Hi folks,

I'm a longtime lurker here, coming out of the woodwork to ask: Has anyone found any credible information on the state of the trucking industry? The Senate report glossed over it, Koskinen's latest didn't even mention it, and even that monster Commerce Dept. report had nothing. Several of the big trucking companies have pretty strong compliance statements on their web sites (no legal weasel words, lots of technical detail), but it's a biiiig industry. And this is where the just-in-time rubber meets the road. So, anybody heard anything?

Thinman

-- Thinman (thinman38@hotmail.com), April 30, 1999

Answers

Brother-in-law a "techie" for Yellow Freight based in Kansas City. He is involved in y2k testing and who knows what else. Says Yellow is going to be fine, no problems. Haven't heard him say the word "compliant". Strange? Mr. Techie has been getting his jollies at my expense every week when I pick up their empty pop bottles. My husband, the big brother, just left with him to go shoot a bucket of balls(God, what a guy thing)and explain why he'd better fill up the bottles himself in case he has to bring his family of five to live with us for a while. Maybe he'll impart more of his great computer knowledge regarding Yellow. Will post any further information.

-- Leslie Zinser (lvzinser@hotmail.com), April 30, 1999.

Hi Leslie,

Don't let on that you're posting here about Yellow. Your brother-in-law might get nervous. :)

-- Dean -- from (almost) Duh Moines (dtmiller@nevia.net), May 01, 1999.

Hi,

I too know a couple of people who are employed by Yellow. Yellow distributed info to their employees at least a year ago stating that their y2k remediation & testing were complete.

So this techie is still working on it? ...interesting.

-- Deborah (infowars@yahoo.com), May 01, 1999.

I think that the Transportation industry should Get on tht stick and repair some of those OLDER 18 Wheelers, Just in case the NEWer Electronic Systems Controlled 18 Wheelers should Stop Running. I also think that the Emergency Vehicles such as FireTrucks / Police Cars / etc, { You Know the ones that Serve and Protect us } should Prepair old Vehicles Just in case their was a worse case situation. They could even ask some of their friends if they could borrow their older Vehicals just in case they need them. REGARDs ERNIE.

-- Ernie (ernie@clas.net), June 01, 1999.

Politely disagree with that assumption - I don't expect the controllers wihtin trucks to the problem (in general, across the industry) - rather the problem will be in the inventory and control in the warehouses getting material to load into the trucks (they simply can't be sorted and filled only by hand any more - I've had to do that in the past, and what we were hired for as Christmas temps can't be done by hand in the bigger automated lift/stash/store/select machine-linked warehouses.

Also, deciding what to load on each truck requires the same computer printouts and infrastrucutre, the forklifts and warehouse stacking machines require electricity and lights, the gas stations require gas to be distributed before it can be sold, and require phones and credit cards (would you take a check from a person along the highway you'd never see again?) and power to pump it.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), June 01, 1999.