Its about 4 o’clock in the morning as I write this. Actually, about quarter to four. And immediately the sound of Chicago comes to mind. Anyway, I am eastbound on interstate 78 headed into southern New Jersey.
The town I’m passing through at the moment is a place called Shartlesville. Not much of a town from what I know of it. I’ve been driving along this particular stretch for years now, I never saw any particular redeeming value. At least, above the rest of small-town Pennsylvania.
Admittedly, there is something in a small town that I find attractive though I can think of a number of other locations in the country I’d rather be than in Pennsylvania tonight.
There is a certain amount of fog floating around, just enough to make its presence known but not enough to be dangerous at the moment.
The majority of the traffic tonight, what there is of it, is trucks. Usually 53 foot trailers with full sleeper rigs. And they make an interesting parade as the night goes by.
I should say that there are a number of them sitting on the side of the road, on entrance ramps and things like that. These are guys that have reached the end of their allowable driving hours, and are trying to sleep as the traffic goes by a full clip mere feet away.
I’ve never found myself able to sleep in those situations, and so don’t do much of it anymore. And in any event in most of the Northeast it’s illegal to park in that manner. But I find that such parking,… long string of trucks parked along side of the road, are an example of government planning. Clearly, there is not enough capacity for parking just about anywhere in the Northeast, and most of the big cities in the rest of the country as well. A lot of that has to do with local zoning boards who like the stuff the trucks bring, but can’t bring themselves to treat the drivers of those trucks that bring them everything they have with any degree of dignity. There isn’t a truck stop in the Northeast, or for that matter in any major city, that isn’t over capacity tonight as I write this. Local elected officials figure that Americans don’t like trucks, but they certainly don’t seem to mind us bringing them everything they have. As a result we have drivers living under conditions that Joe and Jane average would never tolerate.
“Fine bring your stuff in unload it and get the hell out. And, certainly, don’t expect to be parking here for an overnight snooze. ” That’s the usual attitude. And God help you, should you be caught after the federally allotted time for a required rest period, driving around looking for a place to take that rest period. You will definitely get an expensive ticket. And the sad part is, it usually it’s not the driver’s fault. Governments at various levels require you to do things, but make no provisions to allow that to happen on a reasonable basis.
A recent Wall Street Journal article put it this way…
Trucks transported 9.7 billion tons, or 81% of the $682 billion of 2013 freight revenue, according to the American Trucking Associations. Yet there aren’t nearly enough legal, safe and well-lit parking places where truckers need them most. Meanwhile, safety regulators have increased the number of times that drivers must stop, park and rest.
And drivers get caught in the middle.
The kind of driving that I do for the company I work for is such that I frequently am at locations I know very well, and can manage to find a parking spot fairly easily as a result of that long experience. Drivers on the other hand who don’t have that intimate knowledge, often struggle to find a place to rest. Safely, or otherwise. It seems to me that that’s an issue that needs to be addressed.
The government for years while loading us up with added regulations, responds to this issue by every few years issuing a report on the problem …and doing nothing.
Welcome to my world.
Contemplate with me the politics of a political party in which the likes of socialist Bernie Sanders is the only thing that can make Hillary Clinton look like a moderate. Such as the situation we find today with the Democrat Party. Given the history of the Clintons, it wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that the candidacy of Bernie Sanders was in fact an orchestrated move.
We already know that Sanders stands a snowball’s chance in the fires of hell to get the nomination, despite a lot of fellow idiots, willing to cast their nomination vote for him. So, there’s only two things that happen as a result of his candidacy. Hillary Clinton’s image is improved among Democrats, and she get to tilt further left… Promoting and ever larger government, with impunity as a result of the supposed mandate of the Democrat voters, who really wanted Sanders.
I ask you…Who, but Sanders, could claim that Barack Obama was not liberal enough? We’ve already seen Hillary Clinton saying that she would go further than Obama did, so how to do that, while still maintaining a supposedly moderate image? Get Sanders involved, as the stalking horse. As I said yesterday, the Clintons know how to play this game, and have played it very well over the years. I can’t imagine this situation, as perfect as it is for Hillary Clinton, not being designed by the Clintons and their minions.
