Reader Test … OK, What Part of this Article is the Stupidest?
Trucking companies consider suing Canadian province
Some trucking companies in Quebec are considering suing the province’s Transport Ministry for effectively putting 135 bridges off-limits by increasing the weight restrictions.
Today’s Trucking reports that heavy haulers in particular claim the restrictions have paralyzed their businesses.
The restrictions were put in place after a bridge collapse in Laval killed five people and injured six in September 2006.
I wasn’t even planning to write again today, but I came across this news item and I just couldn’t resist. It isn’t even about GPS Tracking directly … although it certainly could be … if trucking companies wanted to deal with the real world where bridges have finite weight limits and they were to use GPS navigation to find alternate routes and GPS tracking to assure their loaded trucks went the most efficient (oh, and safe also) routes.
But apparently the real world has little to do with business these days. A obstacle to running things exactly the way the company and drivers want to run them crops up. So let’s see … courses of appropriate action….
Well, if you are George Bush you start a war with whomever you feel is not on your side. Hmm, strike that, most trucking companies don’t have the firepower of the Canadian Armed Forces, and there don’t seem to be any Muslims or gays at fault, so we can’t claim the "high moral ground".
Oh, let’s see, apparently canada has a surplus of attorneys spilling over the border from the US and not enough real legal issues for them to be occupied with, so, let’s sue the government. After all, this is clearly a case of the government going wild .. a bridge collapses and kills people. Engineers determine overloading to be a factor and restrict existing bridges that haven’t yet collapsed and killed anybody before they collapse. That’s grounds for a suit in anyone’s book, eh? Not to mention that if you business is suffering from decreased income and profits you really are going to get more money to the bottom line by paying millions ad millions to litigious ‘legal gladiators’. You know lawyers are not the only educated professionals with a tradition of ethics.
Candia, in particular, is blessed by a triton of very high regard for engineers, symbolized by the Iron Ring. The Ring is given as part of "The Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer" [1], written by Rudyard Kipling….. The Ring is a symbol of both pride and humility for the engineering profession.
When engineers don’t do their work properly, this sort of thing results … and in addition to loss of life, it makes profits for trucking firms who planned tot use the bridge pretty hard to come by as well.
I read several recent articles on the calling of an Engineer which claim the 1907 Quebec bridge disaster was not the spark that started the Canadian ring tradition … I’ll not argue the point, but I had the opportunity to work for a long line of Canadian engineers in a past job and I doubt they would agree.
So is attempting to support bridges by legal pleadings rather than the proper amount of steel the dumbest thing in this article? Might be.
But if you have a working knowledge of the English language, read the first paragraph and tell me how "Increasing" weight restrictions poses a problem for truckers? An imaginary super-bridge would have no weight restrictions and truckers and engineers would never have to consider weight. but in the real world, government agencies progressively decrease and sometimes decrease again the weight allowed on a bridge until it does become a significant factor. Increasing weight restrictions can only lead to heavier trucks and thus more profit. Increase? Decrease? just pick one and let’s go for coffee.
I sincerely hope the trucking companies considering this legal process hire lawyers who can write better than the editorial staff at "LandLine", because I read, and then re-read the little article and am at a complete loss as to how a professional copy editor would let that out the door. A sad commentary on the death of our language.
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