Standing in line at the store I over heard a over dressed fool in frount of me telling his over dressed buddie about whats wrong with our country!!!! Frist off let me say usaly I hear this kinda of stuff and its some ole boy talking to some other ole boy. Let me set the sceen for ya. First off its Wall Mart. The usal kinda floks are there. These Two are in suits nice ones from what I can tell. Ones got a hand full of Flowers the other has a few thing the 1 item I see that cought my eye hemroid cream...A self chuckle...
As we stand there I over hear. One say to the other. You know whats wrong with this shit! There over payed! You got to grab these people by there necks a force them to work for less. Then we could get the stock holders numbers up. The other guy just nods in agreement. The first one says you hear the state going to require Full Inspection on the trailers? 2nd guy says thats going to cost us a pretty penny. 1 in 4 of the older sea going trailers are going to fail out right. And 1 out of 10 of the new modles still dont have proper locks for load saftey. 1st guy Youve gotta be kidding me? 2nd guy. No man, Just to bring us up to the point where we can send out 10 loads with getting at least 3 back for saftey failures. We looking at spending at least 20 millon to bring the set up to a passing grade. 1st guy. You know there never go for it back at the head office.  2nd guy between the walkout of the indepants and the inspections We are in bad shape.
Heres what I figered out. 1. These guys are from the import tearmal in eather Tacoma or Seattle. Thay deal in out going load of imports in ocean going cantaners. {The trailer part of the can is left on site and used over and over.} I know the indpendants where getting 50.00 per load to run them.
{Independants Owner operator rigs pay for there own Fuel and tractor repairs} "I work for N.Y.K. termal in Sumner Wa, As a yard hostler." The sea going trailer are for small cans under 35 foot Or are for Barge travel. Problems with Ocean Trailers is RUST. eats all exposed meatles including brake drums. I ve seen ones with only 2 drums yet 2 axels. New trailers the light blue usal owned by SEA LAND. are a twin long framed trailer 3 axles or more set up for 35 or longer. The big problem is there strechable. the frames slid with in each other knocking off paint and rusting the frames. as these unit get older there are issues of no longer being square. So the load dog legs down the road. Issues with cans are mis handled Thay themselfs can become bent to the point you can not lock them to the trailer. This issuse is nothing new. From reshaped trailers to Cans damaged in shipment or just no longer serviceable. RUSTED OUT. Ports used to require damaged Cans be reloaded to a new cans. but a few years back they started allowing the componys to determan if the can was road worthy.
Sence then I ve seen cans that had been droped from cranes on the road. Cans with no rear doors becuse thay had to be cut off. Wave damaged cans so bent it was hard to see how any of the load was savgable.
This has become so bad that the Indpendants Refused to Hual for the port. Pluss there is the little issue of insurance fuel and repairs out of ther own pockets. At 50.00 per run it was hard to make the bucks to up keep there own stuff.
After I listen to the guys bitch most of the way thur the line I couldnt help myself to point out a few things to these guys.
1. 85% of the loads coming out of the port of TACOMA are on Indepents. Without them your pretty much screwed. Sea land/ Meransk WILL NOT HIRE DRIVERS LIKE IN THE 70s due to the fact No one likes to mess with TEAMSTERS UNION.,
2. Your lack of consirn for the public safety. Is to say the least scarry. I seen can hualers roll in to lots missing Dualies on 1 axel. I seen cans set on trailer with nothing more that the weight of the load holding the can on. Cans rotted out, rusted shut, bent and damaged to the point cutting saws used to open them.
3. I asked where you live out here. Just in case I have the desiare to kick some suits ass.
4. I dont know what you make a day. But most of the can haulers I know make less than 90.00 bucks a day after fuel up and minor repairs.
as we mover closer to the casher these guys stoped talking all together. I asked a few more pointed questions. no replay from the SUITS.
Thay payed for there shit and with all the speed thay could muster out the door these guys disapired.
As I loaded up my stuff in my 1963 Pontiac. Some guy comes over and asks if he can get a jump start My backs to him so I turn to say yea no problem. Its one of the suits. He dosent even wait for a replay. he drops his arms to his side and walks away.