Errol Got Me To Thinking...

In a different topic Errol mentioned a driver strike. That got me to thinking about what could come out of something like that happening in this country.

So let's just pretend that every driver in the country went on a simultaneous month long vacation. What do you think would come outta a situation like that.

Remember were pretending here. A wish list if you will.....

I am pretty sure we would all see nice large truck only parking lots with rest rooms and vending pop up every 40 or so miles along the interstate highways.

Next........

If that happened for even a week we would run out of everything, including food and gasoline. It would become almost like a 3rd world country in a hurry. And you don't just flip a switch and turn it all back on again. It would take months to get back to normal and years to recover fully from something like that. I think it would be surprisingly awful.

I completely agree with Brett. Chaos would ensue in a matter of a few days.

If that happened for even a week we would run out of everything, including food and gasoline. It would become almost like a 3rd world country in a hurry. And you don't just flip a switch and turn it all back on again. It would take months to get back to normal and years to recover fully from something like that. I think it would be surprisingly awful.

That being my whole point. We as drivers understand who and what we are to this great country. Sadly John Q Public does not.

Very well put Brett. It would get ugly quick. This is a dream not a nightmare though.

Now back to my little fantasy land....

Time spent waiting for loading/unloading would not count against your 14 as you are at rest/relaxing anyway.

If that happened for even a week we would run out of everything, including food and gasoline. It would become almost like a 3rd world country in a hurry. And you don't just flip a switch and turn it all back on again. It would take months to get back to normal and years to recover fully from something like that. I think it would be surprisingly awful.

That being my whole point. We as drivers understand who and what we are to this great country. Sadly John Q Public does not.

Very well put Brett. It would get ugly quick. This is a dream not a nightmare though.

Now back to my little fantasy land....

Time spent waiting for loading/unloading would not count against your 14 as you are at rest/relaxing anyway.

I worked at a company that was affected by the port strike on the west coast and with just that port working at a slow down, it affected the Midwest in a major way. My company slowed and even sent workers home because lack of product. I couldn't imagine a trucking strike. We all would be affected.

(I saw my name in the heading, I just had to take a look.)

The work stoppage might have been in a fantasy for sure. If your memory goes back to 9/11, all airline traffic was grounded like immediately. It took almost a week just to get something, anything, flying again.

(Think of all those pre-trips happening at once! )

I wonder, would it change anything, with regards to driver grievances?

I wonder, would it change anything, with regards to driver grievances?

You would need a plan ahead of time to target specific laws or to have new laws created in order to remedy a problem. For instance, if truckers decided the 14 hour rule needed to be eliminated you could try striking until that was revoked.

The biggest question in my mind would be regarding pay. How could you force the trucking industry to pay drivers better right across the board? Congress would much rather stay out of the business of setting wages in industries so I don't know how you'd do it by having laws passed. And of course 99.9% of all drivers are non-union so you couldn't just force a renegotiation. I don't know how you could do it, really.

If you had specific laws you were targeting or a specific goal in mind a strike might be highly effective. But you'd need someone to organize it and you'd have to have specific, attainable goals for the outcome.