Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/85442
VOICES CHANNEL 19 Securement violations are now handled under CSA's maintenance category. CSA change 'lacks any common sense' Flatbedders, with the most visible securement practices among trucking segments, could see their percentile rankings in Vehicle Maintenance under CSA take a hit with a methodology change that includes securement violations in the maintenance cat- egory. News of that change left some watchers doing a little head-scratching. Transportation consultant James Henderson cried foul in public comment at regu- lations.gov (docket no. FMCSA-2012-0074). The move "lacks any common sense" what- soever, he wrote. "Maintenance is not cargo securement and the two should not be mixed." Henderson noted he had examined many of his carrier customers' data and found "that those who have no Alerts" will have them now. That will open them up to maintenance intervention, "which will likely cost them business and money. Nothing has changed as it relates to maintenance, but the scores have or will go up. This makes little sense." Find more about the change in the June 6 post to the Channel 19 blog, or search for our in-depth story "Irregular ratings" on OverdriveOnline.com. Stereotyping cuts both ways This "Knocking Skink" is one of seven "Deadly Lot Lizards" the folks at TruckertoTrucker.com identi- fied in a satirical infographic posted to their blog in June. In introducing the infographic, the blogger recognized that drivers have become much more involved in combating child prostitution and other forms of human trafficking. He recognized that "many of these women (and men) who venture around the lots" are "victims of abuse, drug addicts, abducted minors forced against their will, or runaways wanting to make a 'trade' for money to buy something to eat; most actually need help to escape a bad situation." Quite true. Which is why turning them into caricatures might not be as humorous as it's intended to be. Find links to the full info- graphic in the June 7 post on Channel 19, see for yourself, and let us know if you think it's funny or foul. The "Knocking Skink," says the satirical lot lizard graphic, "has woken up many a comfortable trucker by rasping her claws on their windows at 3 in the morning." Cleveland-based driver Shannon "Sputter" Smith got her on-highway start after growing up the youngest child of a heavy-equipment mechanic. Telling her father that she was going to become a truck driver someday – in some sense in order to get a little closer to him – he told her she needed to learn how to work on a truck first. Would he teach her? she asked, but he said no. Ultimately, she refused that answer and joined a military makes an end run Spunky driver Shannon Smith, 35, was featured in O, The Oprah Magazine. transportation unit. There she learned the ropes of truck maintenance, as told by Jeanne Marie Laskas in the June O, The Oprah Magazine. Now 35, she's got more than a decade of long-haul experi- ence behind her, with no small debt to the energy she's devoted to making her trucking life a reality. Find more about it in the Laskas story, and links to it in the June 11 entry on the blog. For more of the interesting and odd parts of trucking, visit Senior Editor Todd Dills' 10 | Overdrive | August 2012 CHANNEL 19 BLOG at OverdriveOnline.com/channel19.