“The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.” — Wilhelm Stekel.

I recently had the good fortune to talk for a while with Dan Caulfield, executive director of “HireAHero.org,” an online military community, if you will, that combines the attributes of “My Space” and “Craigs List” all in one package. Former soldiers, sailors, airmen, reservists, and National Guardsmen (male and female) post personal profiles on this site describing who they are, their military work experience, and what kinds of jobs they are interested in. Folks in the corporate and civilian world also get to post personal profiles, to offer jobs directly or start a chain of personal connections that can hopefully lead to a job down the road.

Caulfield is extremely passionate about his site, not only because he’s a former Marine officer, but because it’s free to everyone — there’s no cost to join up. The site is funded by donations, corporate sponsorships, and government grants (with the National Guard being one of the biggest in the government column). “It’s all about networking — that’s how most people eventually get the jobs they want,” he told me. “We’re just providing an electronic platform so they can make those networking connections on a bigger and faster scale, nationwide.”

(If you are a corporation that would like to make a donation, get in touch with Dan directly at 760-803-7619.)

Caulfield says that just posting a resume alone on HireAHero’s site leads to a job hire rate of 13.6% — about 1 in 10 — while filling out the personal profile and linking to six other people on the site increases that rate to 30%. Again, this is not about showing off funky haridos or sharing esoteric interests in music; this is a site devoted to lining up the skills of the 200,000-plus active duty soldiers that get honorably discharged every year with a job in the civilian world.

“The military takes you out of the social networks in the civilian world, so we’re trying to offer a way for them to plug back into them,” he explains. “Listen, the one thing all military service men and women have in common is that they will all have to get out at some point and they will need jobs when they do. This makes the process easier.”

And not just for the soldiers, mind you — trucking managers looking for drivers and mechanics could easily create a pipeline of candidates from this site into their organizations. Heck, the Army base at Ft. Hood, TX, has a maintenance garage that is literally 10 miles long, chock full of technicians that know diesel engines inside and out. The beauty is that this type of “online networking” is something all of the young 20-something aged ilitary service members are used to — My Space and Facebook are part of their lives, so getting in touch with them via a similar platform makes a lot of sense.

About 300 ex-service men and women are signing up at HireAHero.org every day, along with 25 volunteers (typically moms and dads lookng to help their children and their freinds find the right jobs) and 25 folks from the corporate world, like recruiters. Like I said, it’s free to join and who knows? Maybe you’ll find the right job candidates you are looking for.

“It’s a big win for companies because I can tell you without a doubt what their employment history has been, what job skills they have, etc.,” says Caulfield. “These are not just kids off the street whose background and work history can be plagued with a lot of unknowns. All of our service members have been honorably discharged, so you know they passed the course, so to speak.”

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” — W.B. Yeats

Though I am quoting from Yeats’ poetical masterpiece “The Second Coming” here, I am NOT saying that Armageddon is just around the corner. But I feel, at least, that the now-floundering effort by Virginia to levy bigger fines against REPEAT traffic offenders — the worst drivers, mind you, the ones driving drunk or 20 mph over the speed limit — shows that the general public is losing its sense when it comes to highway safety issues.

I’ve mentioned Viriginia’s effort to boost fines in this space before, but again let me repeat what the beef is over: new civil penalties for going 20 mph over the speed limit are now $1,050, plus $61 in court costs PLUS a fine that is typically about $200. A first-time drunken driver faces a $2,250 civil penalty, plus fines and court costs that typically run about $500 or more. Driving without a license? That’s a mandatory $900 civil penalty, in addition to the ordinary $100 for a fine and court costs. These charges ONLY apply to in-state residents, by the way, and Virginians must pay them in three installments over 26 months or lose their licenses.

Once the rules were put in place, of course, the public bleating began — screams about infringing on ‘constituional rights’ and how these fines would unfairly burden the poor. Over 100,000 Virginians signed an electronic petition on the Internet calling for their repeal and several local newspaper editors hinted darkly that these new fines were part of a conspiracy concocted by real estate developers and their political cronies to get the public to pay for road improvements for new subdivisions.

Spare me all of this crap, please.

Look, here’s the deal: these fines ONLY apply if you SEVERELY break the law. It’s not for going 1 mph over the limit. It’s for 20 mph, as in 45 mph in a 25 mph zone or 85 mph on a highway posted for 65 mph. Or drunks. Or people that do NOT have a license. In other words, these fines target the worst of the worst — the folks that cause the accidents that run up our state and local tax bills for the damage and hurt THEY cause.

One reader took me to task over my support for these new fines because, in his words, punitive measures have not worked in the past, so why would they work now? This is true — maybe they won’t change the behaviors on the part of bad drivers. But then the state gets more money from THEM if they don’t, meaning the REST of US don’t get our taxes raised to fund road improvements (Virigina estimated these new fines would generate $65 million a year. We must have a LOT of bad drivers in my state.)

Again, all the hand wringing overlooks some very blatant facts — you do NOT pay a DIME if you do the following: DON’T SPEED, DON’T DRIVE DRUNK, DON’T DRIVE WITHOUT YOUR LICENSE. I mean, people! How easy is this? Are we THAT far gone in this country?

Now, one of the arguments against these new fines is that if the state takes away the licences of those who fail to pay, you end up with thousands of unlicensed and uninsured motorists driving on the roads (according to the great state of Michigan’s experience with a similar path of traffic jurisprudence). Well, then, take their cars away too. But what if you need a car to get to work? Take the bus, take the train, ride a bike, or thumb a ride from a co-worker. You prove to be a problem driver, you don’t drive — period. End of story. You don’t have a right to threaten everyone else’s safety out there if you have a lead foot — dangerous driving is not protected by the Constitution.

Look: vehicle crashes cost us as a nation $230 BILLION a year — and that tab is picked up by every single one of us via higher taxes and car insurance premiums. Why not force the problem drivers to shoulder the extra burden, since THEY are the ones causing the problems? I mean, since bad drivers pay higher insurance premiums, why not pay higher fines too? It’s just not fair to those of us that follow the rules to pick up the costs for those that don’t. That’s my feeling on this.

“Originality is a valuable element in human affairs. There is always need of persons not only to discover new truths, and point out when what were once truths are truths no longer, but also commence new practices.” –John Stuart Mill

What Mill — the great British philospher, economist and politician — espoused in the 19th century remains true today. We need originality in all our endeavors in order to keep our world moving in the right direction. This holds true in cultural, social, moral, and well as business circles, but particularly for trucking in this country, as we are faced with an enormous variety of challenges, not the least of them dealing with the now-negated hours of service (HOS) rules.

First off — and this is solely my opinion here — I think the whole concept of HOS is pretty ridiculous, from the standpoint that no one set of rules can possibly meet the needs not only of the thousands of different trucking operations here in the U.S., but of the human sleep cycle as well. As one univeristy professor told me back when the current (now thrown out) 11 hour drive time-14 hour on-duty time-10 hour off-duty time rules we’re put in place, “You simply can’t mandate rest and sleep, much less GOOD rest and sleep.”

I myself suffer from chronic insomnia, which means that sometimes — despite having a perfect 10-hour window to get sufficient sleep — I only get one or maybe two hours. And I can tell you from personal experience fucntioning on that small amount of sleep is a HUGE struggle.

Here’s another problem with HOS that get ignored: NO ONE wants to work 14 hours at a stretch, much less the 15 hours mandated under the old rules. NO ONE. I work 14 hours days when I must (at truck shows, ride and drive events, etc.) but that’s not a MANDATED schedule I face every day. Let’s face it: one of the huge problems we have in this country convincing people to become truck drivers is the workday schedule they face right from the get go. Now, there are times when freight’s gotta get there — especially in times of national emergencies — requiring long work hours. But every day? People take one look at that and say ‘forget it.’

Now, I’m not saying HOS rules aren’t necessary — they are. You need HOS to keep people safe, to prevent folks from driving for 36 hours straight and other craziness. But’s there got to be a way to do it so the workday isn’t a crushing burden. Heck, even shift work is 12 hours — a full two LESS than a trucker’s schedule. Most people work 8 hour days across the business world — that’s the norm — making a 14- or 15-hour schedule look even more extreme.

Sure, there’s plenty of people working far longer hours, but ‘workaholism’ is more and more frowned upon in our country — and rightly so. We are coming to recognize — through scientific studies as well as from our pwn experience — that working huge hours takes time away from family and severely impacts physical health.

So with the current HOS rules invalidated by the courts, it’s time to bring originality to the table. We have all these sophisticated freight tracking, routing, and planning systems out there, so we need to find a way to move everything within much saner work hours — ones that will make truck driving a more attractive job as well as one that’s easier on the human body.

There’s more than enough brain power in this industry to find a way to do it — among drivers and executives alike, I might add — so all we need to do is start working on possible solutions. It wont’ be easy, that’s for sure, but it’s not impossible — not by a long shot.

“But all I can do, is all I can do, and I keep on trying. And all I can be, is all I can be, and I keep on trying. There’s always a mountain in front of me. Seems I’m always climbing and falling and climbing. But I keep on trying.” –Trace Adkins

We forget so much in this country of ours. We forget the struggles our forebears went through to make this nation what it is today, the times and places where we stayed on the right road as well as those where we crashed in a ditch. But as the song says (and many MANY props to Trace Adkins for writing some of the best country western music out there today) we keep on trying to get it right. Hopefully we can draw on that particular strength imbedded in the American character to revive a dwindling ethos amongst the three million or so truck drivers serving America today: ‘Knights of the road.’

Time used to be that a trucker in your rear view mirror was a good thing — a guardian angel of sorts that, should you break down or get into a trouble out on the highway, would pull over to help you. They had CBs so could at the very least could call the state police for help. They were the cavalry, appearing at the moment you needed them most. I remember one driver at Paschall Truck Lines I interviewed many years ago that delivered a baby from a woman knocked unconcious by a car crash — and set her husband’s broken arm in the process — all while in the middle of a violent thunderstorm. Humphrey Bogart (of all people!) played the quintessential trucker in the classic film ‘They Drive By Night,’ giving the trucker’s image some serious cachet.

Then things started changing. The ‘trucker as wild yahoo’ movies started proliferating (Smokey & The Bandit, Convoy) and the advent of cell phones made the CB almost a relic overnight. The business pressures on drivers and fleets alike completely changed the nature of driving, with long hours behinf the wheel and weeks on the road away from family and freinds becoming the norm. The current debate over hours of service regulations pits 15 hour and 14 hour work days against one another — yet both are schedules that turn off almost anyone to the prospect of being a truck driver.

While the technology and the equipment are both far better than anything in the past, the ethos of the ‘knights of the road’ remains faded — almost a legend of bygone days. It’s not gone completely, however — even a cursory glance at the annual list of drivers up for the Goodyear Highway Hero award demonstrates it’s still alive and breathing — but it’s not nearly as widespread as it used to be.

It won’t be easy to fully recover it, either — I have no illusions about that. With drivers struggling to get miles on the odometer to get paid, with the continuing push of ‘just in time’ freight running up against highways clogged by congestion and slowed by construction, with hours of service rules now in limbo, it’ll be hard to get everyone in the industry to sit down together and work at it. With better pay, home time, and less hassle on the road it may come back, but only if we make it a long term goal.

But then … we just got to keep on trying.

“The best stories are never written — they are re-written.” –Paul Page

That bit of journalistic philosophy, shared by one of my former bosses nearly 10 year ago now, still shapes how I approach my craft today — the emphasis being that your first draft almost always needs to be re-worked a few times. You find you need more information, or another quote, to more fully flesh a story out. And, just like Thomas Jefferson pondering over the ‘Declaration of Independence’ late into the night, you find there’s always a better way to say or explain something once you’ve scrawled it down and crossed it out a few times.

I also get a good reminder as to how this philosophy works in the real world (as opposed to the written one) every time I get to visit with truckload carrier Celadon Group based in Indianapolis, IN — by phone and in person. I’ve also had the great pleasure to sit down with Steve Russell, Celadon’s chairman and CEO, a couple of times as well now and his constant willingness to revisit the business of trucking, always on the hunt for ways to improve the operation, illustrates how fleets will need to manage themselves now and in the future.

For example, after getting a conditional DOT safety rating in 2000, Celadon totally overhauled its driver corps, from recruiting to ongoing training. Sure, you say, they had to do it or face going out of business. But to then bounce back and win the American Trucking Association’s top fleet safety award in 2004 and 2005? That’s hard — and something like that only occurs when you really focus on the details of the business, dedicating yourself to making big changes and making them stick.

Russell has also tried out different approaches to the truck driver’s job itself. For a while, the carrier tested ‘lifestyle fleet’ jobs that allowed a driver to work a set number of weeks on and off so they could really maximize family time. This approach met with limited success in terms of recruiting new drivers, so Celadon switched gears and started buying smaller carriers with solid driver corps to beef up its ranks.

Information plays a critical role in how the company stays ahead in the fast-paced business of freight, says Celadon’s COO Tom Glaser. “He who has information makes better decisions,” he told me once. “It’s not only the speed of the information flow [that’s important], but getting it in front of the people who make key decisions day by day, hour by hour, even minute by minute. In this business, it is easy to be reactive; but it’s intelligent to be proactive. That’s why getting better information more quickly helps us make better, more proactive decisions for customers and drivers alike.”

Putting all of the technology in place to first capture and then analyze all this information doesn’t come easy, nor does it come without constant upgrades, but Russell stayed on it because he knew how valuable that information would be down the road.

And of course, there’s Steve himself — a larger than life character in trucking. When I sat down with him for the first time, he immediately started interviewing ME, about my background and likes and dislikes, before we got around to him. We ate lunch in the driver lounge and chatted with drivers, new hires and old hands alike, with Steve getting feedback on what worked and didn’t work and where changes might need to be made.

It’s that willingness to ‘re-write’ how a carrier approaches complex issues, to edit itself in the face of new information and new circumstances, that will make trucking flexible enough to handle all the challenges ahead. That’s what kept Celadon in the game and should do the same for other carriers as well.

“But if you got pride and you’re proud you do. Hey, we could use some more like me and you.” –From “Stars & Stripes” by Aaron Tippin

I had the great luck to actually meet country western artist Aaron Tippin at the Mid America Trucking Show one year (I’m a huge fan of his music) and got to talk with him for a spell. I related that his song “Stars & Stripes” was a big hit among many of the military service men and women I know living in my neck of the woods and he told me those are just the people he had in mind when he wrote it. “I have the greatest respect for them — they are the best ‘can do’ people in the world,” he told me.

(Important tip: If you ever get the chance to meet one of your favorite bands or singers, NEVER do it after you’ve been on your feet since 4 a.m. and sweating like crazy in the heat. I babbled like a fool with Mr. Tippin and I know I must’ve smelled pretty ripe. Yet he never told me to get lost — he’s really one of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet.)

The reason I am bringing all of this up is that military veterans — men and women alike — are, I think, going to be THE single most critical pool of potential drivers for trucking in the decade ahead. They are folks with the right mix of character, discipline, training, and sheer toughness to be successful behind the wheel.

I know this to be true because I’ve had the good fortune to know a lot of current and ex-military members in my life, starting with my immediate family (my dad and uncle, both former U.S. Marine Corps officers), extended family (Col. Drew Kosmowski, surgeon, U.S. Army), friends and neighbors (Col. George Franco and Lt. Col. Jay Rouse [Ret.], U.S. Army) and of course many, many truck drivers — including Sean McEndree, a wounded Iraq veteran who turned his truck into a rolling memorial honoring many of the fallen soldiers in thw terrible ongoing conflict over there, including the best friend who saved his life, Sgt. Barry Meza.

We all know this industry is critically short of drivers for the amount of freight it hauls — 20,000 at current estimates — and that the shortage is only going to get worse — topping 100,000 by decade’s end. Yet it’s not like you can go out and hire a few warm bodies, plop them in a truck cab, and send them on their way (though, and I hate to say it, more than a few fleets out there take this approach).

Trucking is at once a very boring and very dangerous job — just like soldiering. My dad once told me being a Marine is 90% boredom and 10% sheer terror. Though he never saw combat, field exercises in the Philippines proved just as dangerous: he nearly lost one of his Marines to a snake bite and, well before the age of emergency dust offs by helicopter, only just managed to get him out of the bush in time. The same extremes exist in trucking, too: one minute you are cruising along in hum-drum traffic; the very next swerving violently to avoid an accident.

And truck drivers more often than not become first repsonders of sorts as well — and keeping cool in an emergency situation is absolutely a core part of military training. I remember talking with then-Captain (now Major) Laura McHugh of the 131st Transportation Company about how she drummed basic medical skills into the soliders under her command, to the point where they were almost field-grade medics. Her Pennsylvania National guard unit spent 14 months running convoys throughout Iraq and their ingenuity in keeping trucks up and running and people alive and well can be valuable assets that in trucking back here at home.

Many fleets are already way ahead of the game here. Cardinal Logistics is one that’s working hand-in-glove with the U.S. Army to line up jobs for soldiers once they leave the service. I also remember a news story from last year about a trucking school located outside the Marine base at Twentynine Palms, CA, that had mulitple job offers precisely because the bulk of its graduates are ex-Marines.

This isn’t to say every military veteran is going to be a perfect fit for the driver’s seat and other trucking jobs, but almost all of them have the skills and training already in place to make them good candidates — because they really are some of the best ‘can do’ people in the business.

I look forward to the month of March every year, not only because it’s when I get to travel to Louisville, KY, to attend the gigantic Mid-America Trucking Show (my boss still thinks I need my sanity checked because I like it so much) but because that’s when I get to sit down for a long talk with Dale Corum, general manager of Mercer Transportation, based right on the edge of downtown.

Founded in 1977, Mercer is an owner-operator based company, with 2,000 of them leased out exclusively to them to haul freight. In 2006, Mercer generated $412 million in revenues, up 7% from 2005, and their driver turnover rate is hovering around 32%, a far cry from the 121% average turnover for truckload fleets.

Driver recruting and retention are the heart and soul of Mercer, which is why I look forward to talking with Dale, because every year they are trying out new tactics, as well as giving the things they already do so well a sharper edge. Their secret to keeping turnover low and revenues up is to not only pay drivers well, but to really get inside their heads and figure out what works best for them. That’s why I stay in touch with Mercer, because while they aren’t perfect — hey, we’re all human on this planet, so no one is — they keep searching for ways to make driving a truck for a living a great and worthwhile experience.

For example, look at how they try and forge bonds between their coordinators (their term for dispatchers) and drivers. In the driver orientation process, Mercer managers try to put together a detailed profile on their new hires — not only about what their money and family needs are, but what hobbies they have, sports they follow, etc.

“We then try to match up our coordinators to drivers with similar interests,” says Dale. “For example, we put former Marines together, or those who follow the same NASCAR drivers, or those who like fishing. We try to create that personal connection between coordinators and drivers to make them feel more like teammates than adversaries. You have to pick up on the subtleties to figure out what works for each driver on a personal level and what doesn’t.”

To make this connection work, however, requires drivers and coordinators to communicate with one another not only about what’s working but about what’s not going so well, too — not always easy as many drivers are conditioned not to complain, lest a dispatcher stop giving them good loads. To make sure drivers don’t bottle up their anger, Mercer created the position of driver liaison. Veteran coordinator Steve Porter is the first person to hold that spot and his primary job is to stay focused on new drivers for the first 90 days, calling them every couple of weeks to make sure they are getting what they need.

“His job is to see what’s working for them and what’s not, so a new driver doesn’t just get upset and quit,” says Brian Helton, Mercer’s contractor-relations manager. “But he’s not serving just new drivers alone. Any of our contractors can call him up and discuss any issue they have. His role is to be that neutral third party who can take up a driver’s issue and go to bat for them so the driver, dispatch, and operations can keep focused on their jobs.”

It may sound touchy feely, but let me tell you, it works — and Mercer is dead serious about its driver relation efforts. For example, their office buildings, warehouses, etc., are nothing but plain and functional — you won’t see fountains, fancy glass facades, or high-dollar furniture there, oh no, because, frankly, none of that helps drivers very much.

And drivers are all over the place at Mercer — talking with office personnel, having coffee in the lobby, cleaning their rigs in the parking lot. That’s because Mercer doesn’t believe drivers should be segregated away from the rest of the company. “We feel our office people need to know who makes the money that pays their salary, and that’s our drivers,” says Corum. “They are the ones doing the work. We are the ones benefitting from it. So we encourage drivers to come into the office when they are in town — they are the most vital part of our business.”

This year Mercer plans to launch a series of 30-minute sessions for each of its department so that safety, payroll, and other administrative groups can understand how their jobs impact a driver’s life at the company and vice versa — again, making sure everyone at Mercer recognizes who is bringing home the bacon every day.

“We have to appreciate the driver every chance we get and make sure the entire company – not just those parts that are in daily contact with drivers – recognize them for the professionals they are,” says Dale. “It’s when you stop worrying about how you treat drivers every day that you end up with 121% turnover. You can’t get complacent and wait for things to get bad before you fix them.”

And let me tell you, Dale and his team at Mercer make it easy for journalists like me to find great material for stories — and I’m already looking forward to seeing what they’re up to come March 2008.

OK, let me see if I can get this straight.

Truck driver Bruce Mendenhall, 56, is charged with killing a young woman at a truck stop and then subsequently implicated in five other slayings, based on his responses to police questioning. Though innocent until proven guilty of these murders, Mendenhall’s name and face gets splashed across the top of every news web site last week — CNN.com had him in the top slot, mug shot and all, last Friday with the banner “Truck driver suspected of killing 6 in 4 states” for all the world to see.

Yet no one — NOT ONE MAINSTREAM NEWS ORGANIZATION — does the same for Edward A. Regener of Perris, CA.

I suspect more than a few of you out there know who he is (and where I am going with this as well). You see, Regener is a 13-year veteran driver for FedEx Freight. In 2006, he managed to extricate himself from a pile of burning vehicles (his truck among him) following a highway pileup (NOT caused by him, I might add) and then jumped BACK INTO THE FLAMES to pull two men out of the burning car that DID cause the accident. For this he deservedly won Goodyear’s 2007 Highway Heroes award …

… which garnered ZIPPO in coverage by the national media. I guess that means you need to KILL people to make the news, not SAVE them, right?

This is an ongoing problem in the news business, I am afraid — and one that’s just getting worse. By no means should we NOT report the horrific crimes of creatures like Mr. Medenhall, and if he is convicted fair and square, he should get the toughest sentence the law allows. But WHY do we need to make him and his evil PAGE ONE NEWS when folks out there SAVING lives — jumping into burning cars, for goodness sakes! — get nary a whiff of news coverage? What are we valuing here?

Let me tell you, I read the news all day (and sometimes all night) long and it is like sifting through a steaming pile of misery, corruption, death, pain, suffering, and hate. Every now and again, something good comes to light — something that shines a light (FINALLY!) on the good side of human nature that, by the way, REALLY does exist out there.

What really irritates me the most is that a constant stream of news focused ONLY on the failings of certain segments of our population — be they truck drivers, muslims, whomever and whatever — inevitably paints an extremely negative image in the collective minds of our nation. Believe it or not, MOST muslims are NOT violent terrorists! Just the way most Christians are NOT right wing bigots! The way most truck drivers are NOT serial killers in disguise!

This focus on the negative is also a problem in corporate management today as well. Ken Bayor, VP-labor relations for refuse hauling firm Republic Services in Ft. Lauderdale FL (a brilliant person that I’ve quoted here extensively before) believes that managers tend to focus just on the 8% of the workforce that gives them the most headaches – not the “Steady Ed’s and Superstars” that really make a company shine.

“You must make the everyday Joe and Jane feel like a hero – and not make that artificial,” Baylor says. “You need to be straightforward with them in terms of job requirements, but never ever miss an opportunity to say ‘thank you – you did a good job.’ How many times do you say ‘I am proud of you’ to your employees and drivers? We need to talk about pride – for pride still matters in this industry. Pride in what your company does keeps people and attracts more of the good ones you want. ”

With all due repsect to our need to dissect criminals and their crimes — allowing us to understand them, so we can prevent such horror from occuring in the future — we need to dissect the deeds of the HEROES among us, too, in perhaps greater detail so we can figure out how and why they do what they do. I want that one hour 20/20 special on Ed Regener to find out how he summoned the courage to do what he did, so maybe we can spread that around the country and hopefully generate a lot more of it.

That’s why I think we desperately need more balance out there in the news, so we can highlight the heroes among us and learn how to emulate them. That’s really news worth reporting.

I spent a good part of my life growing up in the little town of Davis, West Virginia — a small hamlet inside Canaan Valley, a now extemely popular spot on the east coast for downhill and cross country skiing, mountain biking, camping and hiking, and all sorts of other outdoor sporting pursuits.

But back when my dad had a small cabin built in 1972 on a parcel of land he bought from local farmer Hank Mallow (one of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet), coal and cattle formed the backbone of Davis’ small economy — and little else. The gigantic Mount Storm power plant 10 miles down the road (a smoking concrete behemoth straight out of Blade Runner) steadily employed some of the town’s hardworking souls, but most worked in the mines and on farms, along with a lucky few in the then-new tourist industry.

Over the summers and winters I spent in Davis, I really learned about how deeply woven trucks are into our fabric of life. Only one railroad line runs up into the mountains around Canaan and it just carries coal to feed the big power generating beast at the other end of the valley. Tractor trailers hauling fuel, food, and everything else from soap to band aids ply the narrow, twisting roads up Scheer Mountain into the valley almost every day, giving Davis the necessities it needs to keep functioning.

Trucks also provide the only surefooted means of getting around, too. Every household has a four-wheel drive pickup — most with a snowplow attachment mounted on the front bumper — for Old Man Winter always gives the valley a few wicked storms when he comes through. We got snowed in one year for a week, unable to get my family’s bulky rear-wheel drive Plymouth station wagon out over four foot drifts.

Once, in college, I drove up there in my old Honda Civic (my sister later killed it … but that’s another story) and went skidding off the ice-slicked road in the middle of the night like a hockey puck. Fortunately, the shift was changing at the plant, so the pickups emptied out and I found myself and my Honda literally picked up and put back on the road. (By the way, folks in Canaan are some of the best in the world. I never even had to ask for help that night — everyone just came over, got me back on the road, and went on to work).

Trucks were a fact of life in Davis — and still are. I’ve witnessed more than a few would-be mountain bikers and their AWD Subarus being winched out of ditches and other tough spots along the muddy back roads in Canaan. Our former neighbors, the Martins (they moved back into town) still have a big GMC Jimmy circa 1977 they use to get around in the snow and muck. Might not get the best gas mileage, but it completes the journey. Every time.

I don’t get up to Davis and Canaan as much as I’d like anymore, but the memories are never far away. The countless miles up and down those narrow country roads passing logging trucks, dump trucks, tractor trailers, snow plows, you name it, painted vivid images in brain that always remind me just how important those vehicles are to have around. So while we keep seeking for ways to make them cleaner and sip less fuel , let’s always remember why we have them in the first place. Because without them, daily life would get an awful lot harder.

“Getting there isn’t half the fun; it’s all the fun.” — Robert Townsend

At its core, all the hoopla about “global warming” can get boiled down to two single solutions in this country: we need to use less energy, of which driving less is a huge component. Drive less and we cut way down on pollution levels and the creation of so-called “greenhouse gases,” while being able to give OPEC a much deserved boot in the rear end. That’s because 70% of the oil we use on a daily basis in the U.S. goes to feed our transportation needs alone.

Now, here’s the thing: most of the “driving reduction” we’ll need to do must come from the non-freight side of the ledger. Our freight networks are vital linchpins to the economy, so they can’t be touched by and large: and frankly, trucking’s done it share and then some, with all the anti-idling laws, emission controls, and freight flow efficiency efforts being tackled today.

That’s why Joe & Jane Commuter must now step up to the firing line, because they are the ones with the most predictable routes — and they are the whole reason the term “rush hour” exists in the first place. There’s no reason to drive solo anymore on these trips to and from the office — it’s highly inefficient and, frankly, we’ve got more than enough ingenuity available to address this issue. That’s where “slugs” come in.

Let me explain: I’ve commuted from various points within the Northern Viriginia suburbs into Washington, D.C. and other locations most of my life — even did it to go to high school — by almost every mode available: walking, bicycling, bus, subway, commuter train and (yes) driving. Today, I telecommute by working from a home office, and while that’s been the best option for me, out of all my experiences, many workers can’t do it. That’s why “slugging” may prove to be the most efficient and cheapest way to get to and from the office — a local term that means “ride sharing” everywhere else in the U.S.

Here’s how it works: you pull into a giant parking lot, park your car, and get in line. Drivers pull up and announce where they are going — the Pentagon, 14th and Constitution, etc. — and then several people climb in with them. This enables the driver to use High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes and scream into downtown in 30 minutes as opposed to an hour or more crawling along on the traffic-choked local roads and highways. I know, I know: violates the big rule mom always taught you (”Don’t take rides from strangers”) but it works, and works well.

I slugged for almost two years in the late 90s and it worked like a charm. I almost got stranded only once in all that time, whereas I suffered delays by subway and train every week — and getting to PAY for those delays in the process, mind you. This isn’t to say “slugging” is perfect, not by any means. But it’s a far simpler solution than building miles of high-cost rail lines or adding more lanes — with our tax dollars, I might add — and it gets lots of cars off the road at peak times, just when you need to reduce traffic volumes.

“Slugging” also opens a window on the human experience — a strange window at times (one I;ve wanted to nail shut more than once, I’ll admit), but a good one, too. A veteran slug would always take aside a new face to gently explain the “rules” of slugging — because, as a slug, you are the lowest form of commuting life. Slugs aren’t allowed to initiate conversation with drivers, nor can they voice an opinion about the radio station/music selection/etc. Drivers don’t ever make side trips, either, to drop you off at a gas station so you can pick up your car, for instance.

Yet these harsh rules obscure the gallantry among slugs and drivers. For example, a pregnant woman is always passed up to the front on the line and a woman is never allowed to be the last one in line, left alone, day or night — a male slug must stay with her until she gets a ride, or, if stranded, accompany her to public transportation. Though only three riders are necessary to qualify for HOV status, many drivers filled up their cars as much as possible. One woman at the wheel of an airport transport van (God bless you wherever you are!) would always take 15 riders or more if needed. Many drivers that stayed at work late made it a practice to “sweep” pick-up points in the city at night after HOV restrctions were lifted, just to make sure no slugs were left stranded.

There is also, sadly, the downside to slugging. Like the Mercedes Benz driver who plunged along at 100 mph one day, while checking his email. Another used to turn the A/C on full blast for a minute, then off for 10, creating a horrible sauna/ice box ecosystem in her car that gave me a migraine. Some drivers dropped the F-bomb and other profanity without a second thought — one did it while listening to evangelical preaching on the radio, if you can believe it (I rode with him twice — yikes!). Slugs passed the word on such drivers, gradually “freezing” them out of riders.

Then there’s just the plain strange. One driver of a grey Chevrolet Impala tried to enlist my aid in freeing the Aliens our government held at Hanger 18 out in Area 51. “We need to release them before their brethren invade our planet,” he implored me. (I passed the word FAST on this guy).

Still, despite the ups and downs, slugging worked — despite rain, snow, holidays, you name it, I always got a ride close to where I need to go while my commuting costs dropped to near zero. You can’t beat that combination — and it helped reduce emission levels, traffic volume, and energy consumption all in one fell swoop.