It's a Team's Life
Conundrums
I believe we still live in somewhat of a free country. If a runner chooses to run a marathon that is a personal choice. Recently a ½ marathon was held in Brooklyn during record heat, one of the participants had a heart attack and died. The family of the deceased runner and lawyers should not be entitled to profit from a poor decision by that runner. The event operators should not be held responsible with EVERYONE knowing weather conditions. There were over 20,000 participants in this race.
In the small Texas town of Uvalde, TX there was a horrible school shooting where 19 children and two teachers were killed. The headlines, the president, and a lot of other people blame the gun, those that own the same type of gun, and not the person that pulled the trigger. The person pulling the trigger is the criminal, not the gun. Last I knew guns do not choose to shoot anything or anyone. How about going after those that pull the trigger? The problem is not how easy the shooter could get a gun, is why the shooter wanted the gun to do what he did.
A very controversial happening in the United States is over-turning Roe vs Wade and the consequences of states banning abortions. The confusing issue is that in some areas it is legal to have full-term abortions and yet if a pregnant woman is killed it is a double homicide. The laws need to make sense in this way:
If it is legal to have an abortion then a pregnant woman who is murdered should be considered a homicide, not a double homicide.
or abortion is murder and if a pregnant woman is murdered the suspect will be tried for a double homicide.
In either situation, the baby did not have a choice.
Truck drivers deal with Hours of Service (HOS) daily and are told it is all about safety. Safety flies out the window as soon as there is an “emergency”. Right now it is the delivery of baby formula and the ongoing delivery of Covid supplies. As long as we are delivering these types of supplies we can drive 24-hours a day, legally. Too often during adverse weather, the HOS are put aside and drivers can drive under dangerous conditions as long as they want. If it is about safety, during an emergency the HOS should be doubly enforced.
During this past year, we hauled hand sanitizer with the exemption to not placard the load. So did we really haul hazmat or not? The exemption ran out and now hand sanitizer over a certain weight has to be placarded. How do you think the emergency personnel felt, having trucks not placarding a hazmat load of flammable liquid?
We have to make personal decisions about our safety and put the blame where it belongs. If as truck drivers, we are hauling an exempt item, we drive exhausted and have an accident the blame should go back on us as we made that decision. When a runner chooses to run in deadly heat and dies that was their decision. Someone deciding to kill anyone using a gun or any other device is the person's fault, not the object. Abortion or no abortion, it has to be decided, is it a baby in one situation and not in another?
Bob & Linda Caffee
TeamCaffee
Saint Louis MO
Expediters since January 2005
[email protected]
Expediting isn't just trucking, it's a lifestyle;
Expediting isn't just a lifestyle, it's an adventure;
Expediting isn't just an adventure, it's a job;
Expediting isn't just a job, it's a business.