentioned being involved in the lawmaking process. BK mentioned a grassroots effort like the farmers have done over the years.

I love it! I wanted everyone to throw their ideas on the table. Let's hear some more! I'm gonna respond to Kearsey now...

The alert line doesn't go to execs and the CEO, it's handled by a third party company and at a local level. It's funny how you continue to make stuff up on things you know nothing about.

Except that I clearly did know that, and even included a joke about it in the skit, which you missed

Not to mention, my girlfriend worked at FedEx for 20 years and laughed about you taking the alert line seriously, so I knew exactly what it was, how it worked, and what I was talking about. So, you're wrong again.

Please, place more bets that I don't know what I'm talking about, and put them in writing publicly. I always enjoy how that ends.

We've had some amazing discussions lately, and I wanted to follow up with one of the ideas.

Davy mentioned we need a completely new type of organization for truck drivers. I'd like to get some ideas from everyone on what that might look like.

Starting from scratch, what type of organization could we build that would benefit everyone - drivers, companies, customers, and the industry as a whole?

Now, that might sound like some pie-in-the-sky, far-fetched impossibility, but I don't think so. Not if we can start from scratch and build something that reaches those goals and avoids past mistakes.

Here's my initial thought:

We always complain that no one understands truck drivers. They don't take our knowledge or experience into consideration when making decisions. They don't understand where we're coming from because they haven't done the job like we have.

Well, maybe that could be one of the missions of this organization: to give us a stronger voice that gets more respect and consideration amongst major decision-makers than we've had in the past.

We know our knowledge and experience will contribute in a huge way to the health and wellbeing of ourselves, our companies, and our industry, but we have to be someone they can respect, someone they would be willing to listen to.

We want to be at the table when they do anything that affects us, including but not limited to:

• building highways
• designing trucks
• developing safety features in trucks
• writing traffic laws
• creating rules at the FMCSA
• designing pay packages, benefits packages, home time options, and company policies at major carriers
• creating and managing training programs for new drivers
• and much more

What if we put together a group of top-tier drivers that must meet a set of minimum standards for membership, and used our proven track records as top-tier drivers as validation for having our voices heard?

In other words:

We're the top-level professionals in this industry. We have a wealth of experience, priceless knowledge, and an understanding of our job and industry that can only come from years of high-level performance behind the wheel. There is no substitute for what we bring to the table, so give us a seat and we'll be happy to join the conversation.

It only stands to reason that our opinions would help across the board in countless ways. But if we don't have credibility in the eyes of the people making the decisions we want to be part of, they simply won't allow it. So, you would need to meet some minimum requirements for safety, experience, and productivity to belong.

This organization would be open to all drivers who meet minimum standards, regardless of the type of freight you haul or how often you get home. It won't matter if you're a company driver, lease driver, or owner-operator. I have no idea how many drivers would meet our criteria, but I would guess at least 250,000 nationwide, possibly many more.

I think if you've been in the industry for at least a year or two, you can imagine the positive force this could be in so many areas of our lives. It would give us a seat at the table for rulemaking, pay packages, truck designs, safety meetings, training programs, home time policies, and so much more.

Top-tier drivers are always in very high demand because our productivity is vital to our companies, our customers, and our industry. I believe a large organization of top-tier drivers would introduce a very interesting dynamic to the industry. You couldn't ignore us. We're the highest producers out there. We have the most knowledge, experience, and insight. We also make our companies the most money and give our customers the best service.

I think it would be very interesting.

What ideas do you guys have? By the way, this isn't idle chatter from me. If we came up with a worthy idea, I'd say it might be worth taking a shot.

pocket-watching was frowned upon when I was growing up

When you begin learning how to build wealth, you realize poor people are poor because they have incorrect beliefs about how to manage their financial lives. That makes sense, right? You wouldn't be poor if you understood how to manage your financial life properly.

I say 'financial life' because one of the most important aspects of managing your money is managing your time. Poor people spend their time trying to save money; rich people spend their money trying to save time. They are opposite. This is only one small but important example.

We learned the beliefs that keep people poor when we were children. Our parents didn't mean to mislead us, of course. Their understanding was incorrect as well, or they would have been rich. So, they passed down their misunderstandings to their children.

"Frowning upon pocket-watching" is a way for parents to tell their kids that they're too poor to buy the things their friends have. But your parents don't want you to be embarrassed about that, and they don't want you to resent them or your friends for it. So your parents turned it into a moral issue. They taught you that you may have less than others, but accepting that with grace and dignity makes you a better person than those people who have more.

It's complete garbage is what it is. It's crippling to the child. You're manipulating the child to believe they should be proud of accepting less than what others have in life. The other message it sends is that people who have a lot must be envious or greedy. They want nice things, so they're not a good person like you are.

Total garbage.

All of us who were raised lower or lower-middle class were embedded with all the wrong beliefs about building wealth. In fact, most of us were taught that poor people have better morals than rich people, because rich people got what they have through greed and manipulation.

What are the chances you will ever become wealthy if you were taught that wealthy people are immoral? Almost zero. Your own conscience will work against you every time you start to have success. That little voice inside will keep saying,

"You shouldn't accept that raise. You shouldn't want that new car. You shouldn't be looking at that nice house. You'd better stop going down this path and retreat back to poverty so you can feel good about yourself."

There is an amazing book called Rich Dad Poor Dad which everyone who is not rich must read. You will be completely shocked at how backward so many of your views about money are.

• Stay out of debt
• Live within your means
• Do it yourself to save money
• Save your way to prosperity
• Skimp on yourself to save for retirement
• Get a job with good benefits
• Go to college

I could go on all day. Almost everything they taught us about managing our financial lives is wrong.

If you're not rich and you haven't read "Rich Dad Poor Dad" then do yourself a favor and get it. I promise you'll be shocked at how backward your thinking is about managing your money.

Because the unions membership numbers are dwindling

Yap, thanks to guys like you.

There are signs when a debate is over. One of them is when a person starts playing dumb to distract you from making your next point, or pretends they don't know the answer to a question that poses an inconvenient truth.

I said:

Seriously, Anheuser Busch put a boy dressed as a girl on their product. It cost the company tens of billions of dollars and destroyed their brand for years, but the CEO keeps his $40 million per year job. That's what they call leadership in this country???

Banks replied:

I'm aware. What did the union do about that?

Banks, you know exactly what they did about it, so why did you ask? Why are you pretending you don't know? They got a huge raise for their drivers. We discussed that raise multiple times already, did we not? In fact, in the very next paragraph after the one you quoted I said:

But the union at Anheuser-Busch was determined to get their fair share as well, and they did. If that guy can screw up and keep his $40 million job, then the company has enough money to give the workers a raise. Turns out both were true.

Previously I had given a link to an article about the raise their drivers received, we discussed that raise, and I even broke down the worker pay and executive pay. Yet you still ask me what the union did about it?

That's not a good look for you, and I do not appreciate you wasting my time pretending you don't know the answer to another inconvenient truth, though I appreciate you playing the other side. This conversation is critically important in today's world, and these are thoughts I really want to share. You might not be one of the lions who will help shape the future, but this conversation will certainly reach more lions who will.

Exec #2: What? There's no way that 'alert line' worked!

CEO: Seriously, he calls it all the time!

Exec #3: Wait, this is the same guy who tells the others not to unionize because "they can speak for themselves?"

CEO: Same guy!

Exec #4: But we don't even bother taking the calls. We send them to some other company somewhere. What did he say about that?

CEO: He said it works very well!

Exec #2: You're sh*ttin' me! So that's it? We're good? No raises to hand out, no unions to worry about?

CEO: Not with this guy on our side! And get this....I put the company policy book online so he could download it from home, chapter by chapter.

Exec #4: I don't get it. What good does that do him?

CEO: I have no idea, but he digs through it constantly!

Exec #3: Like keeping a little kid busy for a while with an empty box?

CEO: No, it's even better because eventually the kid realizes he was fooled by an empty box.

Exec #2: What happens down the line if he wants a raise? He knows we make $100 million a year. How can we justify saying no?

CEO: We don't have to. He won't ask. He says that people asking for raises is what drove jobs out of the country.

Exec #3: He said that?

CEO: Yeah, but wait. That's not the best part. He won't even question our salaries. He doesn't care how much we make compared to his measly little salary.

Exec #2: What do you mean? Why not?

CEO: He says, "pocket-watching was frowned upon when I was growing up"

My response to those calling for "common sense gun laws" has always been a simple one. First, get every last illegal firearm off the streets and out of the hands of criminals. At that point and once it has been proven, then we can have a conversation. Until then, there's no conversation to be had.

I think that's the best response I've ever heard. It's brilliant. It makes them prove their theory is even possible without forcing law-abiding citizens to first give up their right to defend themselves.

Yes, it's true that people kill people and not firearms, but we aren't seeing people go into schools or shopping malls to kill a bunch of people by mass stabbing

You can't even make this up. 13 hours before he posted that, this happened:

Suspect charged in Illinois stabbing spree that left four killed and seven injured

Seriously, you don't even have to write jokes about lefties. The jokes write themselves.

Lefties hate gun ownership because they're weak people. They're terrified of having to protect themselves, and they resent those of us who have the courage they lack and accept the responsibilities they fear. They *hope to God* that taking away everyone's guns would ensure they won't have to protect themselves, but seriously, how simple-minded do you have to be to think that making guns illegal will prevent criminals from having guns?

The war on guns would be as effective as the war on drugs. Just like with drugs, criminals will have guns, and anyone can buy one if they want to, which many people would.

For the record, at home, I have both a shotgun and a 95-pound German Shepherd, which are rights that I cherish. I live up in the mountains, so if anyone came up here looking for trouble, I'm on my own for quite a while before any cops showed up. With the economic and immigration situations we're facing now, my arsenal is about to get considerably more robust.

Hey Dre,

As you can tell, you've come to the right community. Most of us are older, in our 40s - 60s, but we were all young once and made our share of mistakes. We have all screwed up plenty of times in our lives, so we know exactly how you feel.

That whole week i was making bad decisions just because of how angry i was with myself

Been there! Actually, I'm there now! Procrastinating has been my big problem. I've put off several things in recent years that would have been an easy fix, but now they've grown into much bigger problems. I'm p*ssed at myself for doing that, and I'm 52, not 22, so what is my excuse? I don't have one.

But alas, we're all human. We must forgive ourselves without making excuses for poor decisions or accepting such a low level of performance from ourselves in the future. You're mad at yourself for screwing up, but that doesn't help unless you use it as fuel to demand more of yourself, starting right now. So do that. Forgive yourself, put it behind you, and go out there and attack life with renewed vigor. The valuable lessons you've learned will pay off in a big way down the road.

I spiral into a bad depression that i’m honestly nowhere near over yet

This is the most important concern at the moment. The three most important things you can do when you're depressed are to find good people who will support you, get some hard exercise regularly, and take action against your problems immediately.

We're happy to support you. That's why we're here. We've supported each other through the years, and we're happy to welcome you to the group. We have an amazing community here. You're in great hands.

The exercise will relieve a lot of stress and get your mind off of negative things for a much-needed rest. It will immediately give you a greater sense of inner peace and strength, as well as better health.

Taking immediate action toward solving your biggest problems will not only fix those problems, but will also give you the confidence to handle future problems. Hopelessness causes depression. Taking action remedies that.

I’m honestly thinking about totally dropping this CDL stuff but have no clue what other career path i could take

Omg no! You're in the perfect position. Don't throw that away. You have your career underway now. It makes no difference if the runway was bumpy because now you're in the air and you're flying! Keep going!

Look in the mirror just long enough to learn the lessons you'll need for the future and then forget about it and move on. Nothing that happened in the past matters. You have your future firmly under control now.

Old School will respond to this before too long. As others have mentioned, he got his career started at Western Express. He stayed there for quite a while and then found an opportunity he couldn't refuse, which propelled him into a long and impressive career, earning top wages at a great company. Western Express is where he learned what it takes to become a true professional at the highest level, and those lessons have led to many exceptional years on the road.

You're in the perfect position to build your career. It makes no difference where you work. All that matters is how well you do your job. If you'll do an amazing job, you'll work your way up the ladder and have all the opportunities in the world.

The truth is many, many people have made a much bigger mess of things than you have. Your situation isn't nearly as bad as it may seem to you right now. Someday this will all make for an inspiring story you can tell others to help them when they need it. But first you have to see this through.

Stick with trucking. Stick with Western Express and challenge yourself to become one of their top performers. Stay there for a minimum of one year so you can build a solid foundation for your career and learn the ropes. There are endless possibilities if you'll put all your effort into becoming the best driver you can.

Don't let negative thoughts get the best of you. Keep looking forward. Keep attacking your problems. Keep giving it your best. I'm dead serious when I say I'm happy to talk with you if this forum isn't cutting it, and I'm certain our long-time members would do the same. If talking in the forum works for you, that's great. If you really need someone to talk to, please don't hesitate to ask. We'd be happy to help.

We can continue to be tribal and hail our team, not much will change, or we can have some vision and force the change.

I agree completely. We need ideas and a vision, and then we need to create the change we want to see.

We can't have people who give up and say it's hopeless or write it off as someone else's responsibility.

I find it interesting that I'm neither a worker nor a parent, yet I'm more willing to stand up and fight for a better future for workers than some workers who are parents!

There are no simple solutions to our society's troubles, but nothing great is ever easy. We live in an extremely wealthy and flourishing society. There's no reason we can't have a strong middle class, and we shouldn't let short-sighted, selfish little men take advantage of us.