DukeNukeEm

How the hell could our rail network, which is almost twice the size of any other countries', be a D-? Or our electrical grid be a C? The interstate highway system is the envy of the world and its a D. Its ridiculous.

Youre telling me civil engineers wouldnt benefit at all from having a panicked government throwing money everywhere towards projects theyll make millions on? Theyre a political organization, a lobbying group for more contracts.

I essentially have that. That complete lack of flexibility has forced me to spend nights in nice, safe places like Camden NJ and Selma AL.

Im pretty difficult to offend, but a public employee telling me I shouldbt work hard might just do it.

Well the season is saved.

The 11 and 14 are hardly relevant. Its the 70 hour clock thats a killer. I can sleep 10 hours, spend an hour with breakfast and be totally ready to go but only have 2 hours of legal drive time. You also misunderstood the 11 and 14, the 14 is a rolling clock that doesnt stop. I could drive 2 miles and do nothing for 14 hours and be outlawed from driving anymore. The 11 is total drive time, and itll never be continous because I must take a break every 8 hours max. Look, some of the stuff you defend occasionally has some merit, but the HOS regs are completely inane and do major harm to everyone from O/O's to company drivers. The idea makes sense, but the application is loony toons.

Also lets not forget, actually fixing something means they cant give their friends a bunch of money every year to pretend to fix it. Best to just say "structurally bad! Need forever work!" than to leave a perfectly good bridge sitting there without any lazy employees to stand around digging holes then filling them in again forever.

Look Im honestly not trying to belittle you for not knowing how DOT Hours of Service regs work, but they often have nothing to do with limiting how many hours in a row I can work. Its nonsense they got away with enacting because the vast majority of Americans have no idea what its like doing this job but very strong opinions on how it should be done.

I was alluding to projects that occur (typically much more efficiently) outside the public realm. And yes, Im being made abundantly aware of those regulations right now as I cant drive more than an hour more today despite only taking about 2 hours to get into Cleveland after waking up. Im going to get like 150 miles today, thanks governmet! <3 u

Because the government would never embellish whatever benefit they can to the general public when their in the process of blowing $300 million. I also struggle to understand how fire proofing a quarter mile long snowshed cost $650,000 A YEAR.

Its the same article where half the bureaucracy knew it was broken and secretly hoped its impending failures would be brought to light wgile the other half covered it up to avoid looking bad in front of the president, right? I know, thankfully for now people are allowed to just do things themselves without the government getting involved.

I was using the term permanent for effect. The I-80 crossing in Omaha was under construction for years before I started even driving truck, I crossed it 3 days ago and their starting to reopen some lanes in Council Bluffs.

I go from Salt Lake City into Seattle a lot. Ive never, not in rush hour or weekends or whenever seen enough traffic to jam up even 2 lanes. A third is nice for trucks because there are some grades. Its a works project, a nice check to some contractors to blow up the Cascades and stuff a superhighway in there.

Government: It works, we swear it.

I'm sure all those other projects afforded a small fraction of Obamacares priority are very well managed with the best and brightest. Only the laws that hold an entire presidential legacy in the sway get staffed by the lazy, incompetent and wasteful. These were the best people they had, and once they finally fix the website (which they will eventually) we can be left totally exposed to the horrors that lie behind it. In a way this broken piece of s*** site that would get laughed off of Geocities is like a gatekeeper to unknown horrors. Once you get past it down you go into the rabbit hole of bureaucratic hell.

I dont trust them and I in constant shock as to the sheer number of people who still do.

I can make a pretty easy judgment when the old bridge is like 300 yards downstream of the clearly new bridge, or how theres like permanent road work on every single bridge that crosses the Mississippi River. Im in a constant working relationship with our infrastructure and outside of a couple bumpy patches on stretches where chains are mandatory a lot I have very few complaints. In a shocking turn from the ordinary the people in charge of building this s*** did the job pretty well the first time. Maintain? Sure, but that should be pretty limited to just repaving instead of needlessly making all of Snoqualmie Pass 4 f***ing lanes.

The college of common sense. If our infrastructure is crumbling then Canada never had any to begin with, its really just an excuse for liberals to satiate their compulsive need to spend other people's money.

But it just shows how these people in government cannot even begin something without bureaucratic expansion that just rewards the politically savvy with jobs they have no technical qualifications for. I mean Obama was convinced that one woman was like bred to implement Obamacare... how could he be so catastrophicallly wrong? Meh, average point. A little bonus for making it personally relatable. Those SoCal mexican drivers are pretty lawless, about as bad as thebeastern European and Somali outfits out of Chicago. I kinda believe trucks should be held to a higher standard but in the informal polls I take when Im ultra bored about 40% of 4 wheelers are doing something on their phone instead of driving. Its bad.

You know, I dont really see all this "crumbling" infrastructure everyone talks about. The roads are fine, the bridges are fine, the rail network does well, all the intermodal ports Ive been to are really modern and everyone has water and electricity. Where's the problem? I mean yea occasionally a bridge will collapse, but there are millions of bridges in this country and that s*** just kinda happens sometimes. I also dont care what any government institution tries to say about the condition of our roads and bridges. They just want more money to give to their contractor pals to do nothing and pretend its work. I see this s*** every day, its f***ing fine.

I really cannot believe youd read something like this then continue believing the government is capable of doing anything right.

Lets say someone is writing off about $8k and has ~$10k in per diem coming in April, is there a way to somehow owe with that on what should be $55k total income? I suspect not, at least at this stage in the game. Im not paying for this s***ty healthcare at those rates, nuh-f***ing-uh. And Balta, they had 3.5 years and millions of dollars to make that website. A website, they same thing Sean Parker made in a dorm room in 1999 while being pretty broke. This, unfortunately for you, cant be blamed on Republicans. Its an in-house failure that just shows how incompetent these people are in charge of this thing. Im aware that Napster wasnt necessarily a website, but you get it.

While I've been gone I surely hope the board consensus, even from the Obama shills, is that that this thing is an absolutely collosal failure. Like, I cannot think of a bigger boondoggle in my lifetime... And to preempt the argument that comes from anyone delusional enough to defend it. It is not "too early" to give up on it. When a trains running off the rails the engineer doesnt just throttle up hoping it jumps back on the tracks.

Yea I paid the ticket. They got their money. They just never updated their system to say that I paid (or something, I didn't really want to know what happened). I blame them for that.

Hmmm let's think... DOT? Bad. I still haven't gotten my Hazmat. Luckily I don't need it, but its been months. Then somehow a 3 year old speeding ticket on my Class D in Wisconsin put a hold on my license and gave me CSA points, and I got it before CSA even started. My company (thankfully) has taken up that fight for me with the FMCSA assholes because what helps my score helps their score. I did manage to get my license reinstated for $50 after sitting on hold for 3 hours. Nice.