Greger,

Spoken like
Originally Posted by Greger
BTW OTROO R ADB. IMNSHO.
By the way, over the road owner operators are a dying breed.
In my not so humble opinion.
Back when Diamond T, REO, Mack Trucks and White Freightliners were the main trucks on the road and Mack introduced the more efficient more powerful Maxodyne diesel engine, trucks were workhorses, not horribly expensive, not horribly luxurious. But truckers demanded more. Not just a sleeper in back of the cab, but a luxury apartment. They needed more speed, more power, MORE CHROME. Single axles couldn't pull the newer larger loads so everything became tandem. Trailers were extended a few feet at a time form 40 to 53 feet in length. Truckers needed more power. They asked for it and they got it. Fuel was cheap and speed was easy to come by. They got everything they asked for, including the price tag.
Old truckers never die. They just get a new Peterbilt.


Spoken like someone that's never driven any of them - particularly the "maxodyne" ! "Singles" can pull as much freight as any other design, but DOT weight regs demand "axles/ton". I see you've never seen those multi-axle trailers so prevalent in the northern midwest.

No OTR "sleeper cab" truck is what anyone, (outside a tribe of Packis) would term, "luxurious". More like a mobile (and very tiny ) motel room sans the shower !

None of this "Government Imposed Mandate" is about energy or its "efficient use" IMO. Our trucking industry is already on the peak of the energy/cost curve. The Obama Administration - and the ATA/Teamsters, etc are using the power of regulation to "reshape the curve" - to their advantage. IOW a political ploy to erase yet another "restricting factor" in government control of our economy.

The United States is awash in energy ! Or at least it would be but for the blockading rulings and actions by the sitting administration. Developement of vast fields of gas and oil are being blocked at every turn by every legislative arrow in the quivers of the watermelons regardless of the "science" of its safety ! Why would the President of the most powerful economic machine in the history of the world work so damn hard to starve it of its lifeblood ? >Mech