The King of Commercial Trucks
Shut them big trucks down! 10-4!
Park It Driver.
As some of you may have noticed my run for President in the last Presidential campaign was met with somewhat limited success. By limited success I mean that I heard there was some guy in Des Moines who wrote me in on the ballot and as far as I can tell, he is the only one. This is as it should be since I am fairly certain that my lack of ability to handle high stress situations would somewhat cripple my ability to function properly in that office. I do think however that there should be an elected office of presidential advisor. I feel those duties could be well performed by a person of my unique mental capacity and sarcastic outlook on the issues of transportation, population, welfare, gun control and freedom.
In the meantime I have decided to declare myself the King of all commercial trucks. My
first action in this capacity is to
SHUT EM' DOWN!
Brokers want to pay $.80 cents per mile and this includes fuel surcharge? Shut em' down! Here is a news flash for you. You do not have to work your fanny off to go broke. You can stay home and watch the soaps with your spouse and go broke just as successfully as you are right now. Possibly even slower than you are right now.
How many times has one group or other called for a national strike to protest the issues facing us only to be ignored or laughed at or whatever else it may have been that caused their failure? Well now that I am King this will no longer be an issue. On March 15, 2000 all trucks are going to be shut down for 2 days. The first day is to help out the companies and independents to protest the fuel and the second day is going to be for the company drivers to finally get a pay structure which does not encourage them to drive illegal hours in order to make ends meet and to bring them up to the status of full citizen so that the grocery warehouses and crooked trucking companies will no longer be able to force them to provide illegal free labor.
I can hardly believe it has come to this. Everyone is talking about the issues facing the trucking industry but judging by the lack of results for all that discussion, it has become painfully evident that it is all just lip service. You would think that OOIDA would be all for fixing these problems but if they truly wanted to it would have been done by now.
You would also think that some of the larger companies would be all for it but at a time when fuel is about 40% higher than it was at this time last year, I just had Pride come in and underbid me on a customer I have been serving for years. My price wasn't very high in the first place but Pride cut me by so much that I just let them have it. Like I said, we don't have to work that hard to go broke and maybe Pride has a friend that sells them cheap diesel fuel.
That leaves it up to you and me and I know none of you want to be the first to make a stand because in the past there was no one to back you up and it would only cost you your job. I have decided that to solve that problem I would be willing to donate my services and take the responsibility for you. Now when the boss asks, "What in the hell do you think you are doing?" You can tell him that it is not your choice, the King of all trucks commanded it.
I wish you the very best and I truly hope that you can hang on until at least the problem with the fuel is solved but if you can't then the only chance any of us has is to make a united stand once and for all. In the meantime I will check with my lawyer because I'm not really sure if it is legal for me to name myself King of all trucks. I just thought a king might be able to accomplish something that all others have failed. If I am wrong then it is back to the drawing board and God help us. Nobody else is going to.
Hope to see you parked on March 15th and 16th but I'll understand if your customers and bosses do not buy the King thing. Maybe we should all become Kings of our own trucks and make a royal decision that enough is enough. You know and I know who brings the goods home. It is time for us to let the rest of them know.
Until next time....