Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/873209
PULSE September 2017 | Overdrive | 3 of supply and demand cannot be ignored unless it is to your advantage. It is to the shippers' and receivers' advantage as well as the carriers' for drivers to work more for less! Drivers' pay is the real issue, period. We need to be able to afford to operate within the regs." Via OverdriveOnline.com: Maddmc: The original intent of wanting [ELDs] in every truck to keep drivers from falsifying their logs has since been eclipsed by traffic cams, CCTV at both shippers and receivers, license plate readers, PrePass, Ipass and smartphone tracking. Anyone falsifying their logs today better hope they never get in an accident with a fatality and they're at fault! ... We don't need ELDs, but now that they're here, put the hours rules back to what they were originally. You know, the ones that worked without a prob- lem for literally decades. Andrei: The HOS are not the problem. I'd rather work a 20-hour workweek and make the money I am making now in a 70-hour workweek. The money that we get to bring home after all expenses and headaches is the problem. … It doesn't matter how many electronic devices are mon- itoring us. If you can barely afford monthly expenses at home, you'll be frustrated and easily aggravated on the road. Paul Cenac: Put all the electronic monitoring devices on four-wheelers, and email them tickets for speeding, erratic driving and pulling over within 100 feet of an 18-wheel- er, and mandatory loss of license for every brake-check- ing of an 18-wheeler. Things aren't looking so hot for President Trump's illusory promise to deliver $1 trillion in infrastructure spending. Turns out his fledgling Advisory Council on Infrastructure, established by executive order July 19, won't see the light of day. This followed the dissolution of three advisory councils (two business, one arts), prompted by their members quitting to protest Trump's comments on the violent rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Too bad about the infrastructure council. Considering what little progress he's made, Trump could've used some help. On Aug. 15, he signed an executive order to reduce the permitting process for infrastructure projects to two years. He claimed that environ- mental permitting is holding up major plans, many of them freight-related. That drew a rebuttal from Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), ranking member on the Transportation and Infrastructure Com- mittee, reported ForConstructionPros.com. "Less than 1 percent of federal in- frastructure projects require the type of rig- orous environmental review he lamented," DeFazio said, citing the Council on Envi- ronmental Quality and the Congressional Research Service. "He is ignoring the fact that it will take real federal investment and partnership with the states to rebuild our infrastructure." Indeed. Congress has for years dodged fixing the bankrupt Highway Trust Fund. It's handicapped by a fuel tax-based formu- la that hasn't kept up with economic changes, as well as political cowardice to raise taxes. In response, more than half of the states have hiked gas taxes since 2013, notes the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan institute. At the same time, "states are cutting in- frastructure spending as a share of the economy, the opposite of what is needed," the center says. The New York Times reports that total govern- ment spending on transportation and other public works was "1.4 percent of the nation's economic output in the second quarter of 2017, the lowest level on record." Private transportation invest- ment has increased in recent years, but it's not at a pace that's going to be the silver bullet for crumbling infrastructure and choked highways. Yet private investment and the states are the bulk of Trump's $1 trillion promise, expected to provide $800 billion in response to $200 billion in federal spending. Much of that $200 billion appears to be incentives for private projects with profit potential, such as toll roads and bridges. That means not only an extra burden on citizens and the trucking industry, but also a lack of stimulus for the many infrastructure needs that are less lucrative for investors. This industry and the public at large deserve a rational plan, not smoke and mirrors, for maintaining and improving our infrastructure. Road trippin' mheine@randallreilly.com By Max Heine Editorial director Trump's proposed 2018 budget will reduce infrastruc- ture spending long-term, says the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. It says that beginning in 2021, the Highway Trust Fund "will spend no more in a given year than the dedicated revenues it receives," precipitating a growing deficit for the fund. Sources: CBPP; U.S. Office of Management and Budget