Oh to be in the Granite State this morning! For a political junkie like me, last night was what the World Series, the Super Bowl and the college ball game of one’s choice and, what the hell, a Texas high school football game too, all rolled into one would be for a sports nut.

With the Iowa caucuses behind them, the Democratic and Republican campaigns are now turning all their guns on the small but mighty State of New Hampshire where the first-in-the-nation presidential primary will be held next Tuesday. I can hardly wait to channel-flip between MSNBC and CNN!

Only in America can two candidates who on paper at least could easily be written off– one a young but bright, talented and charismatic U.S. Senator and member of a minority group (although that should not matter and may be it does not), the other a colorful and outspoken ex-governor and ex-minister– can ride into a Heartland state and turn upside down the hopes, dreams and schemes of the alleged front runners seeking to carry their parties’ banners into battle this fall to win– and I pray with a clear margin of victory–the greatest political prize in the world.

If you like your politics served up with lots of drama, consider this succulent prose offered today by The New York Times:

The victors in Iowa, Senator Barack Obama for the Democrats and former Gov. Mike Huckabee for the Republicans, are as far from the status quo as possible. One is the son of a Kenyan father and a white Kansan mother who entered the United States Senate just three years ago. The other is a former Baptist minister who was best known until recently for losing over 100 pounds and taking on the issue of childhood obesity.

I mean, come on, you can’t make this stuff up!

Whether you are one of those sad folks who disdain politics (perhaps simply because you do not accept that it is the essential lubricant that has kept this nation moving forward through over 200 hundred years of thick and thin) or you are like me someone who is engaged enough to be active in party politics and even to run for elective office, 2008 is one year to make your vice heard and your vote count.

I will pause here to state this is not a personal blog– it exists as an extension of my profesional position as a journalist– so I am not going to use it as a soapbox to declare my own party or candidate preferences. Anyone who knows me at all, be it in person or through the pages of FleetOwner the Magazine or by reading between the lines I pen right here can probably figure out where about I fall on the political spectrum.

That being said, I feel it is my civic duty to urge all within earshot (or is it cybershot?) to learn all you can about the candidates– at least the viable ones!– so you can make your own informed choice in November, if not sooner if you are lucky enough to live in a primary state.

I further urge you to at least consider getting involved in some way in the campaign of the candidate of your choice. On the local level, there are many ways to help now and on into November and all you need do is contact the campaign of your chosen candidate via their official web site. Trust me, you will be welcomed with open arms. And I can guarantee you will have more fun– and, ultimately, far greater satisfaction– than you will ever get waving flags and foam fingers at a bunch of sinfully overpaid guys playing games on TV.

Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey (who was a U.S. Senator both before and after being the Veep), the original “Happy Warrior”– so nicknamed because his good cheer and sunny disposition never faded under the weight of politics– had this to say about our political process:

“Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate.”

And in deference to the lost practice of equal time, here is a quote from President Gerald R. Ford, another great American politician who served so honorably in the House and above all as our beloved accidental Commander in Chief:

“The ultimate test of leadership is not the polls you take, but the risks you take. In the short run, some risks prove overwhelming. Political courage can be self-defeating. But the greatest defeat of all would be to live without courage, for that would hardly be living at all.”

The prize– and all that goes with it– awaits November’s victor.

Jim Hoffa, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) is no doubt a busy guy, especially these days what with a challenging freight environment impacting the union’s rank and file (and, yes, all of trucking), serious concern over hours-of-service reform or lack thereof, not to mention everything that must go in to the negotiations for new freight agreements with carriers.

But he is also committed to stopping Mexican trucks from rolling across the border and made his point in person earlier this month. According to the Teamsters, the union rallied with Hoffa right up front at the Otay Mesa border crossing near San Diego on December 5th to show they oppose “letting unsafe trucks from Mexico drive on U.S. highways.”



Exercising the right to free speech at the border

Hoffa declared that, “Mexican drivers don’t have the mandatory training that U.S. drivers have. Mexican drivers don’t have to meet the same strict drug-testing requirements that U.S. drivers do. Mexican drivers don’t have to comply with U.S. rules on how long they can drive. So someone could drive 10 hours in Mexico before arriving at the U.S. border and then drive another 11 hours inside the United States, even though U.S. rules don’t allow 21 hours of driving.

“I totally reject the argument that the Teamsters are against Mexican truck drivers,” Hoffa added. “We are against the companies that exploit them and the governments that don’t live up to their responsibilities to make sure the highways are safe.”

Click here to download a clip of the demonstration, courtesy of SmartDrive Systems.

Based on the cold hard economic news that is peppering us like ice pellets of late, Santa Claus must be planning on delivering nothing but coal this Christmas Eve. That’s not all bad. Even though you can’t play with coal much and you sure can’t eat it, you at least can burn it to help hold down the heating bill that will soar as high as Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer this winter. Too bad you can’t fire up a truck with it.



Now deploying environmentally friendly LED lamp

Just the other night, Brian Williams ended the NBC Nightly News on a decidely sour note: with a report dubbed “Slow Going” that posited that when sales start to slide in the the RV –or “Motor Home” to the aficionados– industry it’s an indication the general economy is heading for a ditch, too. Apparently this year RV sales were down 10% and they’re expected to drop another 5% next year. The silver lining in the land yacht, though, is that if you’ve ever hankered for one and can actually afford one, now is probably the best time ever to get a deal on one!

But were the hand-wringing over RVs not enough to chase away dreams of sugarplums and whatnot so early this holiday season, yesterday came word via The Wall Street Journal that both GM and Ford plan to drastically cut back production early next year “reflecting toughening U.S. economic conditions and mounting challenges keeping their turnaround efforts on track.” Specifically, GM said it will slash production 11% in the first three months of ‘08 compared to the year-earlier period and Ford said it would reduce its first-quarter production forecast by 7.4%. The newspaper noted that those two were not alone: “Chrysler previously announced it will eliminate production shifts at several plants in the first quarter.”

OK, so we all (or me anyway) can live without an RV. Even the RV head honchos NBC interviewed admitted as much. But when the Big 3 automakers are rolling back production in the face of economic hardship, well, that gets my attention.

So much so I think it’s time to write a letter to Santa. For starters, I will ask him for a dose or twenty of intestinal fortitude. That will come in handy as I wait for my second request to be fulfilled next November– a new POTUS whom we can hope and pray will get this country to pull together and start moving again on all fronts.



Can the “right jolly old elf”

deliver the goods?

It seems only yesterday the only hybrid on any highway was a Toyota Prius or two. Now around where I live, you can see phalanxes of Priuses on any given day. On top of that, it seems everyone who makes anything that helps drive a commercial vehicle has got a hybrid offering of somes sort on the road or at least in the works.

This was driven home to me (no pun intended, honestly) recently when I got to witness an Allison Transmission “ride and drive” outside their headquarters in Indianapolis. It was not an elaborate event, at least not compared to some others held a few years back by this maker of automatic transmissions for commercial vehicles, but it was certainly geared to impressing potential customers.

There was an on-road and an off-road course so customers could experience how the automatics are designed to deliver “smooth power” no matter what the truck is doing– whether that be rolling in traffic or tackling a slope at a construction site.

Getting back to hybrids, in a chat with Steve Spurlin, recently named executive director of 3000/4000 Series & application engineering for the manufacturer, I learned that Allison is well along in fielding a full-blown hybrid electric drive system for transit buses, dubbed Ev Drive.

According to Allison, its Ev Drive can significantly enhance the performance of transit buses, suburban

coaches and articulated buses running in a variety of applications – whether stop-and-go city

traffic, operating over the road or in some combination of the two.

If hybrids can be found now in passenger cars, pickup trucks, medium-duty trucks and transit buses, how much longer till they find their way into heavy-duty rigs? Don’t better on it not happening sooner than later.

Believe it or not, I tried three times to respond to the well-reasoned comment made by Don to my previous post using this site’s comment function (You can try it below). And each time my words spontaneously disappeared. Maybe it was operator error (highly likely with this operator) or maybe the computer just did not like what I was saying, but here’s hoping Number 4 is a charm—and to be doubly sure, I am posting my reply to Don as this blog entry, which uses a whole different mechanism.

Anyway, what I have been trying to say is that I agree pretty much with everything Don said, which, if I am summarizing correctly, amounts to sheer wonderment at the fuss being made about trucks from Mexico daring to cross “our” border.

Turning to the Teamsters, let me just say right up front I happen to believe trade unions have just as much right to exist and to advance their agendas vigorously as do corporate entities. That being said, I don’t speak for this union or any union or corporate entity for that matter so I can only imagine why the IBT is beating the anti-Mexico drum to a pulp. My guess is garnering publicity has something to do with it.

I agree that the Sierra Club, an organization I happen to have respect for, is sure barking up the wrong tree this time. And I will even go out on a limb and suggest that if Mexican carriers are to be successful operating here over the long haul, they’ll want to run equipment—and employ drivers— that will enable them to truly be competitive with U.S. carriers on service and not price alone.

Turning to CRASH and their ilk, I’ve got to admit I’ve been impressed by how strongly and forthrightly FMCSA Administrator John Hill (pictured below) has vouched for the safeness of the pilot Mexican carrier program—even going so for as to practically endorse it personally: “Look I’ve been in law enforcement for 29 years – it’s all I’ve ever done – and I am personally committed to highway safety,” said Hill. “I would not be part of any program that wasn’t committed to highway safety.”

As for the overall economic impact of letting Mexican fleets truck here and our fleets truck there (and the same applies in my book to every trucker and conducteur de camion in Canada!), I say again let the chips fall—or fly–where they may. That is what free trade is all about.

And remember, it cuts both ways– or three ways in this case. You can be sure there are industries in Mexico and Canada that are not thrilled with having “their” borders fully opened to American competitors. What also comes to my mind is a quote made famous by John F. Kennedy: “A rising tide lifts all boats.”

We might also try asking ourselves if we are of the land of the free and the home of the brave, why pray tell are so many of us so afraid of a little competition?

The problem with free trade is it’s free. That’s the part opponents of the Mexican truck demo program that got under way last week seem incapable of grasping.

Okay, well, just maybe the U.S. should never have signed the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the seminal treaty that melded– on paper, anyway– the U.S., Canada and Mexico into the world’s largest free-trade zone.

On the other hand, two points are so self-evident that even a 5th grader should grasp them:

1) The Treaty has been finalized and we (the U.S.) are bound to hold up our end of the deal and all its facets.

2) The Treaty was midwifed well before most of us realized China was due to emerge as an economic mega-giant and, frankly, all North Americans should be glad we at least have NAFTA on our side going forward into a very uncertain future.

In its Editorial today, The New York Times rightly took a pro-business stance and slammed both the Teamsters and the Sierra Club (so don’t give me any crap about the Gray Lady being a “left-wing rag”) for trying to block Mexican trucks from taking their legal place on U.S. roads.

“Guaranteeing highway safety does not require undermining the nation’s free trade agreements or its relationship with Mexico,” argued The Times. “It is time for Congress to let Mexican trucks through.”

Yes, let them roll here and let the chips fall where they may.

Isn’t that exactly what free enterprise is all about?

Back in the year of our nation’s Bicentennial, senior slump in the waning days of high school was relieved a bit by a substitute history teacher who apparently took great joy in teaching us Catholic school boys and girls a few select “swear words” in Chinese. To this day, I have no idea if his claims of Cantonese scholarship were true or, if so, what he taught us meant what he said it did or actually translated to something like “You are a soggy egg roll!”

Thirty-one years later, China– the People’s Republic of, that is– is still a Communist dictatorship but it has emerged as an economic force to be more than reckoned with. Certainly, we can all hope that as the more “green” rolls in the less “red” it will become. But given how the Chinese government crushed the Tiananmen Square protests back in ‘89, the day China becomes a democracy may be yet another century off.

In the meantime, one thing is damn sure: More Chinese goods– and of higher and higher value and complexity– will make their way to our shores. News reports of recalled toys have informed us that something like 90% of the toys now sold here are made in China. And a visit to any chain store or souvenir shop for that matter will clearly show that most stuff of any sort that costs less than 10 bucks is made there too.

But what many Americans don’t realize is China is also making bigger stuff for export too. Major appliances are here already– and, yes, cars are next. Consider this piece from Forbes.com about how the Chinese OEM Chery recently rolled its millionth– yes, millionth– vehicle off the assembly line.

As noted by the Forbes reporter, thanks to deals with Italy’s Fiat and Iran’s Khodro, the Chinese firm has vowed to double the number of its offshore plants in three years. And under the terms of an earlier deal, Forbes reports, Chery-made Chryslers will soon reach the U.S. and be priced “at around half of the current price of Chrysler’s cheapest model.”

It may start with bread-and-butter cars like a Chery hatchback but you can be sure Chinese-made sedans and SUVs will follow– not to mention pickups and on up the GVW scale. There could well be a Chery in your future. No matter how foreign that may sound right now.

Once again the unthinkable has happened in America.



A highway bridge has collapsed, sending at least five motorists (including a truck driver) to their deaths, inflicting numerous injuries and costing God knows what in damages and total economic impact– not to mention what it’s done to the national psyche and how the U.S. is viewed worldwide.

I mean, c’mon, huge bridges– this one was in Minneapolis/St. Paul and ran over the Mississippi River for crissakes—- are not supposed to just buckle out of the blue and pancake themselves into real-life horror shows killing and maiming those unlucky enough to be driving on them. At least not in my United States.

“A bridge in America shouldn’t just fall down,” is what Senator Amy Klobuchar (MN-D) declared at a news conference after the collapse. And she rightly pointed out the collapse is a reminder the nation’s infrastructure needs to be a funding priority.

I still remember how incredulous I was when it happened in my neck of the woods one summer night 23 years ago. On June 28, 1983, a 100-ft long section of the Mianus River Bridge on I-95 in Greenwich CT (just over the New York State line) simply dropped to the river gorge 70 ft below, killing three motorists and injuring another three. Had it not happened late at night there is no telling how many more would have been killed as that bridge is part of the major thoroughfare that’s the gateway to New England and connects New York City with New Haven, Boston and beyond.

Here at FleetOwner, we constantly cover the whole, massive issue of America’s crumbling infrastructure, perhaps most comprehensively in our 2005 magazine article series “Roads to Hell.”



But very sadly not a whole hell of a lot has changed in the last two years let alone since the Mianus River Bridge collapse.

And let us not forget what Hurricanes Katrina and Rita told us about the despicable state of of our nation’s crucial infrastructure.

The solution is to DEMAND that your elected representatives at the state and federal level pass legislation that will fund road and bridge projects that make sense.

If they don’t, don’t complain to me. Vote them out of office.

Democratic, Republican or “Independent,” they all work for us.

We run this country but only when we collectively step up to the plate on election days.

As things are going now, we don’t need terrorists to take down our country.

We’re doing a fine job of it ourselves.

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.