Hatchet job

Ronald Piper wasn’t done working Monday when he saw the headline that once again perpetuated myths about “medically unfit” truck drivers supposedly driving up numbers of highway crashes.By now you’ve seen the headlines and every television news station’s version of the story on the GAO’s study of an untold number CDL holders having medical disabilities. Untold is the correct figure, since the

A pox on flacks’ flak

When is a billboard like spam e-mail? When it exploits suffering, danger and valor to make a cheap political point.There probably isn’t a person in America who hasn’t received a slew of frantic e-mails claiming that the message is something that you won’t see in the mainstream media. Usually they come from someone you know, with the message buried under a ton of forwards as people blindly obeyed

Just one of the guys

“Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world’s first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man.”Those powerful words captivated me as a youngster as I perched in front of the TV to watch Lee Majors portray “The Six Million Dollar Man.” I still have a themed board game somewhere.Somewhere along the line, the fictional scientists in the show got

Preventive maintenance

I recently had some foot surgery that meant spending several weeks at home, with my foot in the air when I wasn’t hobbling around on crutches. Aside from getting a new handle – “Flat Tire” – from my editor, Jami Jones, and being asked if I had finally learned how to “double crutch,” the experience has given me time to ponder how many limping truckers I have seen. And sympathize with their

So DOT, you wanna play word games?

Word games and politics seem to go hand-in-hand anymore.It’s become one of the favorite pastimes it seems since Bill Clinton uttered the words: “It all depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”It’s frustrating, to say the least, to watch politicians bat around the meaning of words, trying to twist and turn them to their advantage.The most recent word game haunting the trucking industry is

The BS with BMI measurements

There’s something about an automatic fitness judge that doesn’t sit right with me.How can humans put together in a variety of shapes, sizes with varying amounts of bone and muscle density be classified by a standard measuring only total height and weight?Most truckers probably have heard by now that FMCSA’s Medical Review Board recommended that all commercial truck drivers with a body mass index

Easy isn’t always cheap

Land Line keeps a close eye on tolling and so should you, especially if you have a transponder and an account to pay your tolls electronically.News stories continue to surface about customers being overcharged or penalized because of a glitch, an expired account or some other problem related to technology or an electronic account.Penalties and fines are in place to prevent people from cheating

The good, the bad and the obvious

Business practices in the broker industry are a hot topic of conversation in the industry right now – largely thanks to the recently introduced TRUCC Acts in Congress.While it’s not hard to get truckers to bristle at the mere mention of the word “broker,” it’s painfully obvious that it’s not just the truckers who get a little peeved when bad broker practices are highlighted.I have been inundated