Well, it’s comforting to know that, amidst all the crises of the trade war, trying to surrender Ukraine to Russia, the impending collapse of the US trucking industry as international shipping slows down, and the prospect of bare shelves being touted by the largest retailers in the US, Trump is taking time to address the really pressing issues of the day. That being, the NFL draft.
As Trump publicly melted down over his abysmal approval ratings, Leavitt and Doocy decided to spin Trump’s supposed influence over last week’s National Football League draft. On Friday, Trump attacked NFL owners in a Truth Social post for failing to draft Shedeur Sanders, the college quarterback and son of Hall of Fame football player Deion Sanders, in the first round.
The public safety issues represented by low-wage hires in the trucking industry are, IMHO, attributable to greedy or disreputable company owners who fail to adequately maintain their fleet.
This should dovetail nicely with the reduction in inbound cargo out of China – fewer drivers to take the freight the last mile.
Inflationary? Nahhhhh. Just common sense.
Or maybe this will help Elon make further inroads into autonomous over-the-road trucking.
Someone named J.L. in Los Angeles (Electoral-vote name) did a parody of Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire titled Trump is a Dumpster Fire and posted it to Youtube:
trump overreach, governing by executive order, clueless brain dead dumfuk, fuck trump and all that…
but the quality of truck drivers has markedly decreased over the last couple decades. And hiring non-english speakers is actually a part of it. Companies willing to hire anyone that knows what a steering wheel is and which end of the truck is the front and not much else is the truly larger problem.
There is too much freight and not enough drivers. That’s the fact. And deporting those willing to take the job isn’t going to help. Real MAGAmericans don’t want the job, because there are too many driver regulations. Silly things, like passing a physical, getting enough rest, knowing not to overload the truck, not being high while driving, knowing traffic rules, and knowing how high your trailer is compared to the overpass are just too much for Joe SIxpack.
We like to watch the Flagstaff rail cam. Flagstaff is on a main east-west train corridor (Chicago-LA) and they must get a 100 car double-stack container train a least 3 times an hour. That’s a lot of stuff going somewhere!
We’re waiting to see if there is a drop off. This morning we saw a single-stack train go through. now that could be normal ebb and flow of traffic, or it could be the new status quo. We’ll see what we see in a month.
Yeah. Two hallmarks of MAGA types are a complete disregard for rules of any sort, and of the welfare of everyone else. And in all fairness to the freight companies in their position I wouldn’t trust people like that with my truck or cargo either, even if they’d take the job. It’d be a tossup if they smashed the truck or stole the cargo. These are not reliable nor trustworthy people.
My cousin is a MAGAmerican truck driver. Even before Trump, he was complaining about NAFTA and Mexican truck drivers. The specific complaint was that they would work for less than American wages and undercut him, but there was also a lot of FOMO about the Spanish conversation and banter he would hear on the job, when similar conversation and banter wasn’t offered to him.
I have never even seen his truck, so I don’t know about the specifics of passing a physical etc., but I know my cousin—I suspect he’s using Trump’s exact methodology to bluff his way through as much of this as he can, but taking every last second of rest he’s entitled to. In other words, I think our roads are safer with any random truck driver who has no English than they are with my cousin. (And that’s aside from his prison record.)
