Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/82527
VOICES CHANNEL 19 EXTREME TEAM DRIVING Consider the case of Alan Jones next time you feel the burden of responsibilities weighing you down. Coordinating with another driver over on the opposite side of a then-unopened, divided highway in Croatia, Jones held 23-year-old champion wire walker Faith Dickey's slackline suspended between his and the other hauler's dry vans as they traveled at highway speed toward a pair of tunnels where the mountain wall would snap the rope and … you get the picture. "Too far apart, the rope breaks; too near togeth- er, she falls off," Jones said. And some precision handling, too. A Web video of the stunt was pro- duced by Volvo Trucks' European group last year in conjunction with a new cabover-model launch and was well on its way to going viral in August. Scan the QR to pull up the vid on your smart- phone or tablet, or visit the Aug. 20 post to the Channel 19 blog. Linking pay and safety The need for higher levels of compensation for a safer overall industry figured largely at a House Small Business Committee hearing in July on the Compliance Safety Accountability program. Wayne State University Professor Michael Belzer noted that 1980s truck- ing deregulation "increased compe- tition ... and reduced compensation. CSA in its current form puts pres- sure on drivers without address- ing underlying causes [of safety problems]. In the trucking industry, poor compensation causes car- riers" to be unsafe, generally, he added. Belzer cited the example of Australia, where he said loading/ unloading is more often paid for Turnpike targets toll ticket trick they'd only use the old ticket when exiting before the end of the turnpike to pay for just a few exits' worth of road use. If you're thinking of trying it, don't. Turnpike officials changed the way they charge to expose any attempted scam. But why the focus on truckers? "Some people will do anything to save a dollar," not just truckers, wrote one commenter to the story, calling himself Truckinpro. Find a link to the original story via the Aug. 17 entry on Channel 19. as emblematic of giving attention where it's needed. On the subject of regulating detention pay, though, broker Jeff Tucker of Tucker Company Worldwide said he "would hesitate on going down the road of some- how regulating pricing for truck- ing," he said. "It will be something that industry will rail against. You'll have the National Association of Manufacturers and every other association screaming … and eventually it will raise prices to all of us." Besides, Tucker argued, "Rates that truckers are getting are better. Their returns are better." Owner-operator Daniel Miranda disputed that notion. "I'm trying to figure out where Mr. Tucker sees this great economy. There's a chance the brokers are taking it all and putting it all in their pockets – it's not going to the drivers." See the July 13, 19 and 30 posts on the blog for more from the hearing. We addressed pay, along with other major industry issues, in August features and supplemental work on Channel 19 relative to the top five owner-operator business challenges, as ranked by readers. Scan the QR to pull up the full top challenges archive on your smartphone/tablet or click "Business challenges" on our home page. For more of the interesting and odd parts of trucking, visit Senior Editor Todd Dills' 8 | Overdrive | October 2012 CHANNEL 19 BLOG at OverdriveOnline.com/channel19. Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter Tom Breckenridge laid out a well-planned Ohio Turnpike toll-evasion sce- nario in August, one that turnpike officials blamed primarily on truckers. Running eastbound, driv- ers would take a ticket at the turnpike's entry near Indiana, wrote Breckenridge, only to claim they'd lost their ticket when they reached Pennsylvania. They'd pay full-fee there. Then, on the return trip,