Over the years, while putting some 5.6 million kilometres under my butt in a variety of big rigs that ranged from beaters to beauties, I have spent a lot of that time doing my best thinking and problem solving.
I love the peace and quiet. I don’t like anyone in the rig with me. I left the broadcast profession just so I could have some peace and quiet.
And yes. There is peace and quiet to be had in a big noisy rig. Just ask Willie Nelson — he of On The Road Again fame.
So, I was thinking and I was wondering, who will be the poor fool picked to be the new commissioner of the Port Metro Vancouver system?
Yes. The new and improved master plan to get more money from the container haulers calls for the appointment of one person to be the fall guy. Made me wonder what kind of person will it be.
Man or woman? Tough call.
It will have to be somebody with no sense of humour. Somebody who will never return phone calls. Somebody who might not even have a phone, and will probably not even have an office, but will just drop in every couple of weeks, throw a dart or two and go about his or her “other” life.
Isn’t that how decisions are made there now? Oh right. They will have to go out to a golf course in Surrey to make the serious decisions about new and better ways to rake in more cash from the container haulers. Then again, it might just turn out to be a make-believe person. A name and no body. That would work.
They could call him/her Captain Mystery.
You see, the Port Metro Vancouver folks have just changed the rates and rules that were supposed to be etched in stone. The system is just going into effect, and they changed the rules. Older trucks will now be allowed to come on the docks for an additional couple of years, and the $45,000 charge has been lowered by ten big ones. Those port folks just can’t seem to get a handle on how to rake in the new-found cash flow from the container trucking industry. It’s like a ship with nobody in control, and certainly, nobody at the helm.
When there is a strike of longshoremen in Los Angeles, and another down the road in Long Beach, which ended in the middle of last month, why does it affect the movement of goods to Vancouver?
Why don’t the shippers on the other side of the Pacific Ocean load up a ship with Vancouver-bound containers, and have at it? A great majority of containers that do land here are immediately plopped onto waiting rail cars and shipped to the rail head in Chicago and other distribution points in the U.S. anyway.
A strike in California, however, and the world of container shipping to the frozen north slows to a crawl.
It just doesn’t make any sense. There is nobody who will give me a definitive answer, either.
Are you starting to see where Captain Mystery comes into the picture? I think he/she might already be on the job, but just remaining quiet while practising dart-throwing techniques.
I am not very good at throwing darts. I once got mad and threw one at my older brother. It stuck in his knee cap. That’s when I learned to run for my life. So, you can see how I appreciate the dart-throwing decision making process.
I’m trying to remain positive about all the BS going on at the ports.
It makes me fall back in my thought process from my decades of being a broadcast journalist, when I had to interview the newsmakers of the day. They were politicians and diplomats. To my way of thinking back then, and still, to this very day, a politician is one who shakes your hand before election day and your confidence later. While a diplomat is a person who tells you to go to hell in such a manner that you actually look forward to the trip.
I am so confused. I don’t know if I should be looking over my shoulder all the time, or should I be planning for a long trip?
It is not easy hauling containers in Metro Vancouver. Too many questions with no answers.
I could fill a newspaper with stories about life on the road, but why not share yours with readers? Send them to Driving editor Andrew McCredie at amccredie@sunprovince.com
