04/18/2025
Greetings all on this Good Friday and Happy Easter!
I had an opportunity to join the Minnesota Trucking Association on their annual Call on Washington to meet with officials and their staff from each of Minnesota’s congressional districts.
Yes, these are divided times, but trucking tends to, or rather should be, a bi-partisan topic that absolutely impacts all of us.
Some key pieces of legislation that we visited about and asked for support on included:
Crime Targeting Trucking
Staged Accident Fraud Prevention Act
-Establishing federal criminal penalties for staged highway accidents involving commercial trucks.
Litigation Transparency Act
-Requiring transparency of third-party litigation financing agreements which would require the disclosure of third-party commercial enterprises other than a plaintiff of plaintiff’s counsel that hold a right to receive payment in the event of a reward of monetary relief by settlement or judgment for such a lawsuit. People are not fully aware of how common of a practice this, but private equity firms and hedge funds are using lawsuits involving commercial vehicles as investment vehicles for their own gain. People and firms literally exploiting the pain and suffering of all involved for their own monetary gain.
Combatting forum shopping and nuclear verdicts
-Legislation that would give federal courts jurisdiction over truck crash litigation where the matter in controversy involves interstate commerce, exceeds $5M, and at least one defendant is a citizen of a state different from at least one plaintiff. Trial attorneys have long sought to keep cases in state courts in judicial hell holes like FL, GA, TX, and LA which have tended to show a bias towards awarding damages that are not reasonable or based in reality.
Workforce Safety
Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act
-Provide funding for the construction of new spaces at both public and private facilities, while also helping public entities convert existing facilities into truck parking.
Trucker Bathroom Access Act
-Require shippers or receivers to make their employee restrooms accessible to truck drivers. So many places that our own BMT drivers pick up or deliver to have no sort of facilities and in many instances are required to remain onsite until their trailer is loaded or unloaded.
Workforce Development
Freedom to Invest in Tomorrow’s Workforce Act / Bipartisan Workforce Pell Act
-This would allow individuals to use 529 savings plans to cover the costs of certain workforce training and credentialing programs and extend Federal Pell Grant eligibility to short-term workforce programs such as CDL training programs. Grants and loans are available for students, old or young alike, that wish to pursue a traditional two- or four-year college degree program but for those individuals that are seeking professional training to become a truck driver or other vocational trade are not eligible. There has long been a bias towards pushing young adults towards traditional college programs when in fact, sometimes, this just isn’t the right path.
In addition to these main pieces, we also visited about the need to preserve choice in vehicle and fuel selection. We love California and go there a lot as a company, but we would be best served as an industry if we left CA rules in Sacramento where they belong. If we really want to put teeth into cleaning up emissions and reducing our carbon footprint, repealing the Federal Excise Tax (FET) on new trucks and trailers would help fleets of all size upgrade to newer equipment which would lead to immediate improvements in fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.
There are so many more issues that can and should be addressed and this is only really the tip of the iceberg when it comes to bettering our great industry. We literally move America, but somewhere along the way, we have all lost sight of the importance of this and have allowed low rates, low-life attorneys, political leaders without a vision or understanding of what we do, and insurance companies that are afraid to stand up to the insanity of malicious and excuse my language bu****it lawsuits, to chip away and erode at the livelihoods of so many men and women that are tied to this industry.
For whatever this post is worth, I hope you take away my sense of urgency to get involved and contact your elected officials and let them know the importance of these and other common issues that plague you as a driver or stakeholder in this industry. We are great at being pragmatic and getting our jobs done.....we suck at making our voices heard when it really counts though.....
Uffda…..I jumped up and stayed on that soapbox a little longer than I anticipated……
Back to our regular business at hand. I hope you all have a wonderful Easter weekend. Thank you to our drivers that are out on the road this weekend and for those that are home I pray you have a belly full of food and laughs with your loved ones. Easter eggs and bunnies and cool and all, but the real reason of this holiday is the death and resurrection of our Savior. He is risen indeed!
Stay safe and keep the greasy side down and the shiny side up…..please.
-Clint
