Re: Newbie Questiion

Gashauler wrote:


To Gringo. You Sir need to read the past posts. I never said you didn't know what you're talking about. I said you don't know everything there is to know like you sound. You also come across as a very inexperienced driver when you say that a driver is stuck to take a illegal load. And I said maybe you are but any driver worth anything would refused any unsafe load. Then you think that all I've done is drive tankers. You wrong again.

All right, you wish to be bullheaded stupid: here it is again, my original reply to your rather wise ass comment to me:

{You're responding based on one small portion of the industry. General freight hauling is not similar to tankers--and it's my understanding that gas hauling has its own even smaller niche within the tanker field--and aren't you referring to your experiences with *one* fuel company (as narrow a field of reference as it gets)? I do not claim any knowledge of tanker operations, the fines levied, or for what.

{What this thread concerns is overweight tickets for general freight hauling. I will hereby explain a bit about the dynamics in play between between DOT and big fleets in the general trucking industry.

{Here in the US, overweight tickets are levied against the *driver*, not the company. Some companies do in fact pay the fines for their drivers, but it is their choice to make--the laws and regulations lay the blame (and therefore the fines) on the truck driver, who has absolutely zero control over what is loaded in the trailer or how it is loaded. You may believe that truckers should be responsible for paying for violations caused by shippers/receivers and the fleets that knowingly accept the overweight loads. However, the driver either hauls the load or loses his job.

Thus, my statement that corporations are protected by government regulations whenever it is possible to transfer blame and monetary damages onto the backs of their hardworking employees--or onto the American taxpayers. }

A driver sitting at a dock looking at BOL cannot know with certainty whether the load is overweight, you stubborn ***, and if, as most drivers are nowadays, he is relatively inexperienced, he lacks both the chutzpah and the power to argue with dispatch that tells him to go with it. And, quite often, a state DOT scale is one exit away and the truckstop, two miles too late. Therefore, the driver runs with an illegal load not by his choice. Do you get it yet??


Looking at the search engine it looks like your company hauls only one commodity which would limit your experience even further. But unlike you I don't make assumptions about your company and I could be wrong. And unlike you I will admit when I'm wrong but in this case I think that you were in error. I asked for examples on your big company claim and you showed none. I addressed the fact that a driver that gets stuck in a job that requires him or her to break the law is a fool. No response. Just political crap as expected.

You dumb ass.
What one commodity is it that you believe Southern Cal Freight hauls? Fucking ridiculous. If this is an example of your research skills, no wonder you are so often embarrassed by your posts. SoCal hauls for Watkins, Ryder, Overnite, et al. ( all LTL). SoCal hauls Dell Computers; Glidden Paint; Colgate; Walmart; Winn Dixie-- if it is offered at a good rate, SoCal hauls it. Christ, you best check again.

Now, about your company. Son, you claim publicly to haul gas; you drive for EXXON...what other assumption could one make? LOL.

I was in error re what exactly? Do you still claim as you did earlier that all freight companies do pay overweight tickets? Are you so stubborn... or do I need to conduct the research to prove how idiot that belief is?

Uh, what big company examples were you asking for again? Oh, about the protected from fines? Well, the very fact that *shippers who load the freight* are not required to pay the fines is proof enough, if you are honest enough to accept it. Contest that if you like: produce the name of one single state that does indeed fine the *large corporate shipper* if a truck passes a scale overweight.

You, Sir, are being disingenuous if you will not accept that as proof of what I stated.

But all right, you're asking for it, so I'll detail a few of the ways that American middle class taxpayers support corporations.

Microsoft actually paid no tax at all in 1999, despite $12.3 billion in reported U.S. profits. Microsoft’s tax rate for the past two years was only 1.8 percent on $21.9 billion in pretax U.S. profits.

General Electric reported $50.8 billion in U.S. profits over the past five years, but paid only 11.5 percent in federal income taxes. That's $12 billion in corporate tax welfare for GE.

Worldcom paid no taxes at all in two of the last three years, despite reported U.S. profits of $15.2 billion. Worldcom’s total tax rate over the three years was only 1.6%. Corporate tax welfare slashed Worldcom’s tax bill by $5.3 billion over the past five years. (And in 2004-2005, Worldcom's executive are going to jail for defrauding investors!)

IBM reported $5.7 billion in U.S. profits in 2000, but paid only 3.4 percent of that in federal income taxes. Over the past five years, IBM enjoyed a total of $4.7 billion in corporate tax welfare.

Colgate-Palmolive paid no taxes at all in three of the past five years, despite $1.6 billion in reported U.S. profits. Colgate’s total tax rate over the five years was negative 1.3 percent, due to $595 million in corporate tax welfare.

Navistar, on $1.4 billion in U.S. profits over the past five years, paid only $28 million in federal income taxes, a tax rate of only 2 percent. Navistar’s corporate tax welfare totaled $451 million.

Additionally, you should visit this site http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Nader/CutCorpWelfare_Nader.html

And this one:
http://www.citizen.org/congress/welfare/articles.cfm?ID=1053

In case you can't be bothered, I'll give you these few examples.

:US Forestry Service paying for logging roads into Federal lands, then selling the lumber at below market--often below the actual cost of growing the trees-- to corporations that enjoy huge profits from the sales. COST TO TAXPAYERS: $175 MILLION ANNUALLY

: US Bureau of Land Management leasing grazing lands at a *net loss* to huge corporate ranches. Annual cost: $85 million.

:Mining concessions, at a loss to government and a huge profit for the corporations. Cost to Taxpayers: $200 million annually

:The Department of Interior's Mineral Management Service estimates that oil companies underpay by an estimated $66 million annually for oil extracted from public lands. Oil companies participate in an elaborate pricing scam to undervalue the oil -- sometimes by as much as $2 per barrel from the actual market price -- to avoid paying the full royalties due. Attempts to end this scam and institute a fair, market-based valuation program have been repeatedly thwarted in Congress. Cost to Taxpayers: $66 million annually.

: Last year, Wal-Mart made $20,000 profit every minute of every day for a total of $10.3 billion dollars on the year. Yet the recently enacted Highway Bill pushed by Bush included a gift to Walmart of $37 million for widening Walmart's private access road in Bentonville AR.
Walmart won't spend a few dollars for health care for its employees, so you and I have to pay higher medical fees to make up for the loss incurred by hospitals that are never paid by underpaid walmart employees.



No need to respond since your creditability was shot to hell with me when you talk about drivers taking illegal loads.


Don't be so silly. Do go back, as you advised me to. Read again and post it for me, please, where I said that.


Christ, let it go already. You did in fact say that I was wrong in the advice I offered the one who began the thread regarding weights.

AS I have attempted to help you understand several times, gashauler, Sir, I was not referring to myself in that posting: I was referring to the industry as a whole, and in this industry as a whole, it is a FACT that a very large percentage nowadays are rank rookies with less than a year experience and certainly not enough clout to be able to argue with a dispatcher about a load. GET IT finally???

This is in addition to the fact that sitting at a loading dock that does not have a scale--WHICH IS WHAT I WAS PLAINLY REFERRING TO!-- a driver does not have any way to be certain that the load is in fact illegal. GET IT???

Now, trying to be respectful here, please explain to me how anything included in the last two paragraphs leads you to believe I don't have enough experience to know what I am talking about??????? I have just essentially repeated what I said in the original post. Your smugness caught you up into making that asinine statement.

Re: your driving experience. I did not claim you had no drybox experiences. What I clearly said was that IF you believe that all companies pay overweight fines then you evidently have not driven OTR general freight. I stand by that.

Get on the horn. Not 5 fleets out of any 500 you might call will tell you that they will pay a driver's overweight tickets: that remains the drivers' ticket. And I still say that this is DEAD WRONG.


Do you finally understand. Do you still claim that I was wrong? You said that you are willing to admit when you are wrong. Prove it.

You were wrong. Now admit it.

--
"Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking
about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so"
-George W. Bush, April 20, 2004
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