Rather, on another subject altogether I read something which caught my eye today. For anybody reading this who doesn't actually know me, outside of being a professional English teacher (6 mos experience) and a professional news editor (3 weeks experience), I am also a professional truck driver. Way too many years of experience - it's the only thing that I have ever made a respectable amount of money off of. Anyway, American truck drivers have some rules they are supposed to follow on how long you can drive or work in a day and how long you have to rest. SUPPOSED to follow. I, of course, always followed them. Anyway, reading an article on how those rules have been changed over the last few years I see the name of somebody from the last trucking company I worked for. The rules have been relaxed, you can drive more now, thus if common sense prevails you have to say that means more drivers driving sleepily and more sleepy drivers sleepily driving into innocent bystanders OR cell-phone-talking-road-hogging-SUV-drivers-who-don't-look-where-they-are-going and, in any case, causing more accidents. That's the first time ever on this blog I've even started a proper rant...
Before Mr. Bush entered the White House, he selected Duane W. Acklie, a leading political fund-raiser and chairman of the American Trucking Associations, and Walter B. McCormick Jr., the group’s president, to serve on the Bush-Cheney transition team on transportation matters.
In the months before and after the election, a leading industry figure in the campaign against tighter driving rules was Mr. Acklie, who became chairman of the American Trucking Associations in the fall of 2000. A longtime Bush family friend and Republican fund-raiser, he led one of nation’s largest trucking companies, Crete Carrier, based in Nebraska. Mr. Acklie, who stepped down from the post about a year after his appointment, did not return telephone calls seeking comment.
Nothing really to say about that, except that Acklie Corp. owned the company that owned the company that I worked for. It's a good company, for that sort of thing. Having driven a motorbike around Hanoi for all of six months now and still being alive I must have some kind of driving skills, although I have to say that the skills you learn driving 40 tons 65 feet long at 65 mph on cruise control endlessly on American interstate highways (how to stay awake without actually having to do anything except for steer for hours and hours and hours and hours) are not exactly the same skills that keep you alive on a motorbike in Hanoi (how to tilt your bike sideways while still going straight so as to get past small obstacles like public buses, ladies selling mangos, and APEC dignitaries). But I would argue that the ability to act with aplomb, good humour and common sense serves the same purpose everywhere, on and off the road, incidentally. In any case, for lots and lots of reasons, I'm glad I don't have to keep a log book anymore!
Nothing really to say about that, except that Acklie Corp. owned the company that owned the company that I worked for. It's a good company, for that sort of thing. Having driven a motorbike around Hanoi for all of six months now and still being alive I must have some kind of driving skills, although I have to say that the skills you learn driving 40 tons 65 feet long at 65 mph on cruise control endlessly on American interstate highways (how to stay awake without actually having to do anything except for steer for hours and hours and hours and hours) are not exactly the same skills that keep you alive on a motorbike in Hanoi (how to tilt your bike sideways while still going straight so as to get past small obstacles like public buses, ladies selling mangos, and APEC dignitaries). But I would argue that the ability to act with aplomb, good humour and common sense serves the same purpose everywhere, on and off the road, incidentally. In any case, for lots and lots of reasons, I'm glad I don't have to keep a log book anymore!
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