Nancy , at one time my area of this planet was knowen as the owner operator capital of the world .There were steel haulers coal haulers refer haulers freight haulers and everybody knew everybody .Myself i was mostly a coal hauler and one of the first to start running over the road with a semi dump . We did not run as hard back then and did not have to put the miles on that ya do today . And avg. year of driven was under the 100000 mile mark and we made anywhere from a 1.25 a mile for local work up to 2.75 a mile on the over the road special loads of alloys . I hauled a lot of bulk mixen salt to feedmills and alloys to steel mills and scrap out of scrap yards to mills . Hauled tons of road salt to Ohio , Pa. and Ind. Loved the work and took great pride in my outfit . Had a ton of friends on the road met lots of GOOD PEOPLE . And ya always ran into someone you knew at every truck stop . IF ya had a problem on the road and you pulled of before ya could get out of the truck to ch3kc it out there was atleast three other trucks pulled off behind ya .IF ya had a flat tire or a blowout and only had one spare one of the other guys would give you his spare to get ya to a truck stop . Now today if ya have a problem on the road and you pull off to see what is wrong there are fifty trucks that try and see if they can run over ya and not one that would stop to see if you were alwright or if they could help. Has the truck traffic dropped off , Not here . Just got off the phone with one of my buddys that is still tryen to make a meger living with a big truck and he was telling me that he heard that two companys have cut there drivers pay to keep going . At the one company from what he tells me , now this is hear say that forty driver quiet over it . Myself i know oh so well on what it takes for one little guy to make it with a truck . When you owen a truck it is not a truck anymore but a mistress and you spend more time with it then you do with the family . When you are in off the road the truck always needs something . When ya think tha there will be some extra money in the piggy bank ya distroy two drive tires or the engine takes a dump or the clutch goes out or it needs a brake job or the transmission goes out or the rear end blows out on the road . Lets see here back in the day when a guy could spend 45000 on a new tractor and 18-22000 on a new dump trailer and 1800 bucks a year on ins. it took $1.14.9 a mile to pay for the truck before you put one penny in you pocket .Now this was when fuel was under .50 cents a gallon . Now today a new truck will set ya back lets just say 115-120000 a new trailer from 25-50000 fuel is on places over 4 bucks a gallon ins. is over 6000 a year plates taxes tire are three and a half times higher and freight rates are still in the dark ages . . IF the freight rates go up to be inline with todays prices then you will not be able to put clothes on your back and you will not be able to put food on the tables. The middle class working slob days are on the way out it will come down to the super rich and the poor and homeless . Just look around as to the job market , look at the peopl that have lost there homes , yes manygot sucked into homes that they could not afford but some shister made them believe that oh yea you can afford this home . But what about the guy that lost his job and has not been able to find a job . Just on my little pin head on the map and on my street alone with old homes nothing fancy here there are 8 repoed homes and five for sales . Also the unemployment figures don't show the BIG picture that the new media or the gov. tells ya as once your benifits run out you are not counted anymore and you just fall off the numbers chart. Around me there are five of us that are not working that are just next door or across the street and this is not counting the new dead beats that just moved in across the street that are living off your money that make the once a day trec down the street to get a 30 pac. But lets get back to the trucking as to the owner operators In this are that was once strong in it it is gone . Lets see here the EPA comes in and tells the strip mines that you can't mine the coal because it is high sulfur they tell the steel ind. to clean up ther act ( thats a good thing ) Ok lets just shut it down and lets bring it in from over seas That solved the pol.problem and the mess of strip mining But what about all the guys that made a living from the mines and mills and all of us slobs that made a living hauling . Do i have all the answers heck no if i did i would fix the problem like i can fix what i work on .
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Today's Featured Article - Listening to Your Tractor - by Curtis Von Fange. Years ago there was a TV show about a talking car. Unless you are from another planet, physically or otherwise, I don’t think our internal combustion buddies will talk and tell us their problems. But, on the other hand, there is a secret language that our mechanical companions readily do speak. It is an interesting form of communication that involves all the senses of the listener. In this series we are going to investigate and learn the basic rudimentary skills of understanding this lingo.
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