Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 16, 1992 TAG: 9201160382
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FERDIE G. TANNER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
ROADS DANGEROUS? BLAME DEREGULATION
SOME POINTS of Petie Brigham's letter Dec. 23 were factual and some totally wrong, while others seem ridiculous.There are many more accidents since deregulation of the trucking industry, and these are much more serious, causing more maiming and deaths. Traveling is much more dangerous, but this is due to many more trucks, not fewer trucks as the deregulation proponents promised taxpayers.
Deregulation started six presidents ago. Back then, regulation and company directives limited speed, distances between trucks, and the number, location and color of lights on each tractor-trailer. Closer policing was commonplace.
Now we have approximately 27 percent of trucking handled by credible companies. The balance of 73 percent of goods shipped by truck is handled by brokers and through individual owner/operators, as the politicians wanted.
About every 200 or 300 miles, there is a state-operated scale house. About 50 percent of the time, these scale houses are open! Not all trucks run through the scale house; try 25 percent. Those that do are checked, including the driver.
Those that don't are those independents who run around the scales, keep two or three log books, smoke their weed, drink their concoctions, and hammer down to meet the appointment time! So I sympathize with Ms. Brigham, but perhaps, only perhaps, citizens like her are waking up.
The regulated trucking industry provided established shipping costs and guaranteed deliveries with companies that a law-enforcement official dared to go to. Companies such as Roadway, Carolina Freight, Consolidated, Preston and many others still respect other motorists' rights and deliver quality service.
Those people who allowed deregulation to become law thought they would get a cheaper ride from trucking. That ride is here! No fuel savings were ever created, no reduced shipping costs ever received.
Would you, as a state trooper, go out at 1 a.m. and pull over the lead tractor-trailer of six or eight running together? I suggest, rather, take the truck number, the license plate and dial 911. I do it all the time.
Don't paint all truckers with the same brush. If a trooper pulls over a Roadway truck, he only has to go 25 to 30 miles to find a terminal that will correct that driver's problems. The owner-operator moves about every 10 days, so unless the rig is impounded, enforcement is a game without regulation.
Put the blame where it belongs: on the motorist and taxpayer who gave our politicians a blank check in the trucking industry.
I have worked 32 years in the trucking industry, in all facets. Sooner or later when the death toll gets high enough, when the hospitals are filled with critically injured, and good newspapers print enough of the facts, then perhaps the taxpaying motorist will wake up.
Ferdie G. Tanner lives in Falconer, N.Y., and is retiring as a business representative for the Teamsters union.