Hey mainstream media … a guy in a pickup is not a truck driver … *sigh*

From TV host Jay Leno to  media criticism organizations, a number of watchers are constantly dogging the daily news for fairness, accuracy, outright blunders and words that are used incorrectly. I’m one of those watchers, but I tend to specialize in mistakes that leap into the mainstream regarding truck drivers and the trucking industry.

This morning I happened upon a story that caught my attention. I wasn’t really looking for a problem, but the headline in a Maine newspaper lured me beyond these words: “Wilton police seek truck driver who offered young girl a ride.”

The Sun Journal, Lewiston, ME, covers Central and Western Maine news. Reporter Ann Bryant of the Sun Journal wrote that last week in Wilton, ME, a truck driver offered an 11-year-old girl a ride when she got off the bus. No crime was committed but they want to speak to the operator of the truck, said the police chief.

The police were called when the girl was approached by a man in a red truck. The driver asked her if she wanted a ride; she said no and kept walking. The truck was reported to have turned around and come back toward her.

OK, here’s a description of the truck, according to the newspaper article – that was posted online and therefore went all over the world.

“The truck is described as a red full-sized truck with a silver toolbox in the back. A gold and white logo is on the side of the truck.” The article notes that “there was lumber in the back that extended beyond the tailgate.”

You can guess where I am going with this. It’s a suspicious situation and obviously the police in this town have a predator they need to check out. I confirmed with Wilton Police Chief Heidi M. Wilcox, who clarified it was a pickup.

So when will mainstream reporters and headline editors punch into the fact that truck driving is a profession and this guy was in no way a truck driver? This improper use of these words has become a pet peeve of mine. And most of the time, a follow-up call or email to the paper is appreciated. Occasionally, the offending news outlet will insist it’s a “question of semantics.”

So, if that red pickup truck had been a VW microbus, would the headline read “Police seek bus driver …?”

They are not looking for a truck driver; they are looking for a possible pervert in a pickup.

Maybe I’m being picky, but the headline insults a whole working community of professionals. The police chief apologized straight away if the description was misleading, but the newspaper reporter was another story.

I called her up at the Sun Journal. Ann Bryant defended the headline, saying the guy WAS a truck driver. We discussed this briefly, but she was dismissive and insisted it was just “wording.” Yes, it is wording and words need to be used correctly when you are reporting news.

The paper no doubt has plenty of trucker readers, not to mention friends and family members of truck drivers.

Get it right, Sun Journal.

Truckers can’t be replaced …

I honestly just about spit Diet Coke all over my screen when I read the following proclamation made in The New York Times:

“The two categories that have shown the biggest year-over-year increases in total compensation are (1) occupations in transportation and material moving and (2) employees at junior colleges, colleges, universities and professional schools.

“So what do truckers and professors have in common? Ms. Swonk observes that their jobs are both hard to either outsource or automate, unlike a lot of other occupations.”

The implication that truckers can’t be replaced by lower-priced labor sources is laughable on its face.

For starters, if a mega fleet could automate truck driving, they would in a second. Hello? They are the ones pushing for speed limiters, collision mitigation systems, electronic logs with GPS. … That list could go on forever. Just wait for the driverless truck.

Second, what lower priced labor pool? Company drivers, generally speaking, are underpaid by so many companies. They find people unqualified, untrained and exploit their need for a job with what mimics indentured servitude when they saddle them with a lease purchase truck.

Time and time again it’s been acknowledged that performance and safety would improve if driver pay improved. Jerry Moyes, CEO of Swift Transportation admitted this fact last year. His comments were so priceless, I had to blog about it then.

“I’ve been in this business for 45 years and the number one problem has always been drivers. It’s not going to change.”

If that’s the first time you’ve read that, I’ll bet that your blood pressure went through the roof. I know mine did.

Now, to be fair, Moyes went on to offer a solution to this problem. (You’ll love this.)

And, I quote: “For us to solve this, we’ve got to give them a lot more money.”

Like that has happened, or will happen, any time soon.

At least The New York Times inadvertently made a legitimate point. Truckers, good quality, trained, responsible men and women behind the wheel won’t be easily replaced. Not with the gadgets and junk the big carriers want.

Try as they might, truckers are and will continue, to be here to stay. And, if we keep standing together against the BS, we could eventually see rates and driver pay go up for more than just the fat cats at the top of the big motor carriers.

Reporter’s notebook: The story behind the story of OOIDA’s beginnings

At less than 90 days into my tenure at Land Line, most people still call me “The New Guy.” In fact, I was introduced to a co-worker’s fiancée as such just the other day. One of my colleagues only recently figured out my name isn’t Chris.

Staff Writer Greg Grisolano with
his first LL cover.
Photo by Nikohle Ellis

 That’s not meant to sound like a complaint. I am The New Guy, in more ways than one. Coming from a newspaper background doesn’t exactly lend itself to being an expert in an industry as diverse and complex as trucking. It can be a little overwhelming at times. So credit and props have to be given to the editorial staff here for trusting said “New Guy” with a story as important as the early history of OOIDA (and a cover story, to boot).

And what a history it is! To understand where this organization is today, and where it’s going, it’s critical to know and understand where we’ve come from. And beginnings really don’t get that much more humble than those of OOIDA.

There’s an old saw in the journalism business that every story you write is really three stories: The story you think you’re going to write, the story you end up writing, and the story that you wish you’d written but couldn’t quite get.

It’s that last story I want to share with you today.

The one that got away

There were a couple of things I wish I could’ve gotten for this piece, but we missed out on them. One of them was an interview with former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole.

Dole, a freshman senator at the time, acted as liaison between a group of disgruntled truckers and the bureaucrats in D.C. during those initial meetings in late 1973 and early 1974.

We reached out to the former senator’s office to see if we could secure an interview, but Dole politely declined. While we weren’t able to get an interview, we were able to get some great information and assistance from the staff at the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.

The staff at the Dole Institute were able to comb through the archives and find press releases from Dole about the energy crisis in 1973. The press releases helped us flesh out a timeline of those first few pivotal meetings, when truckers like Jim Johnston and Al Hannah thought all they’d have to do to fix the problem was just tell somebody in Washington about it.

They also opened up their photo archives to me, which brings me to my next point…

Photo hunting

Once interviews and background are fleshed out, the challenge becomes finding pictures (“art”) to supplement the story. With a piece like this, tracking down photos from 40 years ago can be a challenge. It’s almost like a scavenger hunt. In the early days of OOIDA, there was no magazine or other organ of record to capture the moments, so we didn’t have anything internally to fall back on. Strike one.

The Dole archives contain thousands of pictures, but unfortunately, we weren’t able to find any of truckers on Capitol Hill. Strike two.

Luckily, we hit a homerun when we reached out to Lou Bernard, the Adult Services coordinator at the Annie Halenbake Ross Library in Lock Haven, PA. Lou was able to round up some photos from the Lock Haven Express of the truck protest that started it all, when a fella by the name of J.W. Edwards (aka “The River Rat”) pulled his rig across the eastbound lanes of Interstate 80 near Lamar, PA.

Edwards’ stunt made national news, and Walter Cronkite himself interviewed him during a segment of The CBS Evening News. That footage actually still exists in the archives at CBS; the only problem is …

The whale

Johnston mentioned seeing the television footage of Edwards, who was also trucking out of the Kansas City area in 1973. Shortly after, he made a run out east, hooked up with The River Rat, and the rest was history.

So how much do you think a two-minute clip of footage from a 1973 interview on The CBS Evening News of Walter Cronkite and a disgruntled trucker would cost to license?

Five grand? Maybe more? We are talking about Cronkite, after all. The most iconic newscaster in American history. That’s gotta be worth something, right?

Try $132 … per second. So a clip of 130 seconds would cost $17,160. Or roughly $10,000 more than what I made in three semesters as a student-teacher in college.

Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? We thought so, too.

But enough about what we didn’t get. Let’s talk about the story we were able to write. For a new guy coming in, listening to tales of the old days of OOIDA is a bit like being regaled by tales from an age of myths and legends. Dates are vague, and nebulous.

What we’ve done is to try and create as concrete a record as we could of the significant dates and happenings of the early days of the organization. Whenever possible, we’ve interviewed the people who were there (those that are still around, and still remember). We’ve also tried to put the tale of truckers fighting for their rights into the larger context of what was happening in America, and the world, starting in 1973.

We’ve broken the story into two parts – the first of which is our cover story for the May issue of Land Line, which should be landing in your mailbox this week. In Part One, you’ll hear from OOIDA president Jim Johnston, as he shares his recollection of the Association’s early days.

If you’re one of our members who’s been with OOIDA for the long haul, we’d love to hear from you. If you’ve got photos or other memorabilia, let us know. Or bring it with you when we celebrate our 40th Anniversary at The Heart of America trucking show, Oct. 18-19 at the Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, KS.

Pilot Flying J affidavit reveals possible racism

Reading through the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s affidavit seeking the warrant to search Pilot Flying J’s headquarters is like peeling back an onion. One stinking layer of alleged deception after another.

Once you get past the foul language and quoted laughter, it reaches a new level of disturbing. Racism.

The affidavit clearly shows that smaller trucking companies were allegedly targeted by the scam to defraud them out of rebates owed to them. But as you dig deeper and further into the document, it gets worse.

Early on in the document, the FBI details a list of terms used by the sales staff to describe the alleged scheme. Included in that list are the terms “manuel,” “manwell,” and “manny.” All terms to describe the manual calculating of the rebates.

Flipping on through, on Page 83 it certainly raises eyebrows when it’s detailed how language barriers were exploited in the alleged fraud as well.

Kevin Hanscomb, the current director of sales for the east region is quoted as saying:

“They’re not stupid there is just … uh … there is a language barrier. So you can get away with a little bit more because they know that they are not going to understand everything you say. So you can say cost minus, or cost plus 3, and it’s cost plus 5 and they’re not going to go oh well, he’s screwing us … maybe I misunderstood. So there is some forgiveness there that probably isn’t at other parts of the world.”

The comment was made to a confidential informant who worked with the FBI and facilitated tapings of some of the conversations detailed in the affidavit.

The comment above came from a conversation in which Hanscomb was talking to the informant about the ability to reduce discounts in the south Florida area without much consequence because of the language barrier in that region.

It should be noted that Pilot Flying J President and CEO Jimmy Haslam reviewed the same affidavit I’m quoting from over the weekend. He studied it, he said.

He addressed the media on Monday and has continued to issue statements throughout the week.

He talked about a “reputational hit” the company has taken in the course of this investigation. He maintains that the foundation of the company is built on “its integrity.”

A statement released to the media on Wednesday revealed that several members of the sales team were placed on administrative leave on an interim basis.

“We are not judging the guilt or innocence of the team members placed on administrative leave. We are addressing actions and words that fail to show proper respect to our customers and that violate the character, values and principles that have been core to this company since it was founded 54 years ago,” the release states.

Stay tuned. Who knows what, if any, layer will be peeled off next.

‘Low hanging fruit’

If you did not hear about the FBI raid on the Pilot Flying J corporate offices on April 15, and are not tuned in to all the ensuing events, you are trucking on another planet.

At first, the reason for the raid was pure speculation, but the guessing game didn’t last long.

When the long and detailed affidavit for search warrants was unsealed in federal court in Knoxville on April 18, the gasp could not have been louder. Maybe gasp isn’t the right word. It was kind of a choking sound, like when a superstar CEO of a mega-corporation has to face the industry and apologize all over the place for his company’s cheating many beloved customers.

Jimmy Haslam addresses the media. (Image via press
conference webcast at pilottravelcenters.com)

Yesterday I listened to Jimmy Haslam’s latest statement to the press regarding the FBI investigation. When he said he read the affidavit word for word Friday night – sat down and studied it like a “student” – I thought to myself, he was doing what all good reporters were doing, as well as many Internet-savvy trucking company customers.

He said he was embarrassed and he should have been. The affidavit was a shocker.

Recordings caught slick sales team personnel red-handed with explanations of how they cheated many trucking customers who had agreements to buy Pilot Flying J fuel and, in return, get a rebate. The rebates for many, however, have allegedly been manipulated.

According to the affidavit, the investigation alleges a rebate scheme designed for the dual purposes “of increasing the profitability of Pilot and increasing the diesel sales commissions of the Pilot employees participating in the fraud.”

It was submitted to the court by an FBI agent, whose reports detail the FBI investigation and recount information provided by informants, both named and confidential, and actual dialog recorded. It intended to show probable cause in order to get a search warrant.

But you won’t be reading verbatim details of recorded conversations of Pilot Flying J sales people in newspapers. The profanity often gets in the way of many true quotes.

It documents some high-level sales personnel at a meeting openly discussing the “screwing” or other terms used to describe the business practice of cheating companies who were “low hanging fruit” or not sharp enough to spot the fraud.

A school of thought with some of the fuel sales team seems to be that it’s OK to “monkey” or “jack” with the discounts promised the customer if they are too dumb to reconcile their records with Pilot Flying J’s records and prove it. If Pilot got busted by a smart trucking company who called them on the difference, sales people learned to call it a “computer glitch.”

Example of some of the recorded dialog:

“If the customers aren’t smart enough to know what they’re getting then they don’t deserve the rebate.”

“F--- them early and f--- them often.”

“I called Jimmy and told him I got busted at Western Express.”

“What did he say?”

“Oh, he knew it. … Absolutely. I mean he knew all along that I was cost-plussin’ this guy, he knew it all along. Loved it. We were makin’ $450,000 a month on him … why wouldn’t he love it?”

“Our advantage is their ignorance.”

“Yeah, aka we’re f---in’ them.” (Laughter)

Tenacity of a pitbull, heart of an Irish poet

Joanne Palladino shocked us all when she presented a check

for $10,000 to the OOIDA’s scholarship fund last week

in memory of her longtime companion, the late Bob Driscoll Jr.

Here at OOIDA headquarters, we often refer to the words or the work of Life Member and past General Vice President Bob Driscoll Jr. Even though Bob succumbed to cancer in 2003, his work is very much a part of our daily operations. So who was this storied guy?

He joined OOIDA in 1984 and spent nearly 20 years of his life making trucking a better place to work.

He was pure Jersey with the tenacity of a pitbull and the heart of an Irish poet. In fact, he wrote poetry, beautiful poetry, and was president of the New Jersey Poet’s Society. He was a friend and mentor to me. I could tell many stories about him, but today I’ll just share a couple of my old favorites.

Because of his experience with trucking and hazmat, Bob was very involved with hazmat training and response for years. When hazmat rules were developed, he served as OOIDA’s representative. He was dedicated to exposing the dangers of “toxic backhauls” and led the Association’s charge to crack down on appalling practices.

Years ago, Geraldo Rivera wanted someone from OOIDA to appear on his show to discuss using reefers to haul food one way and chemical or biohazardous stuff back. Most truckers would be a bit intimidated by Geraldo, whose habit was to chew you up on the spot. Who from OOIDA could get our message across and at the same time handle Geraldo? It was, of course, Bob Driscoll.

About the same time, he represented truckers by presenting OOIDA testimony to members of the U.S. Congress. The lawmakers were discussing at one point the practice of hauling medical waste in reefers. Those who claimed a plastic-lined reefer trailer was sufficient protection had their say. Plastic was spread out on the floor and purported to be tear-resistant. When it was Bob’s turn to speak, he waved around a sample of this super-duty plastic and demonstrated how tear resistant it was by easily poking his finger right through it. It was very effective.

For us, losing Bob to cancer was tough, but it was a deep personal loss to his “other half” and beloved companion, Joanne M. Palladino, who was as dedicated to education as Bob was to trucking. She is retired from teaching but still serves as president of the National Education Association’s Italian-American Caucus.

Last week, Joanne arrived from New Jersey, making a surprise visit to OOIDA’s Grain Valley, MO, headquarters. She had not been here since Bob died 10 years ago.

She asked to speak to the Board and on Friday delivered an emotional and eloquent speech that made jaws drop and tears flow. In Bob’s memory, she presented a check for $10,000 to the OOIDA Mary Johnston Scholarship Fund. It was one of the largest contributions made by an individual to the scholarship fund since its inception in 1998.

In her speech, she stressed the importance of “familia” in her Italian-American upbringing and added a sentiment that really moved me.

“And that’s what we are at OOIDA,” she said. “Familia …”

It was a great moment. And now I have a new Driscoll story that joins my list of favorites.

‘Don’t be a zombie’

One agency has taken a creative approach to curbing distracted driving. It’s one that Officer Rick Grimes just might approve.

The North Carolina DOT has launched a new campaign that targets texting-and-driving “zombies” who are not keeping their eyes and focus on the road.

The agency’s public service announcements should ring with viewers of hit zombie shows like AMC’s “The Walking Dead” (hence the Grimes reference).

While capitalizing on the latest zombie craze, the PSAs carry a serious message.

“Zombies don’t just roam the streets on top-rated television shows. They drive on North Carolina roads every day – with cellphones in hand – putting other motorists at risk,” the agency stated in a link to a pair of YouTube videos.

NCDOT says two people died and 276 were injured in 904 crashes related to distracted driving last year.

The agency chose April, which is Distracted Driving Awareness Month, to “put the brakes on this zombie outbreak by highlighting the dangers of distracted driving.”

The motto of the campaign is “Don’t be a zombie. Don’t drive distracted.”

I suppose the unofficial one might be, “Get a brain.”

Big Pharma payouts get their close up

Chances are, your family physician hasn’t received $500,000 for speaking fees by big pharmaceutical.

According to an excellent article by Salon, however, many influential doctors do see their bottom lines enriched by companies that have an interest in miracle drugs and devices being either prescribed or required for use.

Doctors who sit on quasi-government boards that push for things like requiring commercial drivers be tested for sleep apnea, for instance, are a valuable target, Salon says.

As it turns out, comprehensive reform of America’s medical system will bring a new layer of transparency into the murky world of drug and device makers and payments to physicians.

Derided as “Obamacare” by some, the Affordable Care Act will do something all Americans should applaud. It will expose financial ties between Big Pharma (and Big Sleep) and the doctors who take an oath to “do no harm.”

According to Salon, beginning next year, pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers will be required to publicly report what they pay physicians who pimp their products. Companies that pay six-figure speaking fees and other marketing to physicians will report those expenditures to a federal database.

As Land Line has reported in the past, ties run deep between Big Sleep and advisory boards like the FMCSA Medical Review Boards, which has indicated a willingness to require expensive testing for drivers.

While medical and insurance industries adjust to the ACA’s new provisions, truck drivers will be able to see who is influencing these decision makers. It’s good to see a law bring transparency to one of our nation’s wealthiest and most powerful industries.

Yes ... THAT Ford’s Theatre

Sometimes it’s the destination, not the journey, which makes the trip worthwhile. OOIDA Life Member Lee Strebel stopped by last week to chat with us about a run he made from Chicago to Washington D.C.

Strebel, of Peachtree City, GA, is an owner/operator specializing in hauling specialized, pad-wrapped cargo. Last week he pulled into Riverwood Studios in Chicago to pick up just such a load: the scenery for a production of “Hello Dolly” slated for a March 15 opening run at Ford’s Theatre.

Yes, THAT Ford’s Theatre … the one in Washington, D.C. The one where John Wilkes Booth fatally shot President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Arguably one of the most famous performance venues in America.

“They offered me a load going to Washington, DC, and like most truck drivers it was, ‘Oh no, I don’t want to,’” he said. “But it was paying really good, so I said, ‘OK, you’ve perked my interest.”

The load itself filled only about half the trailer. Strebel said he was in snow from Chicago, all the way to Maryland. The worst part was around Chicago, but “once I got south, it was just more of a nuisance than anything else.”

With a 5 a.m. delivery time to beat traffic on the Beltway, Strebel pulled up to the Ford at about 4:30 a.m. His only company was a series of “No Parking” signs standing as sentinels along the street.

Even though he had the 5 a.m. call time for his delivery, the crew didn’t show up to unload his cargo until about 8 a.m. That’s when things got interesting. Strebel said he was given a guided tour of the theater by a member of the National Park Service, which oversees administration of the historic building.

“He took me up to places they don’t take people on the regular tour,” he said. “You get goose bumps walking in that place and just realizing all the history that went on.

“One of the things they were saying is that not too long after Lincoln was shot there, the theater closed. It was a warehouse for a while; it was offices for a while. In 1964, the National Park Service got that building and took artists’ renditions, paintings and stuff from the theater and they completely restored the theater back to exactly the way it was.”

What stood out most to Strebel was the layout and construction.

“The way that theater was built, it’s just about opposite of the way theaters today are built,” he said. “The seating in the theater on the main floor usually is raked, where people are sitting, but in the old Ford Theatre, the way they built things in the 1800s, the seating was flat, and the stage was raked. So everybody still had a good seat to watch any kind of production. I guess if you’re an actor, you’ve gotta be in pretty good shape because you’re walking up and downhill all day long during the performance. There’s not a level spot on that stage.”

By today’s standards, Ford’s Theatre is small, seating only about 600 people. But Strebel says the front of house isn’t the only area feeling the pinch of close confines.  

“The backstage area, there’s a door there that goes out into the rear parking lot where they load and unload everything,” he said. “There’s really no room; there’s no backstage or anything.”

Unchanged from Lincoln’s era is the loading door backstage. Like an old barn door, it slides open and closed.

“That same door that we opened to move everything in is where he escaped out with a broken leg, and had somebody tending his horse out there in the rear alley,” he said. “You can’t get back there with a truck. They had to unload me off the street and move it all back there with a straight truck.”

Strebel said the thing that stood out most to him was seeing the Presidential Box, where John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln from behind. Strebel said he was not able to go inside the box, however.

“No, no, that door is locked!” he said. “The cleaning crew goes in there maybe once a month to straighten up, but nobody goes in. I said, ‘Well what would happen if one of the presidents wanted to come to a production here?’ (The guide) said the last president who actually came while he was a sitting president to just a general production was George H.W. Bush. He said they sat him on the eighth or ninth row, right on the aisle … That’s the best seat in the house right there. You’re back far enough where you can see the whole stage without looking up. The front row, you’re really looking up.”

The private tour had an added bonus. It kept Strebel off the roads long enough to miss the morning traffic.

“For so many drivers, Washington, DC, and New York City… drivers don’t want to go there (because of the traffic),” he said. “Where I went, it’s two blocks off Pennsylvania Avenue… Two blocks down and six blocks west is where the White House is. That’s how close you are to that theater. Lincoln walked there that night as rumor had it.”

Goat capers and giant coffins

Ain't road-trippin' fun?
Photo by Keith Goble

In about 10 days, the Land Line media crew will take the alley out of the valley, destination Louahvulle.

The countdown clock on the MATS website says 13 days until the Mid-America Trucking show but our clock is set a bit earlier. We will be leaving Grain Valley early Tuesday, March 19.

We are not the first of the OOIDA troupe to leave. We are edged out of that distinction by Jon Osburn, pilot of OOIDA’s Spirit truck. Jon and Sassi will leave on Monday. OOIDA’s marketing coordinator Nikki Johnson will be aboard the Spirit, too. Nikki is the valued associate of Marketing Director Mike Schermoly, who is such a clever assistant and able problem-solver that he calls her “Watson.” Jon, Sassi dog and Watson will be the first to hit the beach.

Then it’s us – the Land Line media crew.

Early Tuesday, we’ll be putting our tin in the wind and I do mean tin. Our rental minivans traditionally have heavily used transmissions that change gears anytime they want and at any speed.

When the Land Line crew is on the road to Louisville, every year we pull off I-70 at Midway, MO (just before you hit Columbia), and have breakfast. We used to eat at the truck stop but now we go a half mile farther to the world famous Perche Creek Cafe.

It’s a small cafe with great home-cooked food and a faded autographed poster of NASCAR’s Carl Edwards on the wall, attached to a busy little c-store with a couple of gas pumps.

Near the poster of Cousin Carl, there’s a framed newspaper article on the wall describing some unforgettable event called the Great Goat Caper, when someone put a live goat on top of the local water tower.

The café is headquarters for the Perche Creek Yacht Club, which claims to have more than 900 members in 36 states and 12 foreign countries. There really are no yachts, of course.

Every morning, members meet at the cafe to further the club’s purpose of “having no purpose.”

I know about this member thing because as a birthday present one year, my LL staff made me a member of the Perche Creek Yacht Club and I have member privileges, whatever they might be.

On the way back to the interstate, we always have to stop at the haunted house, no matter what season it is, because they have one of the biggest coffins in the world.

I love Missouri.