Overweight Travesty
Louisiana scale house fines driver hauling emergency supplies to Hurricane Katrina survivors.
Jim Winsor
Executive Editor
I like to think that the trucking industry does its finest work in times of crisis and distress. Heaven knows the survivors of Hurricane Katrina need all the help our country can provide. When I hear about trucking companies and their drivers going the extra mile, I enjoy being able to report it.
But when I receive e-mails about state police at a weigh station fining a trucker with a load of ice bound for FEMA New Orleans relief, my blood boils.
What follows is an e-mail I received Sept. 1 from a Mississippi-based trucking company that decided overnight to volunteer 15 tractor-trailers and drivers in the hurricane rescue effort.
The message came from a safety manager for a regional for-hire refrigerated carrier using owner-operator power. She asked not to be identified.
"Here's a story I gleaned from one of my drivers this morning. All I could do was shake my head. We'd all been glued to our TVs and the Internet for information about the damage and despair in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, so we were aware of manpower shortages, power outages and the need for supplies.
"Our trucks have been busy hauling ice, water and supplies to staging areas because we are contracted with FEMA and other customers to help. I had a driver load yesterday (Aug. 31) in Alabama at a cold storage plant with a load of ice. Their power was out and their coolers were on generators, but the generators didn't power the scales.
"The crew overloaded the driver by 500 pounds on one an axle – not gross mind you – but an axle. The driver was forced to cross a Louisiana scale house, which was powered and manned.
"Although they are crying for assistance all over the state to help restore order, he was given a ticket and fined ($850) for being overweight!
"The irony is that he was loaded with relief supplies and loaded at a facility without power," the e-mail read.
The fact that a state in dire need of police assistance is manning its weigh stations instead of rescuing people is ludicrous. Further, fining a driver because he had too much ice on his trailer that was destined for a New Orleans staging area is almost criminal.
"Talk about a travesty," the e-mail continued.
I tracked down the safety manager, a very friendly woman who kindly spent 10 minutes on the phone filling me with more details, all of which steamed me up even more.
The fleet had been "scrambling" to free up 15 rigs to support FEMA. The rates quoted were substantially less than the carrier's regular tariffs, not to mention out-of-sight diesel prices.
Besides, this fleet is all owner-operator power.
Many of the drivers that day were still trying to reach their families, but with phone lines down and spotty cellphone service, they could only hope they were OK. Some drivers lived on farms and were anxious about their livestock and horses.
At the time I chatted with this wonderful safety lady right after Labor Day, she and others had been on rescue missions to reach flooded and starving horses and relocate them.
Drivers pulled all the loads FEMA wanted moved before heading for their own homes. Hopefully, they'll be appropriately recognized and compensated. That's the kind of story I would like to be able to write.
As for the cops and their weigh station .... well, that's best left unsaid.
