I have a couple of hitchhiking stories from Jim Mill. No idea where he is now. The one I'm not showing you might not be politically correct. Ah what the heck, If it gets censored it gets censored. So here's to Old Bull and Allen Ginsberg, Jackie Kerouac, and Neal Cassidy. Read "Sexy Mary" at your peril. It might warp your sensibilities. In my experience hitchhiking was usually a rewarding experience, but sometimes it took you into weird, terrifying, uncharted and surreal territory.

Hitchhiking to Rochester

My family disintegrated in 1962. My dad died and it wasn’t that close an extended family. So I didn’t see cousins and things at Christmas any more and considering that that half of the family was Jewish…but in the early days they used to come over for Christmas anyway.

In 1971 I was 17 we’d had a band exchange program with a high school in Fairport New York, which is south of Rochester. I was president of the band and lived with my brother in an apartment, so I’d have to billet people.

Everybody lives with their mom and dad or whatever, so the authorities assume the kids are going to be safe sexually, but my living situation was different. Our band had gone to Fairport already. I had a crush on these two girls. My brother was only 20 and I was 17. So I arranged to billet the two prettiest girls. That’s what I thought. The ones I had a crush on would be lodging with me.

Anyways, I fell in love with one of them. She was a genius and on her way to Julliard and played the clarinet in the high school the band. I was just a 3rd rate french horn player. I never played after I left high school.

One long weekend I decided to hitchhike down and visit her. It was Victoria Day weekend as a matter of fact. I decided to hitchhike down to her place and she said it was ok even though she was getting engaged to somebody—an Italian girl with a big extended family.

I got a ride with a rock band in a van as far as Hamilton. I didn’t know how I was going to get across the border but was planning to cross in Niagara Falls. One of the band guys hollered after me: “Hey Dude. Good luck man. Watch out at the border they might think you’re a draft dodger trying to sneak back home.” I was wearing green overalls and they thought I might look suspicious.

Then this couple picked me up. A young man, a young woman, kind of swarthy couple and they were bickering, bickering. They were going to Niagara Falls or Niagara-on-the-Lake to visit her dad. It turns out my Uncle Sam lives in Niagara-on-the-Lake and I’m looking at them. Micah and Miriam and they were cousins I hadn’t seen in 10 years, since I was a little kid. Now I’m a long haired hippie teenager.

I said, “Are you Micah and Miriam Gamble?” and they said “Yeah. Who are you?” They didn’t remember, they were older than me so they hadn’t changed that much. They’d gone from 14 to 20. But I’d gone from 7 to 17, so I turned out from baby into a man and they were just maturing. So they said “Yeah. What are you doing!?”

And I said, “I’m Jim. Your cousin. Jim…Jim.”

“Oh wow! Are you ever getting older.” Blah, blah, blah and it was them that drove me across the border.

That was just family coincidence that out of 200,000 cars on the road that day these long-lost cousins pick me up. The first took me to their dad’s place in Niagara-on-the-Lake and his father, who is 90s, was also there. They were all Jews. The old guy was a Stalinist, left all his money to the Communist Party of Canada when he died. Sam was a Trotskyite along with my own dad in the 30s and 40s. They went to Newfoundland when Trotsky stopped briefly in Canada on his way to his assassination in Mexico. They were fans, I guess. Trotskyites.

Miriam had just joined the Wobblies. I met her again years later when I attended a convention on Winchester Ave in Toronto. It’s a dance theatre now but at the time it had been a community centre. We decided to adopt John Lennon’s “Imagine” as the new anthem of the Wobbly movement. How flakey can you get? And Micah works at the CBC. Nice guy, not politically affiliated.

I did eventually get to Rochester and met my friend’s fiancé. Back in Toronto I’d taken her to see Godspell. I remember we got in a parked car that night and necked. We didn’t know whose car it was, the car was open and we just got in the back seat. I thought if she necks with me in a stranger’s car I’m welcome to visit her.

So I arrived at her house during her engagement party and the family put me up. “This is my family. This is my fiancé. We’re getting married.” It broke my heart.

Sexy Mary by Jim Mill

In 1973 I’d been working and had done a couple of semesters from the University of Guelph. but I wasn’t doing that well there. A friend called me up who was picking tobacco in Delhi, Ont. which is the birthplace of Thomas Edison, or so the sign claims. Nothing else was happening so I went tobacco picking.

Tobacco season finishes the end of September. When the picking ended I thought…I’m going out west…I’ll hitchhike out west. That had been going on for eight or nine years but the exodus of people had waned, like that whole Wawa thing, where you used to have hundreds of young people lined up waiting for a ride, carving their initials in trees, their epitaphs even. The pace had slacked off and hitchhiking was getting harder; fewer motorists were offering rides. And as far as camaraderie on the road, there was a lot less of it, but there were still hitchhikers.

I got a couple of weird rides and normal rides and I was up north of Superior past Wawa. It was the beginning of October and I froze my butt off sleeping in a park one night. So in Thunder Bay I spent the rest of my tobacco money on a super-duper sleeping bag that was good to 40 below.

I didn’t have any money left and I had to get to BC. I was going to pick apples in the Okanagan. That was the plan, a hair-brained plan.

So I’m outside of Calgary, the sun’s coming down, and I’m thinking if I can’t get a ride maybe I’ll bunk out in this super duper sleeping bag.

A car draws up and a couple picks me up. They’re in their mid-50s, skinny little guy, big fat wife-like person (that’s what I thought at the time). They made me sit in between them in the front seat which was weird. I wasn’t drinking at the time, I’d been a heavy drinker for a couple of years and just quit. I’m going to take six months off, I thought.

We were driving along. Across the prairie you can just see the foothills of the Rockies. “We’re not going anywhere, just out for a drive,” the skinny guy says. “She’s not my wife, I’m married,” he says. Do you want a drink?”

“No thanks, I quit.”

“Aw come on, have a drink. Western hospitality,” he says. I was just a dumb kid so I said OK.

So he goes on, “Mary will serve us.” Mary’s giggling, she looks retarded, she’s got a moustache and seven or eight chins. Not that there’s anything wrong with being hideous.

“Mary,” he says. “Mary will serve us the whiskey topless.”

I’m thinking that I’m stuck in between these two. I was a late bloomer when it comes to sexuality. I mean I wasn’t a big guy or anything.

She starts giggling and he goes, “Come on Mary,” so she rolls down her top and she’s got these huge udders and it’s just like it’s too weird, and they’re old. Now I could say, let me out of this fucking car, but I’d be stuck in the dark on the highway in the middle of nowhere. So I’m just being polite.

He says, “Touch ‘em,” and takes my hand and puts it on her boob. So I have one hand on her breast and a drink of whiskey in the other hand and I’m driving along with these two people I’ve never seen before. It’s crazy.

We drive into the foothills up a little road. He explains to me, “You know, Mary’s married but her husband’s an alcoholic and he just goes to the bar. He never fucks her. I got a wife I got to screw and I screw Mary when I can but I can’t screw her all the time. All she needs is a good screw, right?”

This was in a station wagon. He pulls off the road somewhere in the dark and the implication is I’m going to service Mary or else they’re going to leave me here in the middle of nowhere. I guess they read me like a book. I wasn’t capable of violence.

So he goes for a walk and she pulls out a condo. She says, “Are you sexy,” and puts her hand down my pants and starts whiffling with my flaccid penis. She pulls on the condom but I don’t have an erection or anything.

She lies down in the station wagon and I try to oblige her but I can’t get an erection and she’s got a cavernous vagina. So I’m sort of humping her with my pelvis. Time passes and I haven’t got an erection of fully entered her when the stupid condom falls off my penis and onto the floor of the car.

She asks me, “Are you done? Are you done? Did you go?” (not, “did you come,” western vernacular, you know).

I said something like “I haven’t even started yet,” trying to sound like some tough guy, like ‘hey baby’, I don’t know what I was trying to sound like, it was so confusing.

The guy comes back and starts banging on the window. Maybe he was watching the whole time. “We gotta go,” he says. “We gotta go.” So she reaches down to see where the condom is and it’s not on my dick. She panics and shoves her hand in her vagina looking for it. “Oh,” I say. “It’s right here.”

She’s worried that I may have ejaculated into her but I didn’t even get an erection. I didn’t actually enter her.

They took me down to a truck stop and said goodbye. I just kept hitchhiking and don’t remember the next ride. Oh yes I do, it was two hippies going to Banff. The guy was from Germany and she was French. They had a little kid with them. I said, you’re never going to believe this story and told them right on the spot. They told me I should write it down and I did but lost it eventually.

I called it the Rape of the Hitchhiker, not because I was physically coerced but there was an element of I have to do this or else. It was so weird. I wasn’t sure what was going on. I tried to oblige but she had a gigantic vagina and didn’t even know that I didn’t fuck her.

I was so young. You know how you’re horny when you’re young. Anything makes you horny? Like I’d quit drinking and was celibate for months after that. I used to have nocturnal omissions about Sexy Mary whom at the time of the incident I thought was horrifyingly ugly and I couldn’t get an erection. Later on I thought god damn, I’ll be on my death some day saying I should have been able to get it up. I missed out on a sexual experience I might have enjoyed.

The sexual content of this story is an exception. I mean there’s lots of speculative sexual stuff when hitchhiking, but in those days, when I was a young guy hitchhiking around, it usually involved older men out driving looking for hitchhikers to have anonymous sexual encounters, which some segments of the homosexual community really enjoy.

I’d been propositioned while hitchhiking hundreds of times within the Toronto City limits. You get drunk down at Yonge Station and you’ve got to hitchhike home to Scarborough. A guy picks you up, and this is the code word, you always know, he asks, “So you got a girlfriend?”

My sexuality is pretty elastic. But at the time I was looking for girls and the idea of a fortyish guy offering me a BJ didn’t appeal to me. They’d say stuff like, “does your girlfriend give you BJs? With your eyes closed it feels the same.” No thanks, I’d say. Hey that’s my stop. Where you going? Steeles Ave is disappearing in the rear view mirror. That happened a lot, where as a hitchhiker you’d feel threatened, although the driver was always taking the chance on picking up a real bad homophobe who would beat them up and steal their car. That happened, too.

So when I got offered to screw Sexy Mary it was quite a surprise. I was awakening to the fact that it was a horny world out there.

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Let's take a look at system and how it has gone wrong.

1) Did you know that the SMS methodology targets only FOR-HIRE Motor Carriers operating more than 20 CMV's. Therefore it does not keep BASICs for over 80% of the carriers it regulates.
2) For most small carriers the Agency (FMCSA) lacks sufficient data to be statistically relevant under the law of large numbers.
3) When studying the total number of UNSAFE DRIVING BASIC 41 % of the violations occur in 5 States, this would tend to lead one to believe the numbers more a function of where the carrier operates rather than its performance.
4) IF SMS is supposed to increase safety and help on the road, why then is VEHICLE MAINTENANCE BASIC that accumulates the most points in the areas of tires brakes and trailer lights with no proven correlation to safety. HMMMMMM? Anyone here using DATAQ's
Did you know as of September 2011 over 50,000 that's correct FIFTY THOUSAND, carriers have been branded as above enforcement thresholds.
5) Simple known fact that in the so called FATIGUED DRIVING BASIC score, only 16% of the industry is measured and half of the points accumulated are not assignable to carriers who have ONBOARD RECORDING DEVICES or are not required to log.

IS SMS working ? ASK YOURSELF How can a system that does not measure and compare everyone and everyone company and every one involved work. Numbers can and are skewed.

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If you take a survey of top executives in the transportation industry, how many would say that marketing their company is important? I think most would agree that it is required. I would also suggest that most don’t make the budgets or time available to make it happen.

Typically, a sales and marketing VP has their hands full managing reps and their share of major accounts. They may have a flair for marketing but probably very little training on the subject. The biggest synergy between sales and marketing disciplines are they both have to tell a compelling story and communicate the unique reasons why their product or service is the better choice for prospective buyers. Maybe that’s why they have been lumped together in the B2B transport sector, while they are very much separate functions in consumer products.

My experience with the owners and presidents of transportation companies is that very few are marketers. I would say they are typically deal makers, know their numbers, great at attracting the right people to their team, and workaholics by either necessity or nature. In my 23 year career, I would say the original owner of Concord, and the folks heading up Challenger and MSM have been the biggest believers in using marketing to grow their business.

Sometimes it can be a little thing that gets you noticed. A good example is when CN recently adopted the paint scheme from their train engines to their highway tractors… simply brilliant!

We find many companies think about it, want to do it but the reactive nature of the business keeps them from taking the steps necessary to make it happen. Other things take priority and the marketing that’s required is put on hold waiting for a better time to address it.

Here’s the deal. The time to address it is now. We’ve seen a dramatic change in the last year and a half with the ROI on web marketing. The transportation industry is behind. Especially in web marketing. The primary focus is on existing customer shipment visibility. That myopic view is limiting opportunities. It doesn’t cost that much to take greater advantage of the power of the web across these additional 4 areas:

1.    Cross sell services to existing accounts not using your full menu of services-the easiest way to grow your business

2.    Utilize search engine optimization techniques to create awareness to those buyers looking for a service that you provide, who are not currently aware of your company

3.    Advertise your unique message to potential drivers, sales people and other positions within your company-positions that are getting harder and harder to fill with good candidates

4.    Make a favourable impression with potential partner carriers and companies considering your company as part of a RFP of your services

Lee’s Quote for the Day!

“If you wait for the perfect time to take action, the only action you will take is waiting for the perfect time” J

Lee Palmer is the President and Creative Director at Palmer Marketing, a company that specializes in creative marketing and advertising solutions for the transportation industry.

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In my twenties, I had very little income. If the question was “How broke was he?” the answer would be, “he’s as broke as Lee Palmer”. I was a not- so- successful, full time musician and songwriter and a chronic deal maker, at dollar amounts that were insignificant, for the most part. I was so broke that when I rented a little house in Vancouver (due for demolition) for a $100/month, I had to rent out a room for $50 /month as I couldn’t afford the $100 by myself. At that time, the most I ever spent on a car was about $800 but that was after I was more established. When I moved to Toronto to further pursue my music career in the eighties, I lived in my van and played the Queen Street bars... and looking back, quite enjoyed it as a matter of fact.

So that’s my excuse-old habits die hard and every dime counted. Now that I make a good income and have for some time, what’s the big thing about having to get a deal? It’s a disease, plain and simple. The last 10 years, I’ve tried hard to catch myself when I go into deal making mode and as a result I’m better than I used to be... but still subject to relapses. As long as I feel I’m being treated fairly and I like and trust the person, I’ll haggle a bit but will pay the price. I’m also very loyal to the suppliers I buy services from and value those relationships. Going through a messy and expensive divorce was a big part of my rehabilitation. Not too many deals to be had in that scenario. J

So next time you find yourself walking away from a deal for $50, $500 or $50,000 ask yourself these 3 questions. And, if someone on the other side of the equation is beating you up on price, maybe ask them these same questions too:

1/Have you done your research? Is it a fair price for the product or service...even though it’s not the price you had in mind. Is it about the deal itself or what you are buying?

2/ Will you need to deal with this person again, if so, go for a good deal, not necessarily the best deal of you career!

3/ Is this about A/ ego and winning or B/paying the right price for the product or service? Do the necessary cognitive restructuring (love that term) and try and make it about B. You’ll see it is a shift you can make and feel good about.

Lee’s Quote for the day

“The most important deal you’ll ever make will not be about how much money you saved. It will more likely be about the person sitting across from you at the dinner table tonight!” J

Lee Palmer is the President and Creative Director at Palmer Marketing, a company that specializes in creative marketing and advertising solutions for the transportation industry.

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In my new gig as a partner at Transrep Inc, I get to meet both new folks and old friends while we showcase some of the new products and services that we have chosen to represent to the trucking industry. I have never been one for using this particular format to showcase these products and services because for too many of the readers of these articles there just wouldn’t be the interest to keep you all engaged. I thought that I might change this rule this time because I think everyone is interested in some of the new services that are available for screening and hiring new drivers into the industry and to screen experienced drivers into a new company. Whether you’re hiring drivers or looking to get hired or are entirely new to the industry, there are new tools afoot that you should be aware of.

I had the opportunity to join a couple other fellows last year to do some consulting at a trucking company that was performing well below what the ownership believed was possible. During our review of the entire company, when we got to recruiting I was amazed when I heard from one of their recruiters that 80% of the company’s new hires were coming through Kijiji. I knew of course that this type of recruiting was the future and that eventually it would dominate but when I heard the numbers from this high profile, mid-size company for the first time it was a little shocking. The future is here! I mention this because as many of you know a lot of great products and services are victims of poor timing. It might be a good idea but if the market is not ready for it, it won’t fly.

I first met the folks from JOBehaviors www.JOBehaviors.com/transportation at this year’s Truckload Carriers Association’s annual convention this past March. It was during the Schools Committee meeting that I was co-chairing that we revealed that our committee had been charged to build a case for FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration) to review and hopefully have them consider allowing 18 year olds to drive interstate in the US. For those of you who don’t know, it’s illegal for an 18 year old to drive across a state line. The strange piece here is that in more than 40 states, an 18 year old is perfectly legal to drive a class 8 vehicle within a state’s borders. There are no restrictions in Canada for an 18 year old to drive from one province to another.

It was during this meeting that I became aware of JOBehaviors and what it can do for a trucking company. How it works is that, an individual goes on-line and answers a list of questions. It usually takes 12 minutes to complete and at most, 15 minutes. What it produces is a behavioural profile of two important personality traits that are imperative for the success of a driver in their career and also the long term success of the company hiring them. The results come back in the form of a zero to five star rating that measures the individuals global prospective on safety; do they get it and, an individual’s propensity towards loyalty.

As an employer in the trucking industry this is a GAME CHANGER of the first degree. To be able to get an inside look into an individual’s behaviours and get a measurement like this allows the trucking industry to change with a tool like this. Let’s face it people, we don’t want a low scoring individual on our highways. But they’re there right now. They went for their written and their road test, they passed because they are not stupid…….they are just dangerous and in the wrong profession and they are on our highways wrecking havoc as we speak.

So getting back to the shift to on-line recruiting, this is where it gets neat for me and again it is all in the timing. A trucking company places their application on their web page and invites potential drivers to fill it in. If the individual has a profile that would qualify them to go to the next step, which is normally an interview, their info is forwarded to the on-line questionnaire center at JOBehaviors. The individual is assessed and a zero to five star rating is sent with the application to the recruiting department. Now the recruiter knows whether they want to go to the next step or not. JOBehaviors has screened the minutia out. The trucking company may have a policy to only interview the three stars and higher or they may be almost fully seated and say we are now going to only hire four or five star rated drivers. Like I said, a “game changer”. With a tool like this we could clean the bottom feeders’ right out of this industry, make the roads safer, and bring folks into the industry that will have a much higher chance at having a successful career.

We are of course planning on including this technology in our presentation to FMCSA on the young drivers program. We could try it with nothing but five star individuals to begin with. The State of Arkansas www.truckingarkansas.com is a believer and have built their workforce development program for entry level drivers around JOBehaviors as has the State of Utah.

There is always a new widget or gadget parlour trick in this industry but this one has the pedigree to raise the bar on every measurable there is in this industry and I can’t wait to see the results as it gains more and more acceptance.

Safe Trucking
Rjh

Ray J. Haight
CEO Transrep. Inc
Past Chairman TCA
www.transrep.ca

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We’ve done something great, something groundbreaking, with the help of one of the most respected organizations in this industry. And I can’t wait to tell you about it.

But first I need to give you a little background so you can understand why I’m as excited as I am. You see, for the past decade every opportunity I got -- whether it was when invited to speak to industry groups, or when sharing data with companies wanting to market their equipment to the Canadian trucking market, or in simple conversations with the many industry friends I have made over the past 20 years – I have made a point to stress the importance of private trucking.

Why? Well, first, being as involved with industry stats as I am, how could I not? Private trucking is the quiet giant of Canadian transportation. It’s at least as large as the for-hire sector, if not larger, accounting for about $35B in annual activity. There are close to 12,000 private truck fleets, according to our records. Used correctly and under the right circumstances, and sometimes in combination with for-hire carrier services, running a private fleet can be an excellent way to have direct control over transportation costs, capacity and customer service.

But the main reason I have always stressed the importance of private trucking is that I have long felt it does not get the attention or respect it deserves – not from the media, not from marketers and certainly not from the government agencies tasked with understanding the industries they regulate.

It has been more than a decade since Statistics Canada or Transport Canada has done any substantial research on private trucking. How can such negligence be justified when private fleet transportation is estimated to account for 2.5% of Canadian GDP? How can such negligence be justified when sectors crucial to our economy, such as wholesale trade, retail trade and construction are so reliant on private transportation? The result of this ongoing negligence, I believe, is too many supply chain decisions being made and too many opinions held in the absence of recent and reliable market data.

Okay, enough complaining. Let me now tell you what I’m so excited about.

Transportation Media has worked with the Private Motor Truck Council to finally get private fleet managers the kind of specific market data they require to make informed decisions about their operations. The first project from this initiative, the 2011 Canadian Private Fleet Practices Benchmark Study, is now available. Our goal was to provide private fleet managers with benchmark information that will allow them to compare their practices and results with similar operations and with the fleets employing “best practices.” We gathered data on more than 100 questions across 13 categories, ranging from key challenges and composition of private fleets to operational costs, operating policies and hiring practices.

Let’s look at idling policies, for example, to see the kind of information you can glean from the Benchmark Study. Not only can you use the Benchmark Study to find out the percentage of private fleets that have an idling policy, but you can also compare how many do so by size of fleet and also compare that to fleets judged to be employing industry best practices. But that’s not all. You can use the Benchmark Study to find out which idling time limits are most used by private fleets – 0 minutes; 1-3 minutes; 4-5 minutes; 6-10 minutes; over 10 minutes. Need more information, such as whether policies like automatic shut off or different rules for summer vs. winter are being used? No problem, we have that too. And, of course, you can compare those as well by fleet size and against the industry leaders.

Oh but we didn’t stop there. We really wanted this information to be comprehensive; we really wanted private fleets to be able to compare apples to apples. So you can use our date to benchmark by geographic scope of operation and by region too.

We believe our research provides valuable input for private fleet managers looking to plan for the future. The report is available for purchase through our sister publication’s web site. Simply go to our Website www.trucknews.com and click on the 2011 Canadian Private Fleet Practices Benchmark Study icon on the top right. It’s a quick download. Have a read and let me know what you think.

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At this time of year it seems, every year, more and more people change jobs, change teams, switch careers, and try something new. Personally, I took the jump and joined those ranks, I changed as well, back in June. I won't say I am a consultant more of an ADVISOR AT LARGE, but my experience, background and knowledge have given me a wealth of experience and knowledge that is available to one and all. We all bring something to the table everyday. I am associated with a company at present, that is utilizing my experience in many ways. At the same time I am also looking for any new opportunites that can utilize the 30+ years of expereince I have in this business. GORD BOX once told me, more people are realizing that the knowledge that is leaving the industry cannot be replaced. there is a huge generation gap, and experience gap.

Our business (Transportation), is so big some of us do not realize the size and scope of what the opportunities are in the business. I for one, have had exposure to Air, Ocean, Road, Ground, Customs Brokerage, and even taught night school at 2 Community Colleges in the GTA. Since I have been on my own I have certainly found out people, in General love to learn and want to learn. All of us want to be appreciated for not just what we know but for what we do every day. SAFETY BONUSES for Drivers, Best MPG Bonus for Drivers (FUEL CONSUMPTION), Recruiting Bonuses (referral for Drivers). Its great ! What about that untapped resource, all of us have, that is the STAFF IN THE OFFICE. They also have that little extra to offer you. No matter how big the company is.

People are willing to pay for what they need to know and want to know. The difference between a College and High Shool is people are paying good money and want to learn and want to be there. Teaching adults is different than teaching teenagers, and Kids. In every day life, we all want Respect,we want to Define our plan ( job description), Preperation ( How best do I do my job?), Agendas (Prioritize), all need to be preseneted at the beginning of every class, (or workday) and every seminar, and every presentation.

When we interview someone for a postion within the company, we know what we want them to do. There was a job search, I had the pleasure of being a part of a few weeks ago. 6 people interviewed, and 3 Interviewers. Funnily enough, we each choose a different candidate. Then we looked at the present staff, and realized that the person doing the job at present, was doing what they thought was correct, had never been given a job description, never knew what was really expected of them, and eventually they too left the position. WHY? They were continually told NO, NO, NO. They never knew what they were being told NO about though. If any company or organization is looking to hire, and you take the time to define the expectations for a new recruit, while at the same time, going through an agency, and they certainly want the parameters defined for them, it would be incumbent also do the same for exisiting staff. Every position in every well run company, has clear defiend expectations, responsibilities, and requirements. They also promote furthering education, and advanced learning. Some (O.R. ) even expect their staff to take at least 1 course job related every year.

Canadian Thanksgiving is on October 10th this year, Then of course it is 1 month to U.S. Thanksgiving. Any company having safety meetings, this time of year, please make sure you get MAXIMUM UTILIZATION OF AVAILABLE RESOURCES. Use the time wisely. The drivers need their time off to recover as well. Maybe spread meetings out over the course of the year, not cram everything into one long arduous meeting.

Thanks and Happy Thanksgiving to ONE AND ALL

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