Pennsylvania governor extends HOS for some gasoline haulers
I felt like titling this post as “Chickenshit” Pennsylvania governor, but I
figured if I did I might get some flack .. or a libel suit. Never the less,
this is disturbing news and a prime indication of how our government officials
continually show lack of resolve and take the easy way out, instead of doing the
jobs they are appointed or elected to do. I don’t know what Governor Rendell
did before he moved into his semi-royal role at the state house, surrounded by
“yes men”, but I’ll wager it didn’t involve much thought or intestinal
fortitude.
Everybody’s bitching about gas prices. However, does anyone
in government leadership attack the source? Rapacious profits by the huge
conglomerates who now feel that own the world and can make it dance to their
tune? Certainly now our Chief Wimp .. I mean President, Bush, who gives away
our strategic reserves while still holding hands with his Saudi puppeteers. And
certainly not Governor Rendell.
The really interesting part of this article is the claim of minor shortages in metro Philadelphia counties. The more we give up to the major oil companies (mostly foreign owned or controlled now) the more they tighten the screws on us. In response, the leader of Pennsylvania takes the hare-brained approach of putting everyone on the road at risk by arbitrarily changing his own, carefully thought out safety regulations
… frittering away his own strategic reserve, if you will.
How does all this diatribe relate to GPS you’re asking by now? Well, easy. One of the most
overlooked functions of GPS tracking is the ability to fairly and accurately monitor driver’s work hours. Thousands of drivers have been killed by pushing past the sensible limits imposed by the government (the result of years of studies), and thousands of trucking executives have gone to jail or paid fines for letting it happen. The chances of an accident are in the range of 5% for the first three hours of driving, moving up to about 10% by the eleventh hour. By the 13th hour? Oh, it’s only quadrupled … to 40%.
But in his all knowing, all seeing way, this leader has decided to extend the hours to _14_ … even for interstate commerce (which I didn’t know a State governor could control). Simply amazing. I hope ‘cheap gas’ and no ‘inconvenience to motorists’ is worth the risk you are running, sir. Frankly, I think being run down by an 80,000 pound behemoth loaded with gasoline and driven by a fatigued driver is pretty inconvenient, myself, but then I have been known to live outside the mainstream from time to time.