Reading Between the Lines

Maybe just maybe the court decision throwing out most of the “new” Hours of Service (HOS) regs now in effect for truck drivers will lead to real reform of those dreadfully outdated rules.

And maybe we were on the right track with our April print-edition cover story titled “When to Drive, When to Sleep” in which I argued rather forcefully that placing simple limits on hours will never fix the very real safety problem truckers face– fatigue at the wheel.

Today’s HOS rules are incredibly divorced from the workaday world of truckers engaged in serving a 24/7 service economy. For one thing, the scary truth is that if drivers did not fudge their logs as much as they do even more of them– and more of the motorists sharing the road with them– would wind up in crashes. And let’s face it, forcing drivers to drive while fatigued or pressuring them to cheat the law doesn’t do much to make trucking an attractive career choice, either.

I said it then and I will say it again here: Does trucking care enough about the safety of its 3-million plus drivers and the millions of its ultimate customers its drivers share the road with to do the right thing and work for meaningful HOS reform?

Indeed, one way to look at this latest court decision is to view it as giving the Feds and trucking interests alike one more golden opportunity to step up to the plate and work together to usher in real regulatory reform that puts safety first and foremost.

Straight from the Now-I’ve-Heard-It-All Department comes this Associated Press (AP) report that ran in a local paper here in Connecticut under this must-read headline: Ice cream truck driver avoids jail .

It seems, reported AP, that “Susan Bottacari, 45, of Milford [CT], was pulled over in May 2006 after being seen driving erratically and nearly striking a security guard at the Southport Brewing Co. parking lot, police said.” Oh, and get this: “Bottacari had been driving an ice cream truck in Milford since 1993 and was in the process of renewing her license when she was arrested, officials said. She was already on a form of probation for a narcotics possession.”

But the real chilling aspect of this story is that a Connecticut Superior Court judge has ruled that if Bottacari simply enters an alcohol education program and attends classes for a year and “stays out of trouble”– whatever the hell that means– her drunken driving charge will be dismissed.

So far, the only punishment, if you can call it that, Bottacari has received is the loss of her license to sell ice cream and the suspension of her driver’s license for six months– and presumably she has that back by now.

Not surpringly, prosecutirs have objected to her cushy deal.

“It was serious. A person who’s driving an ice cream truck shouldn’t be driving drunk and, if they do, they shouldn’t get the (education program),” Assistant State’s Attorney Melanie Cradle said, according to AP.

Indeed. Consider this, reported by AP: “When police stopped Bottacari, they said she almost fell out of her truck. She refused an alcohol test. Authorities said they found an unopened vodka bottle in a cooler in the truck.”

It it is bad enough to drive drunk in any vehicle at any time.

But to be doing so in a vehicle whose main purpose– nay it’s true puprose– is to draw childen towards it is beyond unconscionable.

There is no shame in having an alcohol problem– for sure most experts agree alcoholics are born with a predisposition toward developing the horrible malady– and it is a fair bet in my view that most drug users don’t set out to become addicts either.

No, the real shame rests in having an alcohol or drug problem and not doing something about it.

We can only hope that Bottacari will rise to her challenge this time around.

And if she can’t, that she stay out from behind the wheel.

Especially that of an ice cream truck, for crying out loud.

Perhaps I was overly indoctrinated as a kid in what the good old American Way amounts to–capitalism AND democracy– but I still think of what so many others seem to now reflexiveley refer to as “China” as Red China.

Then again, in my own defense, let me point out that despite the faux capitalist system now flourishing over there— for good or bad, I am not sure yet–the People’s Republic of China remains a Communist dictatorship. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am all for international engagement. For one thing, I figure that despite what he tried to do to our Consitution, Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon will end up with some good marks in future history books for having “re-opened” China to the West with his trip there 35 years ago.

Sadly, though, I was reminded lately by both a TV documentary on the savage crushing of the political dissent displayed at Tiananmen Square in 1989 and all the bad ink China is now getting on defective– to the point of deadly– consumer goods it’s shipping over here by the boatload that China as a nation is still not worthy of the full measure of our national trust.

Trucking has been directly affected by defective tires and I was frankly stunned to learn toothpaste was being sold in my home state that was made in China using such lovely ingredients as diethylene glycol, a chemical component of antifreeze.

Maybe it is stating the obvious, but I gotta say, if you can’t trust a trading partner to supply you with something as benign and ubiquitous as toothpaste that won’t potentailly kill you, why on earth would you trust them to supply you with trucks or cars– or their components– that won’t perhaps fail in operation?

Sure, I am painting with a broad brush here but the cases of defective products coming at us from China cover a pretty wide chunk of territory too.

Yes, there are U.S. and other non-Chinese manufacturers operating in China– household names inside and outside trucking for that matter– and no doubt their oversight of their own operations means we have no more to worry about the products they produce there than we do the same ones they produce in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Europe, Brazil or where have you.

Still, this daunting issue should give fleet owners pause to think about where their components (and maybe vehicles in the future!) are being sourced and, above all, who is ultimately responsible for their effective– and safe– performance.

Online at The New York Times you can read their report today that the Consumer Product Safety Commission is preparing proposals that could mandate broader inspections of imports and bigger penalties for ignoring safety rules.

I’d only add that it would behoove suppliers that source anything from China to keep in mind that the bad publicity Chinese-manufactured goods are receiving could plant a red flag of suspicion on their products– and perhaps they should address this concern with their customers in North America and elsewhere.

When word first came out earlier this year that the Transformers toy line/cartoon show/comic series was getting turned into a movie, I frankly could not grasp what the fuss was about. I knew it had to do with toy robots that could “transform” themselves into cars or trucks or something but that whole deal arrived long after I was done playing with my Hot Wheels (and, yes, I still have those ’70s models along with plenty of English-made Matchbox cars from the ’60s– and they’re not for sale!) and well before I had kids of my own.

But thanks to the power of today’s kid-marketing, my son the graduate (of kindergarten) knew all about the movie and long story short, that is who I sat next to last evening to view Transformers– on its opening day no less. Well, in my defense, it was raining outside– washing out our local fireworks display– and the boy is six and won’t be forever, so why not?

Without giving away any of the rather tortured plot, suffice it to say it is a computer-generated blockbuster that manages to among other things pretend there is no war on terror going on; make incredibly clever use of Hoover Dam; roll out the back-to-the-future Chevy Camaro; position (human) male lead Shia LaBeouf as the “next Tom Hanks” (so said one critic anyway); dissaude us from ever thinking again of Jon Voight as a critically acclaimed actor, and make a bigger star of the phenomenally fetching female lead, Megan Fox.

Ah, but yes, then there were the trucks. There was so much going on in this movie– and quickly and loudly I might add– that now I am not even sure how many “car” and “truck” Transformers there were. I recall a Pontiac Solstice mixing it up in there but, to be sure, the star turn was performed by the Camaro. It starts out as a ’70s model that is now a real beater. Then, and clearly to impress the gorgeous gearhead played by Ms. Fox who scoffed at his junkiness, it re-transforms itself into the 2008 Camaro– which I don’t even think is for sale yet but no matter, this Hollwood.

The Camaro and the sporty Pontiac coupe are not the only General Motors mobiles on view. It seems quite a few of the “good” Transformers (which battle the baddies– led by the ridiculously huge and just plain nasty Megatron) are GM products including the dauntless Ironhide, a medium-duty GMC conventional hell-bent on kicking some serious extraterrestrial sheetmetal. The GMC badge and the Chevy bowtie are front and center whenever possible, so I can only surmise the General paid plenty for the pervasive product placement.

Top Dog of the good guys is not a Mack (OK, so I guess I really wished I could have worked that pun in here… and so I have) but, according to widespread rumor and this eyewitness, nothing less than a fully chromed, red-white-and-blue Peterbilt. It looked to me like a Model 388 or 389 before its transformation into a Captain America-ish gigantic robot.

We are talking of course about the mighty yet kind Optimus Prime here– and he consists not just of said tractor but also a glistening trailer. Alas, there is no Pete oval on his nose. I don’t know if Peterbilt Motors Co. chose not to have its distinctive Red Oval logo displayed on Optimus Prime or if the filmmakers wouldn’t pay for the privilege. Instead, Optimus Prime wears his own hieroglyphic badge– although its is red, which may be a nod to his Pete heritage.

Via www.majorspoilers.com, here’s Optimus having transfomed himself from shiny rig to ‘bot raring to fight the good fight:

Despite tons of machine-on-machine violence (people are mostly spared– except those in cars, trucks, planes, buildings, etc.), you can come away from Transformers feeling pretty darn good not only about how trucks bring good stuff but how they can save the world– albeit in something over two hours’ running time!