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Open call Wed. with Anne Ferro hosted by Trucking Solutions Group
May 3, 2011
| by: Todd Dills
Rick Ash, chairman of the driver/owner-operator-led Trucking Solutions Group — with members ranging from such Channel 19 familiar faces Jeff Clark (Truckers News Marathon Trucker columnist), Henry Albert (Overdrive‘s 2007 Trucker of the Year) and Linda Caffee (team expedited hauler with her husband, Bob) — reports the TSG will host a call tomorrow, Wed., May 4, at 3 p.m. Eastern with FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro.
TSG has been meeting via conference call to discuss various trucking issues and best practices for a long time now, but the call with Ferro, members say, marks the first time TSG is opening one of their calls to the public, furthering the goal of passing along “the information we acquire to others in the trucking community.”
Questions for Ferro will address concerns group members have in the regulatory arena. Only TSG members will be able to ask questions directly, but if you plan to listen in, you can email any question you may have to Rick Ash at rick [at] truckingsolutionsgroup [dot] org.
While I’m always open to dialogue with the FMCSA, unfortunately dealing with Anne Ferro is like a Jewish family talking to Hitler. She has her mind made up where things are going to go under her watch, regardless of how many drivers lives she ruins in the process. The FMCSA safety board contains 2 “safety advocates” who are nothing but lobbyists who want trucks off the roads, 1 person from the DMV, 1 from the State Patrol, and 1 from a major trucking carrier. Where do you see anyone there that really looks at what is best for drivers? Or for that matter, where do you see anyone on that board that had any experience in a truck?
Having open discussions with FMCSA is like having the Native Americans having treaty talks with the U.S. Army. Much is promised about peace and looking out for their well being, but all the while they are secretly discussing how to deviy up the pie. Nothing has change in over 200 years except the clothes and the faces doing the land grabbing.
We are excited to have Anne on our call with a group of drivers. Thank you for your support of our endeavors.
Thanks to Todd for helping our group promote this call. We hope listeners will find it informative and enjoyable.
I want to make it very clear that I applaud your efforts, I just don’t have any faith in the people at FMCSA.
Pretty sad to see a news organization would censor comments. Guess I shouldn’t expect to much from today’s media. Enjoy the kool aid.
Sorry wrong thread.
Sorry but not able to sit with a phone stuck to my head for this, nor am I a member of their group so I’m not qualified to ask questions. Politics rears it’s ugly head even in the trucking circles….a sad day.
Did you try emailing a question in? Group moderator Rick Ash definitely tried to get emailed questions into the Administrator. Nothing “political” about that.
Anytime a group requires people to be members…..doesn’t fly with me. I will stick to including all drivers member or not of any group.
Jason, They’re just a group of a few like-minded folks who got together to talk issues to begin with. They aren’t requiring membership of anyone, rather opening up their calls to everyone (believe they had close to 200 on the call yesterday) hoping to share good information…and soliciting questions, of course. Limited voices to the group members on the call I think was just a matter of keeping the discussion comprehensible, given the large numbers of participants. In any case, thanks for the discussion here.
Jason political is way off base on this call. First call our group had open to the public and as a group of drivers we are limited on what we can do. One thing we cannot do at this time is keep a call sane so that everyone can be heard. As we learn and add to what we are able to accomplish while keeping up our full time jobs of being drivers we will expand what we are able to do.
One thing about our group is that we are a diverse group all full time owner operators who have a passion for our industry.
[...] by: Todd Dills If you missed the open call the Trucking Solutions Group’s member owner-operators held with FMCSA administrator Anne Ferro last week, you missed a lot. The wide-ranging conversation ran the gamut of topics from [...]
[...] you missed the open call the Trucking Solutions Group’s member owner-operators held with FMCSA administrator Anne Ferro last week, you missed a lot. The wide-ranging conversation ran the gamut of topics from [...]
First off thx to everyone who listened, promoted, or helped in any way. As Todd said we at TSG are a small group of owner ops doing the best we can to improve the industry. To me the best thing that happenned is that we got some access to the head of the FMCSA and she listened. We don’t have money to hire lobbyists like the ATA. We did get an important person to listen to us. We are trying to figure out ways to improve this process. Let us know if you have any.