Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/904267
Voices 4 | Overdrive | November 2017 Many owner-operators shut down the week of Oct. 2 in solidarity with electronic logging device protests that kicked off in Washington, D.C., and were echoed on the West Coast. A couple dozen drivers from the ELD or Me pro- test group staged outside the U.S. House of Repre- sentatives' Rayburn Office Building on Oct. 3. That afternoon, an escorted pro- test convoy of around 45 trucks, associated with the Operation Black and Blue effort, entered D.C. proper honking horns. It was a sort of inter- net-meets-reality for both efforts, spawned from Facebook groups with thousands (17,000-plus in the case of ELD or Me) of members. Both groups' activities included those of individual owner-operators around the country ad- vocating locally or calling reps and senators in D.C. Their efforts bore mod- est fruit in three additional House cosponsors the first day of the demonstrations for the H.R. 3282 ELD Ex- tension Act of 2017, which would delay the ELD mandate two years. Anoth- er three cosponsors in the following weeks brought the total to 58, almost all Republicans. ELD or Me's numbers in D.C. grew a little as the week went on. Own- er-operators associated with Operation Black and Blue employed a novel tactic: parking dozens of bobtail trucks during the wee hours in strategically located, paid street parking spots. Each following day, truckers' presence was made obvious. Among such scenes near the White House, the Capi- tol Building and elsewhere through the week, the second day of protests saw 20 or more trucks parked around U.S. Department of Transportation head- quarters. Drivers took turns speaking through a megaphone pointed at Fed- eral Motor Carrier Safety Administration offices. That tactic led to an Oct. 5 meeting between FMCSA brass and Black and Blue leader and small fleet owner Scott Jordan, trucker John Allen, truck- ing advocate and former owner-operator Scott Reed, independent Joe Alfaro, Wyoming-based small fleet owner Mintu Pandher and others. The trucking represen- tatives aired grievances over hours of service, the mandate's constitutionality, a concern over malicious hacking of ELDs and many more issues. While FMCSA's engagement at the meeting gave Reed a "good feeling," he says, no promises were made by officials relative to the man- date, where the discussion centered. Pandher's hopeful for more from the agency, which pledged to continue to engage: "The point was to get the answers" to allay concerns with the mandate, he says. "This time, I was disappointed. I thought there would be some con- crete answers, and there were none." Gatherings out west included rallies in three states led primarily by representatives of the Sikh community, of which Wyoming-based Pandher is part, among owner-opera- tors and small fleets. Binda Atwal, spokesman for the California coalition associ- ated with Operation Black ELD protests hit D.C., elsewhere After drivers took turns speaking through a megaphone pointed at Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration offic- es, agency officials met with trucking representatives. Todd Dils