The People Who Move America
Mar 1st, 2008 at 9:17 pm by Susie
This is a thankless job, and it’s very bad for them now. My cousin’s a trucker, and I know he’s hurting, too:
Trucker Robert Griffith is on the road three weeks out of four, pulling oversize loads like crane booms, railroad ties and air conditioning ducts. One of his biggest worries: How he’ll find the money to buy his daughter a prom dress.
As the cost of diesel doubled over the last four years, his take-home pay has plummeted, from $50,000 to $11,000 last year. He’s literally burning money; he spent $64,000 on diesel in the last eight months. Since he canceled his satellite radio, he’s on citizens band radio constantly (handle: Instigator) talking about what needs to change so truckers like him can survive.
“I had to learn to live totally different,” said Griffith, 41, of Lebanon, Tenn.
No more $150 family outings to Shogun sushi. No more weekly washes for his Western Star 4900 EX truck. No more health insurance for him and his family.
“It hurts,” he said. “I’m a man who’s trying to make a living for my family and I’m not succeeding.”
While I feel for anyone damaged by BushCo economics, truckers and the trucking industry were the among the biggest supporters of the neocon destruction of government regulation when it served their interests.
The sad thing here is that Bush didn’t know gas was headed to $4 a gallon. Another sad fact is that many of these truckers still support Bush, but I can’t for the life of me understand why.
I would be surprised if a majority of truckers voted for Bush’s second term, since these problems have been simmering for years. I pick up those trucker newspapers in turnpike rest stops, and they’ve been lambasting Bush for a long time.
IIRC trucking (like airline) deregulation got its start under Carter in the late 70s, although Reagan pushed it hard and took credit for it. I think that was before neocons existed as such.
I very much doubt that there are many truckers currently driving, that were both driving back then and had any degree of political influence. Ditto for the trucking company execs; retirements and death have taken their toll.
The phrase “beating a dead horse” comes to mind.
As oil gets more expensive (as it will), long-haul trucking loses out to rail freight. It’s sad how the change will disrupt the lives of truckers, but it’s not as if long-haul trucking didn’t previously rape over the rail-freight industry, and the rail workers that made it their lives.
Change is inevitable. But a rational, humane response to change is (unfortunately) not.
Yeah, I don’t think Carter gets the blame for his real legacy - he was the first person to really push deregulation and privatization. Once he opened the barn door, the horse was out and then it was okay for Ronald Reagan to take the process even further.
And that, of course, is my worry about Obama. Once a Democratic president says it’s okay to think about privatizing Social Security, it lends legitimacy to the Republican extremism.
My friend owns a small moving company in two locations, NYC and L.A. Their trucks run on nearly nearly 100% vegetable oil, which they get for free from Chinese restaurants and fast-food places.
The trucks need to start up with petro diesel, but once the engine’s runningit’s vegetable oil all the way. It’s my understanding you can cut the petro-fuel directly with vegetable oil.
and gee it’s not like anyone should consider rethinking the method of compensation or anything because that might take some profits away from the almighty corporations. maybe they should try one of these:
http://www.amcostarica.com/082504.htm