Back in my day...

The major Omnitracs ELD crash earlier this month taught us a lesson. When we rely on technology to substitute for our own intelligence and brain power, we can find ourselves in real serious trouble.

Back in my day, in the early 1970's... (no, I'm not going to tell you how I used to walk fifteen miles to school every day in the snow... barefoot... uphill... both ways), we didn't have calculators on portable telephones that we kept in our pocket. Or on computers. Cheap portable calculators didn't hit the market until the end of that decade so we were taught to rely on ourselves. We learned multiplication tables and long division. We actually had to THINK to solve mathematical problems. We learned algebra to solve for the unknown. Those were the good old days. And from the 1930s up until December 2017, truck drivers in America computed and tracked their hours of service manually on paper log books to make a record of duty status (we called it RODS for short).

Then technology stepped in and we were sold a bill of goods. If machines were to take over, it would be easier... drivers would not be able to cheat. And, technological manufacturers would make BILLIONS. $11.5 billion in 2018 to be exact, and it is expected to grow to $16 billion annually by 2025. If I turn up "suicided" as I lead the current fight to suspend the ELD Mandate with this petition and this exemption application don't you believe it! I am living the dream... And it's probably not Hillary Clinton you should interrogate this time around.

If you missed the circus last week, you might not yet know that we saw The Trucker pressuring me to stop the ELD fight last week. Apparently, the stakes were so high for them with their advertisers --including our competitor OOIDA, which we called out for sabotaging our ELD Suspension Petition, that they forgot they did business with me before and after I got jammed up in the unethical 2016 FTC entanglement which they referenced in their Op-Ed article... and their smear piece backfired on them. They are now embroiled in their own scandal, which makes their political attack (as a favor to OOIDA) look ridiculous. My lawyers issued this cease and desist letter and demand for retraction to them Friday night.

Sadly, the Trucker's editors were not above joining another well known trucking media outlet that routinely puts out hit pieces on me (they started to turn on me a dozen years ago or so when I stopped advertising with them and launched a competing trade show business and were worried I would be competing with them) to appease their ELD manufacturer advertisers by digging up that old civil nuisance lawsuit that was intended, I believe, by the trucking and logistics establishment --in collusion with FMCSA officials pissed off that I sued them twice---to take me out of the game... government officials who are still hiding evidence thereof by refusing to respond to 2016 Freedom of Information Act requests by my legal team. Holy Character assassinations, Batman... Collude much, y'all?

My point in this article today, however, is that the Omnitracs ELD crash (or was it a hacking... we had just thrown the notion that ELDs could be hacked into the public discourse as the crash mysteriously and suddenly happened... we don't really know for sure...) teaches us an important lesson. While the transfer from paper to electronic logs is still fresh in most drivers' minds... and they can recall those days of paper log books, what about a generation from now... or three?

Not sure what I mean? Take away a millenial or Generation Zer's calculators, ask them to solve a mathematical problem with out it, and you'll get the picture. Same goes for that clerk at Walmart when the register goes down and they have to try to figure out manually how much change to give their customer... Deer in the headlights. Indeed, as much as Technology is a wonderful thing, when it works, it has made us lazy, dangerously reliant, and helpless.

So, we will continue to pursue the ELD campaign... not because we want to remove technology from your reach, but because we want to preserve an important concept in America... Freedom of Choice. Right this very minute, if I challenge you to calculate how many days are left to sign the petition or file a comment on the ELD Exemption Application, you have a choice. You are not compelled by the Federal government to use a calculator. You are FREE to use your brain and do it the old fashion way, if you like. So, too, should drivers be free to use paper logs and manually plan their HOS compliance, rather than succumb to the lack of self-reliance and dumbification (if that is a word) that we are seeing in the Industry right now.

That is what this fight is really about. Preserving American freedoms in business and challenging government to adopt a more laissez-faire attitude toward economic regulation. If we win, technology isn't going any where. You will still be able to opt to use an ELD if you so choose. That is: "IF YOU LIKE YOUR ELD, YOU CAN KEEP YOUR ELD." But you should have a right --as a matter of commercial free speech --to choose how to communicate your compliance with HOS regs. We are defending that right in our exemption application.

Let's be real here, folks. They told us and Congress that ELDs would "save 26 lives per year." The latest highway fatality stats for 2018 prove that was all specious speculative conjecture at best, a down right deceptive lie at worst (Cue the government or trucking media to try again to make you think I am the deceptive one. They really have no shame as they try and protect the establishment's interests over yours).

ELDs were never really about safety. If they were, pig haulers wouldn't be exempt. No one would be. They just purported that because it sounds good on Capitol Hill. Reminds me of how the big brokers spewed their nonsense of how we needed to raise the broker bond ten fold to "fight fraud" but what they really wanted to fight was competition. ELDs are about driving up the costs of small business to put owner operators out of business and compelling the purchase of a product so that technology companies can sell more of their machines. It's all one big government industrial complex egged on by safety advocates who get used in the mix like tools and big trucking that wants an oligopoly. In other words, it's about one word: "MONEY!" And "back in my day..." we valued people's lives over money. Here comes that damn USDOT published statistic again: two point four occupants of large trucks die. Every. Single. Day.

If you're a driver and you want to FIGHT BACK and reclaim your freedom of choice, sign the Petition and File a Comment in support of our resubmitted ELD Exemption Application. Do it today. Those in power probably won't voluntarily stop their corrupt ways (we may be headed back to court yet again to compel them to do so), but at least we can SHAME them for their greed and collusion in the meantime using their own data and statistics against them. We can then take pride that we did everything we could to stop this overbearing government overreach and that we will have succeded in showing the industry and public that government is in serious need of reform... and accountability to ethics, the Constitution, and the law. We may have to leave it to the next generation to pick up the ethics and integrity torch and run with it. If, that is, they can manage to tie their shoes in the morning. Teach your children well.