Less is More???

It was a GREAT plan.. in theory.

Dave was the driver for a ski trip from Atlanta to Colorado’s high country, and had outfitted the coach he was driving with every known device for defeating winter.

He installed a block heater, tank heater, oil pan heater and battery heater.

TAKE THAT Mother Nature.

When he stopped at our garage in Buena Vista for service, we offered to let him park inside overnight… He snickered, pointed out his electronic force field, and headed for the ski lodge. After plugging in the plethora of paraphernalia, he retired for the evening.

The temperature that night bottomed somewhere south of zero and the massive electrical load blew the circuit breaker.

We had to tow the bus, and stuff it in a garage bay, where it took 2 days to thaw enough to run.

Think this is about Mother Nature winning?

…Nope.

It’s about too much of a “good” thing. Any one of Dave’s gadgets would have helped, and two would have been fine, but overdoing it produced an effect exactly the opposite of what he wanted.

Could we have crossed that line with regulation? No thinking person would advocate eliminating all of it. We read, regularly, of horrendous accidents in third world countries, but largely avoid them here. That is due, in part, to well crafted regulatory enforcement.

On the other hand, everyone reading this who has NOT committed a crime today… raise your hand. You know, speeding? Failing to report a bit of income? Drifting across a center line?

Wow.. very few hands.

We live in society with so many rules that it’s virtually impossible to obey them all. Don’t believe it? Next time you drive by a police cruiser try not to look back. Police make us nervous because we’re all occasional lawbreakers.

If EVERY regulatory audit turns up some violations in an industry that is extremely safe, is it possible that the rules are so complex that compliance is impossible? Are all the rules relevant to safety? Or just to bureaucratic job security?

Could that struggle for compliance be taking attention and resources from other things that may have more implications for safety than an improperly signed logbook.

Everyone likes clean air, but the unforeseen consequences of striving for perfection have been the departure from the truck and bus market by a major diesel engine manufacturer, and a major cheating scandal involving one of the worlds largest car makers. (and likely more to follow).

We all pay for this, directly, or indirectly. Would we be better off with economically attainable rules?

Translated to our business, clearly some regulation is beneficial, but what happens when it crosses the line and becomes too much? Even worse, what happens when regulators become the playthings of legacy carriers, and are used to stifle upstarts and competition?

Big guys can afford a battery of compliance employees, little guys actually KNOW their drivers. Which is better?

Most responsible operators acknowledge the need for a measure of regulation, but when have you heard of a bureaucrat nudging towards fewer(but more effective) rules? And gee whiz… how about not having regulations conflict?

Make the environment too complex and operators are driven out, sometimes by fiat, sometimes by frustration. Either way, people are forced onto less safe modes of transportation… but those casualties don’t show up in FMCSA statistics.

The point is that, when we over-regulate we cede power to bureaucrats. The fate of our business and industry is largely in the hands of people who’ve never actually worked in it, and have no real stake in the outcome.

Further, because they’re on the side of the angels (who can be against safety”?) who are we mortals to question the actual effectiveness of their rules in reducing accidents? After all we are in business to earn a profit and they.. wait.. they get paid too. I’m so confused.

We’re looking for balance, fewer rules, and ones that make sense. The ease of communicating on the internet gives consumers and insurers the power to handle a lot of “enforcement” by denying business to bad actors.

Here’s the thing… when business people screw up, they, and their employees suffer.

When regulators screw up… business people and their employees suffer. See a pattern?

My friend Dave might have made out better if he’d attempted a measured approach. Turning things on one at a time and waiting to see what worked. If a circuit breaker popped… back off a bit and reset… and watch what happens. Betcha if he had it to do over again, he’d try a couple of different configurations, and pick one that actually worked.

If he’d done that, he wouldn’t have been forced to listen to us laugh at him for the 2 days it took to thaw his bus.