Trucking stars on the rise through running -- and talking

In October, Truckers News Editor Randy Grider wrote about the extraordinary saga of one Jasmine "Jazzy" Jordan, a 16-year-old Olympic-caliber runner who began a cross-country run Sept. 1 to bring awareness to the difficulty many truck drivers experience in obtaining proper health care. This month, she was a guest on boat hauler and internet-radio host Daniel Audet's Truckstar Radio call-in show, running most nights from 8 EST (for live-listen link click here). "As the story goes," Audet (pictured) summarizes, "Jazzy's dad has a small trucking company and a pilot car company. One of the female drivers for his pilot company came down with cancer and it ended up taking her life."

She hadn't had insurance, as Grider told the story, and the St. Christopher Truckers Development and Relief Fund stepped in and helped her family wth bills. "Jazzy's dad did as well," says Audet. "And Jasmine was so affected by this, and realized that many truckers do retire with nothing after decades of service." She put off her Olympic training and decided to do a cross-country run to bring light to the health care situation among truckers.

"As she was telling the story" on Audet's show, he says, "I stopped her and asked her, 'Why would you do this?' – and I know that’s one of those broad-stroke, borderline obnoxious questions. But a lot of people wouldn’t understand why a 16-year-old who’s probably blowing off her spot on the Olympic team, why would she do this for truckers?

"She said, 'I want as much publicity to this cause as possible, because there’s a lot of drivers out there in need.'"

That advocacy for the well-being of others in the industry is one he sees playing out not only in the health arena but in relation to several other trucking issues, including driver training and the congestion/lack of public parking facilities. And in each case, he says, it's women who are leading the charge. "Here we have Hope Rivenburg bringing Jason's Law to the national forefront. We have TruckerDesiree bringing another issue in driver training to the national forefront. And here we have a 16-year-old running from California across the country for health.

"Let me ask all you veteran trucking cowboy superheroes out there, Where have you been in these situations? Superman, where are you? That night with Jasmine, I said, 'Some of you veteran drivers out there can step up to the plate here and talk about some of these issues in trucking, and with your experience, it’s sort of a waste that you’re not.'"

Jazzy's trek has covered more than 600 miles so far. To stay updated, follow her via her website or on Twitter.

Some of those veterans Audet called out got their opportunity to speak on issues recently via an unlikely venue, Dan Rather's HDnet follow-up to his previous, controversial show on driver training. In a roundtable format, he presented many different points of view in an hour-long program. It's embedded below, but if the vid's not working, you can check it out via askthetrucker.com.

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Four-wheelers get their fair share

In all the hubbub surrounding the CSA 2010 safety initiative from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which the agency hopes will improve safety among motor carriers and drivers of large trucks when fully implemented, an only tangently related program has gone virtually unnoticed in trucking circles. And no, I don't think it's a looming threat to your business or your job.

"New Jersey is one of 15 states participating in [a] federal pilot program, dubbed TACT, for Ticketing Aggressive Cars and Trucks," Karen Rouse reported in the New Jersey Record newspaper about an FMCSA campaign aimed in part at increasing -- yes -- four-wheeler awareness of safe driving around big rigs. "The campaign will include $300,000 in radio advertisement and $500,000 for troopers to do education and enforcement."

Along the way, Rouse talked to produce hauler Jaime Ramos, whose safety recommendations to four-wheelers you can see on this page, near the bottom of the "Fast Facts" sidebar on the left side of the page. For more about the FMCSA TACT initiative, click here.

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Poetic salute from unlikely quarters

Ann Campanella (pictured) is a journalist-turned-poet whose collection Young & Ripe, published by the folks at Charlotte-based Main Street Rag this year, chronicles via short verse the spirit of youth. Her "Six Days on the Road" poem was featured Oct 9 this year in the daily Writer's Almanac from National Public Radio, read by Garrison Keillor. It chronicles a trip with an "Aussie trucker" on the road, and vividly evokes the feeling of the cab and winding down the open road.

The first stanza runs,

When I was young and searching for my life,
I climbed into the cab of a semi.
The Aussie trucker pointed with his thumb
to the compartment behind him.
Get some sleep. I don't remember
if he was old or young.
His face was so plain
it left no impression.

But, as it turns out, that trucker did. Click here for the rest of the poem.

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Owner-operator takes delivery of first Lonestar Harley special edition

Twenty-year trucking veteran and current owner-operator Chris Hawker, a Harley-Davidson motorcycle enthusiast, took delivery in late October of the first Harley special edition of the International Lonestar Class 8 tractor (pictured). In a ceremony in Milwaukee, Wis., Hawker was presented the keys to the first production unit and launched on the "maiden voyage" in Navistar's new "Drive for Jobs" program; for each mile that Chris Hawker drives in his new LoneStar Harley-Davidson Special Edition, Navistar will make a donation to the American Trucking Associations’ GetTrucking.com, a driver recruitment initiative which includes training returning military personnel for careers in the trucking industry.

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From outside in: Top 10 things learned in a rig on the highway

Joan Duggan Connell (pictured) penned this lead letter in the Speakout department of this month's edition of Overdrive. While we had to run it in short form due to space limitations of the section, for my money its original form is worth some additional attention, likewise the unique character of its author. Connell's more an office type than a trucker, with 20-plus years under her belt as a paralegal and with various nonprofits. But last year, she began taking opportunities to join her owner-operator husband Vince (leased to Clark Transfer and hauling Broadway shows) on the road for three- to four-week stretches, during which she located a newfound appreciation for the Highway Knights that are American truck drivers, about which (partly) she's now writing a book. The book, she says, "shares what I learned about trucking, how beautiful I found our country and of course [Vince and my] relationship on the road. It includes additional stories like the ones I have shared, as well as tips for four-wheelers on how to better share the road.

"How I came to write the article and my book is easy," she adds. "Driving a semi is hard work. When I first started out with Vince, I thought it would be fun and easy. We would drive for a while, hang out at theaters, then drive again. How hard could that be? Then I got to my first multi-truck load out in Portland. The day of the load Vince told me we needed to sleep during the day because it was going to be a long night. I thought, How long could long be? 2-3 a.m.? I could be up that long. So I worked on schoolwork instead of sleeping, as I was finishing up my MBA. Well, let me tell you, a long night meant until 9 the next morning. I fell out of contention and went to bed around 2:30 a.m. just to doze, of course, while Vince and the other five or so drivers stayed up. The sad part was that after talking Vince into breakfast before going to bed that morning, I slept as long as he did despite my napping."

Then, she says, there are the four-wheelers "cutting us off and trying to go around us when we are trying to turn," which will be familiar, of course, and which drove her crazy. "One of my favorite moments was in Seattle when a woman ran into a show trailer legally parked on the street. She ended up doing a lot of damage to her car. Now I ask you, how does someone hit a 53-foot parked trailer? These are the types of things drivers put up with all the time, but then they get the bad rap in the media."

That right: file this one under salutes, folks, counting down to liftoff...

TOP TEN THINGS I LEARNED WHILE RIDING IN A SEMI
by Joan Duggan Connell

10. You must always exit a semi truck backward. (No matter how many times I tried to find a more graceful way, it didn’t work.)

9. People actually run into 53-foot trailers parked on the street.

8. How to direct my husband with a two-way radio into a parking spot during a snowstorm (not as easy as you might think; telling someone to turn right or left doesn’t work as well as "give me more passenger or driver side").

7. Chivalry is not dead. It is alive and well in truckstops across the country. (More doors were opened for me and I was treated nicer in the truckstops than any office building I ever worked in.)

6. How an air dryers, kingpins and steer tires work on a truck. (This is only a tip of the iceberg in terms I now understand.)

5. Truckstops are nice places -- clean, safe, the showers actually full-fledged bathrooms -- and many of the employees go out of there way to be nice. (Also, the menus in the restaurants there have improved over the last year.)

4. Night driving is not as easy as it looks, but watching the sun come up is amazing. (No matter how much sleep I got during the day I never quite got the hang of it, but my husband is amazingly good at it.)

3. Truck drivers make maneuvering a tractor-trailer through rush hour traffic in LA, over mountains and through pouring raining and snow and backing into small loading docks look much easier than it really is. (I watched my husband and other Clark Transfer drivers put trailers in theater docks that most car drivers would have difficulty backing into.)

2. Nobody beats a truck driver’s office for the view. (Seeing the landscape of our country through the windshield of a semi is way better than doing so from a plane, car, van or SUV. And the view changes daily. No executive can say that.)

1. Driving a tractor-trailer is a tough job, and those who do it every day so we can have food, clothing and be entertained don’t get the credit they so dearly deserve. (Truck drivers are away from home for days, weeks and even months at a time and maneuver through traffic and construction zones while being paid by the mile. My thanks to all these men and women: you are awesome in my eyes!)

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Latest stowaways in UK

The London-based Sun newspaper reported last week on seven men and likewise seven teenagers reportedly from Iraq and Afghanistan discovered in a tanker full of corn starch bound for a town in the Wiltshire region. The story -- headlined "Trucker's a-maize-ing find" -- is played for its shock value, hinging on the stunning photograph of one of the illegal immigrants, covered head to toe in starch and bound in handcuffs, but for my money its key component is one of sadness in the desperate lengths to which some go in search of something better.

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Trucking; the key to Afghanistan stabilization

At least economically, anyway -- such is the viewpoint of Washington Post defense correspondent, ForeignPolicy.com blogger and Fiasco author Tom Ricks, expressed in a relatively recent missive on the subject here, titled "Keep on Trucking, Afghanistan."

"The key to economic reconstruction in Afghanistan," Ricks writes, "would be restoring its traditional role of carrying goods from South Asia (full of nice cheap consumer goods) to Central Asia (now featuring oil and gas revenues). To do this, the 'ring road' that connects the country's major cities and the spur roads to the borders need to be made relatively safe from bandits, Talibani, and thieving officials." He's talking essentially about the vital nature of trucking to modern economies, a reality you know well, I'm sure, but it bears repeating.

He includes a long passage from a proposal written by Johns Hopkins prof and Asia expert Fred Starr that echoes his thoughts on trucking in Afghanistan in the post, worth checking out, likewise a particularly awesome photo of trucks from the region.

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I-80 tolls in PA: Third time's a charm?

News surfaced last week that Pennsylvania had once again applied for federal approval to add tolls to I-80 within the state's borders under a pilot program for tolling existing interstates (as a means of road funding when all other options for road rehabilitation were exhausted). The Pennsylvania Fifth District congressional seat, formerly occupied by John Peterson (pictured, flanked by OOIDA members at a 2007 rally in Harrisburg, Pa., on the state capitol steps after the initial application to toll I-80 was submitted), is still the main base for the anti-tolling crowd, as evidenced by the release below, sent out by current seat occupier Glenn Thompson, a Republican.

For more background on what is the third attempt by Pennsylvania in as many years to gain the necessary federal approval to go ahead with the project, which as it stands is codified in state law under Act 44 in apparent contravention of federal rules on interstates, minus the tolling approval, see my stories attendant to the Overdrive "Worst Roads" surveys (in which I-80 in Pennsylvania perennially ranks quite high) from 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Also, Fed-Ex White Glove owner-operator Phil Madsen says his current thoughts about the tolling in I-80 are unchanged from this post he made to his blog in 2007, where he ponders some of the misinformation spread then about trucking's impact on the state's roads.

Thompson Reacts to Third I-80 Tolling Application
Washington, D.C.—U.S. Representative Glenn `GT’ Thompson, R-Howard, last night received a copy of the third application by the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and Rendell Administration to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) for tolling authority of Interstate 80. Both previous applications were rejected.

Act 44 tasks the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission with providing annual lease payments to PennDOT in exchange for operating I-80 as a toll road. This new application attempts to alleviate concerns addressed by FHWA in a September 2008 memo, which blocked the joint application from moving forward.

“Act 44 has been a dice roll from the beginning. The Governor knew this, the Legislature knew this, and the Turnpike Commission knew this. All were complacent, as they sat back and allowed the Turnpike to borrow and spend almost $2 billion since July 2007, without any guarantee of repayment.

“After an initial review of the financial analysis, it expressly states that I-80 traffic patterns have uncertainty to them once tolls are placed on the Interstate. Any diversion, which is not addressed in this application, will have an effect on revenues and will jeopardize future highway and bridge funding,” Thompson said.

Thompson has said for some time that tolls on existing interstates are a double tax. Pennsylvania already has the highest state imposed diesel fuel tax nationally at 38 cents per gallon and the second highest state imposed gasoline tax at 31 cents per gallon. For every $1.00 in fuels taxes sent to Washington, the Commonwealth receives $1.15 back.

Additionally, and perhaps most egregiously, Act 44 does nothing more than double the size and scope of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission. “This is the same Turnpike Commission that has been the backdrop for several scandals and a slew of indictments. Act 44 is a cover-up of years of mismanagement of taxpayer funds and the perpetuation of an antiquated and corrupt Turnpike Commission,” added Thompson.

“This is not fair to the taxpayers in Pennsylvania—not just along the I-80 corridor, but in the Commonwealth as a whole,” said Thompson. “This is about good government, not politics as usual in Harrisburg, the taxpayers in Pennsylvania deserve better. I have been in close contact with the Federal Highway Administration and plan to meet with them to voice my opposition. I look forward to working with my colleagues here in the House, who recognize the multiple flaws in this plan and remain committed to keeping I-80 toll free.”

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Klos Custom Trucks photo book

It makes a great coffetable book at "280 photos splashed across 112 glossy pages," says photographer Robbie "Dingo" Rose, whom we've written about in this hall previously (you'll remember this post about Dingo's YouTube resume shot to further his down-under trucking career). These days he drives for McColl's Transport in the Australian state of Victoria, and the Klos Custom Trucks shop is based there as well in Geelong. Klos might best be dubbed the "Chrome Shop Mafia" of Australia, says Truckin' Life managing editor Jason Kennedy. "A lot of the 'bling' trucks that have featured in Truckin’ Life have been done by Klos," Kennedy says. "They do a lot of business...and the results are usually pretty stunning." Combined with Robbie Rose's photographic prowess, what that means is this book is one sick journey across the down-under customizing landscape. Click the photo of the cover -- yes, that's the 007 Kenworth -- for details on ordering from their shop, where the book will be available soon, along with several scale models of some of the more popular rigs they've created.

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Convoy for a Cure postmortem -- a resounding success

With $13,000 raised and more than 30 trucks and many good times, the Convoy for a Cure event, dedicated to breast cancer awareness and fund-raising, at Willie's Place last weekend can no doubt be called a success, says Overdrive's October Trucker of the Month Howard Salmon. Salmon (pictured here with fellow country singer Kathy White) performed songs from his "These Trucks Are Made of Gold" record and enjoyed time with his wife, Mary, who flew in from their place in Hawaii for the event. Three other convoys were likewise staged in Canada this year, and between the total four nearly $100,000 was raised to promote breast cancer research and awareness. For more on the event's origins, see my post from September or connect with the organization on Facebook here.

Photo by Roland Villareal

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