Happy Halloween! This morning I woke from a bad dream wherein the rich and powerful constantly tried to remake the humble trucking industry in their own image, force-feeding small business truckers untested, politicized and ideological fixes to parts of trucking that actually work.
Later, as I drank my coffee and read the news, I realized it wasn't a dream.
It's true that trucking from the owner-operator's perch can sometimes feel like the most regulated position in the nation. Yet for all that, how is the most regulated professional, the driver, so often a victim of crime?
As I write this, there's a literal maniac terrorizing parked trucks with an ice pick or other small, sharp implement up and down I-75. The attacks are targeted and devastating, to the tune of $15,000 sometimes, disabling truck tires, airbags, and even brake lines. No arrests have been made, despite at least a dozen incidents this year. Are trucking's enemies so numerous and spiteful that, even in acts of vandalism like this, it's hard to guess who might be behind it? Environmental activists? NIMBYs? Tire seller down on his luck? An ex-trucker insane with rage?
I'm an ex-waiter, but I don't go around smashing plates.
Also down South, reports of rogue towing companies launching something of a feeding frenzy, sinking their hooks into any truck unlucky enough to cross their paths and demanding a king's ransom. In Tennessee, the numerous complaints against A1's Towing & Hauling, a particularly storied outfit whose armed agents have been accused of physically attacking and restraining drivers as they haul off their vehicles, have prompted the state's highway patrol to get in on the case. We could likely fill a book at this point with driver accounts of simple towing and recovery jobs, all around the country, that now can cost $6,000, easily.
If wasn't bad enough, cargo theft is through the roof. Just this month, indictments came down for a Philadelphia-area cargo theft ring that allegedly held a driver hostage at gunpoint while stealing cargo from the trailer. That same gang later boosted more than $230,000 worth of dimes being shipped by the Philadelphia mint. Thankfully, enforcement took some action there, but around the country, many cargo crimes remain unsolved, and the incidents and their monetary value both are way, way up when the counting's done.
