Speakout
10 Overdrive october 2008 Speak out The Voice of the American Trucker What is the best advice you've received from a trucker? Watch what you're doing, especially when you're back-ing. TRACY SNIPES Dayton, Texas To put God first. LARRY HEAD Fort Valley, Ga. Welborn Transportation Get plenty of sleep and rest before you drive. HARLEY PERVANSKY Columbus, Ga. TMC Never use your jake brakes on ice. ROBERT HILL Atlanta, Ga. Swift Transportation I think we have to be reasonable and not insist that companies, even large ones, should be allowed to classify employees as owner-operators. Fedex is an example. the mail delivery com-pany requires uniforms, controls routes and dictates work hours and truck specs, including paint and markings. those guys definitely are employees: to classify them as independent defies the term. the port container haulers, using decrepit tractors owned by the finance companies, earn less than a union man makes driving a company truck. Well, if you want the big companies to be able to rip off the working man, these business models are the ones you will advocate. but these models are not the ones that will stand the test of time. they never have. either the work-ers or the government gets tired of being ripped off after a while. Many drivers leasing trucks from companies and then leasing them right back just don't play with a full deck. Nearly all of them would be bet-ter off driving a company truck. I think these lease-purchase programs eventu-ally will be tried in the federal courts and found to be illegal. then the freight rates will increase a little while those fleets that offered lease-purchasing will have to deal with their real expenses, including Social Security benefits, 401(k) plans, health incentives, vaca-tion, holidays, workman's compensation and a decent wage for good drivers. HANS HUYer President, Hansi's refrigerated eXpress Seattle, Wash. Owner-operator status needs scrutiny For an independent trucker such as myself, only one eco-nomic law applies: supply and demand. Right now there's plenty of trucks in supply and not much demand for them. The result is many trucking companies will be forced out of business. No shipper cares how much fuel costs a trucker or what his other costs are. The shipper cares only about how much he can get a truck for. And you can be sure the fed-eral government or the states won't do anything to help. As Linda Longton correctly points out in her column Be a survi-vor [Viewpoint, June], owner-operators better figure out a way to survive. TOM KOLLer denver everybody was my boss, and I never had a boss. Owner-operator Steven donaldson, of Fayetteville, Ohio, telling the New York Times about the crew that followed him during the film-ing of drive and deliver, a Navistar-produced documen-tary about truckers driving the new LoneStar. Survival tough in this market