- Mr. Kirwan,
-
- Well, you're a shining example of what Americans need
more of. While the masses acting individually are swept aside as insignificant
and without relevance collectively, they are the force that has changed
the world throughout time.
-
- The American trucking industry is the single largest
employing industry in this country. This industry employs 1 out of every
8 workers in some capacity across this nation. It directly employees
on any day almost 4 million drivers and daily comprises about 12% of traffic.
-
- While American trucking constitutes less than 15% of
traffic they are responsible for more than 55% of tax revenues generated
by highway use. Further each class 8 vehicle (18 wheeler) pays more then
$15,000 annually in fess and licensing alone. As for the cost of having
them on the roads, it is a myth that they do more damage to the roadways.
The fact is that the roadways are built because of trucks, and were it
not for thieving politicians diverting tax revenues, the fees, and taxes
paid by American trucking would more than pay the cost of repairs, replacement,
renewals, and add more routes without costing the American motorist one
extra dime.
-
- Then there are the facts and myths about highway safety,
spewed through the lips of the Secretary of Transportation and the Bush
administration. In the last two decades the American trucking industry
has increased by almost 50% the total number of highway miles these behemoths
of commerce generate. But, while increasing their miles the accident rate
per million miles driven by American Trucking has dropped steadily and
repeatedly over the last twenty years. Currently accidents between trucks
and cars are 5 times more likely to be caused by the car's driver. When
a car and truck collide the cars occupants are 34 times more likely to
be injured. So while the causes are less the fault of the truck operators,
the effects are still most likely to cause injury or death to the car's
occupants. This is shear physics and is one area that the American Trucking
industry has little ability to create any real change.
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- American trucks are generally newer and are deemed safer
because of the myriad number of agencies and because of the American insurance
industry's mandated inspections, testing, and repair or replacement of
equipment to achieve optimum safety of vehicles at all times. These are
not traits associated with the Mexican Trucking industry. Although the
trial companies are likely to put their best trucks and their best drivers
over here for the test period the reality is that without a historical
safety program it will all turn to shit the moment every Tom, Dick, and
Jose can cross into America.
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- America does not have the logistical means, or the resources
to inspect every driver and truck entering into America. As it is the
trucks that cross daily into America now, who meet the requirements to
travel in the Border commercial zone, are plagued with problems that only
a few people have even mentioned in there objections to this trial program.
Some of these are minor but, most of them are major problems that haven't
been resolved yet and will only be greatly compounded with the expansion
of their access in America.
-
- These drivers who currently come through the commercial
zones are notorious for being not insured. Since they do not have to have
American issued insurance policy's the independent Mexican trucker, to
make ends meet, will buy a photo copy of someone else's insurance documents
and produce them when crossing the border. This happens daily in numbers
that the California Highway Patrol will tell you is too vast to calculate.
The Mexican insurance documents differ significantly from American issued
papers so that there is no way verification can be done by the border
management agencies.
-
- It is true that most of the trucks that cross are in
relatively good condition. It is still a fiction to think that the border
agencies have the man power, the facilities, or the time to inspect all
trucks, cargo, documentation, and verification of each truck and driver
who will cross daily. Since the Mexican system doesn't even require tracking,
or restricting drivers hours there is no way to guarantee that the drivers
are not fatigued and dangerous. Mexico lacks the historical desire to
protect the motoring public from the dangers of combining the large vehicles
with the small ones so before any of them should ever be allowed to operate
here they should first improve there system.
-
- Another significant problem is that there is no restriction
currently on how much fuel these trucks can carry when crossing the border.
While America changed its diesel fuel standard, in September of 2007,
to an ultra low sulphur product Mexico has made no such efforts to match
this standard. This means that every truck that comes from Mexico will
additionally be burning fuels that the US environmental agencies have
deemed illegal. So combining the extra pollution and the difference in
cost; these trucks from Mexico will have an unwarranted advantage over
their American counter parts. A truck from Mexico could carry 800 to 1000
gallons of fuel across the border and complete a 3000 mile run in America
and never pay a dime for fuel, or fuel taxes. All the while burning a
fuel that is outlawed in America and they will only have paid a little
more than half the cost of American fuel. Seems the Bush administration
wants to complete the destruction of America by finally defeating the
only strong industry that America has left.
-
- To sum up this e-mail it is imperative that what remains
of America should remain American and in the hands of the American people.
We as Americans have established a viable and safe system of transporting
commodities and building highways that have worked so well that America
has no equal in the world-when it comes to trucking, trucks, transporting
commerce, and traveling. America's highways have allowed for the innovation
of JIT freight systems that has now become the goal of the rest of the
industrialized world. We have produced trucks that are more fuel efficient,
and safer than any comparable products in the world.
-
- Thanks to Trucking America has the finest system of highways
and by- ways allowing for millions of safer miles to be traveled everyday.
No other country in the world can move goods from one point to another
more efficiently than America and it is the American Trucking industry
that made this possible.
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- Americans need to draw the line in the sand on this issue
and they need to do it collectively now. We have it better because the
American Trucker worked for the last 100 years to make it better. Americans
can get it cheaper, faster, and more consistently because the American
Trucker cared enough to work for the best solution.
-
- Remember, if you have it an American Trucker brought
it to you. The only real American pioneers are those who never stopped
pushing America ahead. If Americans want to stand tall and proud, they
need to realize that this is the issue, and the Trucking industry truly
defines America as no other can.
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- I am an American Trucker. I am proud, determined, dedicated,
and willing to fight to keep America the dream of all Americans, and
not allow that dream to become the nightmare that NAFTA is bringing to
each and every one of us.
-
- It is time for all Americans to join all American Truckers
and tell the politicians and world's industrialists that Americans will
not be enslaved and we will win because no one gets anything without an
American Trucker. Join us America let us retake this nation from those
who think we are all going to lay down and allow them to sell off the
heritage that our ancestors fought to leave us. We are not a New World
Order yet! We are Americans and we are different and have been different
for a reason, because we are proud of who we are and what we stand for.
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- The American Trucker's and I will give Americans back
their heritage. The New World Order can not go anywhere if the American
Trucker is not willing to move it forward. So listen up NeoCons and Americans
alike it is the American Trucker who will be the decider of this issue.
It is the American Trucker who will guarantee all Americans that their
safety is guaranteed on the highways, and it is the American Trucker who
will decide if and when any foreign trucks, truckers, or trucking companies
will operate in our American commercial trucking system. We decide. This
is the Achilles heel of the New World order, of NAFTA, and of all the
globalist's efforts to destroy America: Because if you want anything
in America it has to go through the American Trucker and we are not ready
or willing to let America be anything less than American.
-
- You are right by calling for a strike. I am ready to
strike at the heart of the conspiracy to destroy America. The question
is-Are there any others?
-
- Sincerely,
- Boyd Lowell Applegate*
- thehwyhero@hotmail.com
-
- *American Trucker with over 4 million safe miles, I'm
also the 1993 recipient of the Goodyear National Highway Hero award. This
is Americas Medal of Honor in the Trucking industry. Trucking and Trucking
safety are my life. I eat, sleep, and live an incessant life of driving
safety. To date I have acquired many awards and recognitions for my commitment
to safe driving and industry safety. To learn more Google me.
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- Footnote: Americans have remained on the sidelines while
the Longshoremen, and the railroads; the Air Traffic Controllers, and
dozens of other major American commercial industries were either taken
over and outsourced or swallowed whole by the Corporatocracy ~ American
Truckers are the last line of defense for professional American workers:
If all of us don't come together to shut down this blatant takeover of
the US Trucking Industry - then what point is there in claiming that
we even have a country to fight over. Let the 'candidates' DEBATE-THIS!
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- kirwanstudios@sbcblobal.net
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