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Originally Posted by Soladad
Rawlco...I agree that there are ways a driver can cut it back to the bare bones like you have. But why do we have to submit ourselves to such barbic ways to work and live in our trucks?
Personally I take pride in keeping a low idle time. With TMC our fuel economy is a factor in our pay rate, so it directly benefits me to burn less fuel. Other than that I simply see no need to idle the truck constantly for thermal comfort. I do not submit to barbaric ways in my opinion and if I want to idle I do so. Of course saving idle time where I can allows me to idle more when I want to.
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I heard an article on Land Line now today concerning working/living conditions and the idle issue that said if other workers in other lines of work had to be in our conditions to work that it would be considered under sweat shop conditions. There is no worker in an office building sitting for long periods of time that would be able to keep up production when it is over 75 or under 45.
Agreed
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At home, people would be considered under slum conditions.
Also agreed. Our house we keep the thermostat at about 60 degrees with the price of oil as high as it is.
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Again why do we need to live differently than the rest of the world?
Where is our constitutional rights?
We should not have to live differently than the rest of the world. We should be able to choose for ourselves. I am not advocating that the government prohibit idling or discriminate against us. I am simply giving suggestions that I use to reduce idle time and remain comfortable.
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Warning, thread derailment in progress, Warning
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Now regarding the constitutionality of anti idling laws. . . This is something we will have to incrementally work on. The communists have been chipping away bit by bit at our liberty for decades and fighting back is going to be a long road. At least with the new Maine idling law there are a lot of loopholes. I asked my representative to tack on something about limiting the idling of law enforcement vehicles unless on the scene of an emergency, but that didn't fly. There is discrimination against trucks and truck drivers, we just need to prove it with eloquence and lawsuits.
We need to follow the money first. There are several commercials now that cast trucks in a negative light. The first I can think of is a Verizon wireless radio ad, where the person is telling what they will do with their unlimited minutes and the last thing is "and I'll tell that truck driver what I really think of his driving" That commercial ticks me off and I would cancel my verizon service if I could, but I have US Cellular and Fairpoint for my landline.
The second ad is by CSX railways, claiming that shipping things by train reduces traffic on the roads. Of course they don't tell you that the worst traffic is in cities where trains aren't going to relieve any congestion, and that trains run long distances next to wide open roads. Of course I can't really fault CSX since rail has had almost as bad
PR as trucks lately.