Letters to the Editor: Reinvent Transport, Size & Weight Changes, Highway Fund

These Letters to the Editor appear in the Aug. 18 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

Reinvent Transport

In today’s climate, we all should be looking for ways to optimize the use of our trucks — not just as a business unit but as a country.

Many companies have regional distribution centers to save on transportation and warehousing costs. Why don’t we do this as a country?

The biggest reason, of course, is money. But if we do this as a country and not as competitors, we can do this endeavor.

Companies with regional distribution centers get the advantage of local delivery knowledge and better utilization of their linehaul trucks. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a distribution center or cross dock outside the major cities that anyone could use? We could have our over-the-road drivers driving over-the-road and our local drivers driving locally.

Of course, to serve everyone, these outposts would be huge, but it would be like everyone was part of a co-op. You would pay for your use and your use only (we can talk about money later — I’m dreaming here). The airlines have regional centers for air traffic controllers. We could have regional land-traffic controllers.

With today’s warehouse management system technology and just about everyone online, why couldn’t this happen? Sure, the infrastructure would be huge, but think of the utilization and the fuel savings. And you wouldn’t have your over-the-road driver lost in a city again.

I know it’s just a dream.

Mark Oldham

Student

Supply Chain Management

Illinois University

Morton, Ill.

Size, Weight Changes

Shame on you, Transport Topics, for allowing yourselves to be duped into shamelessly promoting Vehicle Inspection Systems’ product in the Letters & Comments section under the guise of “reducing operating costs” (7-28, p. 5).

Is there anybody in the trucking industry who actually thinks that by raising the weight limits, we will be able to operate more profitably?

Let’s look into the crystal ball. Congress raises the weight limit 10,000 pounds on the allowable gross weight. Who in their right mind actually thinks a shipper will expect to pay more? We all know where this conversation is going:

“Well, I want the same rate per mile, but now I expect your truck to take 55,000 pounds instead of 45,000 pounds as a truckload.”

And on top of the increased cost for the additional fuel we will burn and the wear and tear on equipment, we will have to spend money on a “performance-based brake tester” test — and that will cost how much?

While I absolutely applaud the letter writer for his concern for safety — we all know how important that is — allow me to say to him, “Please find a better marketing method than the 3M-conspicuity-tape model for your product.”

Stephen Cospito

President

L&S Logistic Services

Orlando, Fla.

Editor’s Note: The letter writer refers to a campaign by 3M to make it mandatory under federal law for trucks to be marked with reflective conspicuity tape — a product of 3M. Marketing methods aside, however, we invite readers on all sides of the weight change issue to write to us defending their positions on the matter.

Highway Fund

With respect to your July 28 article (p. 2) about the declining dollars in the federal Highway Trust Fund, I would like to say it is the government’s own fault that there is a deficit. If the dollars collected through federal gasoline and diesel taxes and heavy highway use taxes had been placed into a dedicated account rather than the general fund, there would be ample funds for any and all highway building and repairs.

Instead, the money is pooled into the general fund and used for useless pork-barrel projects by every elected member of our federal and state legislatures.

It is little wonder there is not sufficient money to repair roads and build new ones, given all the pet projects bearing plaques stating that this is the Senator So-and-So Swimming Pool or the Congressman Such-and-Such Flower Pavilion.

And let’s not forget the unbelievable retirement programs our elected representatives bestow upon themselves.

I know this is not a political forum, but I would like to say this: The longer these men and women remain in office, the more power they achieve. The more power they achieve, the more harm they are capable of doing. They will not enact legislation that limits their terms in office, so it is our responsibility to enact term limits at the polling booths.

If we each were to take a more active part in the political process that runs this country, we might just end up with the model that made this nation what it was in the years following World War II.

John Head

Owner-Operator

AIP Transportation

Colorado Springs, Colo.