Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/93143
VOICES BUILDING BUSINESS: TWO VIEWS Government deserves more respect Editorial Director Max Heine's "Who built your business?" column in our September issue dissected President Obama's widely reported "You didn't build that" comment. It drew varied responses over the relationship between government and business growth. I read your screed against government in the September issue, equating money with achievement and claiming all credit for private commercial activ- ity. I found it amusing that it was published on the opposite page from a celebratory article about how the federal government was going to subsidize truckers (and trucking companies) with millions of dollars of free parking spaces. Will it be OK for regu- lar citizens to use these spaces, or is this an exclusive ben- efit for the business you claim needs no help? Remember that most business travelers don't get the government to pay for their lodging. Don't get me wrong – I want the truckers to get the help. I just wish they and you didn't badmouth the gov- ernment that educated them, gave them roads to drive on and is now going to give land and money for parking at great cost to the public. All I'm saying is that the public needs trucks and truck- ers, and truckers need what the public pays for. The public will is expressed through government, not talk radio. –Jim Mesthene, Waltham, Mass. We built it 'one day at a time' Steve and Doris Bixler If Obama, or any other Washington politician, had to endure what we as owner-opera- tors have to endure, with the cost of doing business being what it is, from high fuel, over-regulation and way too many taxes to low freight rates and many days or weeks at a time away from home, they would fail miserably. If I had a whole room full of advisers – not to mention aides, Congress and Senate – to do my work for me while I make public appearances to talk about what a great job I am doing, my business would look pretty sweet, too. I guess the whole irony of it is that even though my wife and I are on the road for days or weeks at a time and have to spend three or four days just catching up when we get home, we still run a successful business and home that does look pretty sweet. So Max, my hat is off to you, and yes, we built our business, one day at a time. –Steve and Doris Bixler, Valley View, Pa. CHANNEL 19 Charbroiling pollution smokes diesel fumes As if suggesting the Environmental Protection Agency get off owner- operators' backs already, Diesel Technology Forum Executive Director Allen Schaeffer noted in September that com- mercial charbroiler pol- lution nationwide now more than doubles the particulate-matter inven- tory from heavy-duty diesels. "An 18-wheeler diesel engine truck would have to drive 143 miles on the freeway to put out the same mass of particulates as a single charbroiled hamburger patty," said Bill Welch, a researcher involved in a University of California-Riverside study For more of the interesting and odd parts of trucking, visit Senior Editor Todd Dills' 8 | Overdrive | December 2012 of emissions from the res- taurant industry. Schaeffer added that "it now takes 60 of today's technology trucks to emit the same level of PM emissions as one truck built in 1988." Find links to media reports on the study and the study itself via the September 22 Channel 19 post. CHANNEL 19 BLOG at OverdriveOnline.com/channel19.