Posted by
sgtmajorbrad on Sunday, September 02, 2007 1:25:20 PM
In the fair State of Texas
there is a sight so rare that it rivals the sighting of whooping cranes in
migration. What sight is this you ask? It is an open weigh station on an
interstate highway. I have traveled the Texas
highways and in 35 years have only seen one instance of a weigh station
actually stopping trucks checking their weight.
A few years back I got into it with the head of the Texas
department of public safety via email concerning the death of one of my son’s
friends. He was killed when a piece of metal falling off of a truck traveling
beside him in Hurst Texas
tore a hole in his neck. This young man had the presence of mind to exit to the
side of the freeway so as not to endanger others where he bled to death before
help could arrive. My frustrations shared with the DPS representative is that
there is no enforcement of safety rules associated with the trucking industry
on Texas Highways. He begged to differ and then I told him of the many years I’ve
traveled IH45 between Dallas and Houston that I’ve never seen the weigh station
open and I’ve never traveled that highway where it wasn’t under construction…
then I said, “do you think the two are related.”
Anyone that has traveled on IH 10 between Houston
and San Antonio knows of the window
breaking menaces that are aggregate haulers. I believe this bunch was the
inspiration for the movie Deliverance. I can picture a toothless wonder picking
a banjo sitting in the cab of a gravel hauler with no tarps and the sign on the
dump gate, “ Stay back 200 ft. , not responsible for broken windows.” One time
I was traveling back from Wichita Falls
when I was passed by a gravel hauler and had my windshield destroyed by falling
gravel from an open dump gate. I caught
up with the gravel hauler and took a picture of the driver, the truck and the
license plate. The driver definitely didn’t want to be photographed and I
believe he was illegal. A short distance further a DPS trooper had stopped a
motorist and I back tracked to report the damage to my vehicle. After the
trooper finished with his first customer he came back to me, looked at the
pictures on my digital and then told me to give it to my insurance company and
have them pursue it…they will have better luck. I then ripped back if you were
sitting on a motorcycle patrolling this highway instead of riding in an air
conditioned cruiser you would have a different attitude when following behind
gravel haulers. We both scowled at each other and went our separate ways.
Now that it is not bad enough the highways resemble the
Ho-Chi Min trail, you have to dodge the rubber flying off overloaded truck
tires and sit in traffic watching an individual support his chin with the
handle of a shovel for entertainment; you have the new threat of Mexican truck
drivers given carte blanch to drive anywhere in the good ole US with who knows
what being carried in their trailers. This supposedly is the result of the
NAFTA treaty. This treaty dreamed up by the corporate elites stands for Not A
Freaking Tariff Assessed. Ross Perot hit the nail on the head when he said we
would hear a giant sucking sound if this treaty was ratified. You can hear Bush
sucking up to Mexico
in everything he does. Watch how this will become a politically correct issue
when one of these trucks kills a bunch of people or is caught smuggling something
dangerous across the border. I feel the reassurances given by this
administration that the trucks will be inspected and the drivers certified are
as likely as seeing another weigh station open on a Texas
Highway checking the trucks. My only hope is the
Teamsters will return to the good old days and do a little persuasive job preservation.