An Oct. 4-6 event is planned for Washington, D.C., to highlight trucking’s contribution to the economy and to express concerns over some of trucking’s hot-button issues. Those include opposition to the electronic logging device mandate, support for reform aimed at added flexibility in the hours of service and an emphasis on the importance of robust new-driver training, among other issues.
The principal purpose, though, is expressing unity among participating truckers at the “That’s a Big 10-4 on D.C.” event. It will begin with a truck convoy that will start at the fairgrounds in Fredericksburg, Virginia, on the third of October. The day’s activity will conclude that night on the National Mall in Washington.
“A little history to be made,” says Pennsylvania-based owner-operator Mike Landis, among organizers of the event, with what will amount to a truck show on the National Mall over the next two days, Oct. 4-5.
Landis & Sons owner-operator Mike Landis hauls in this 1999 362, shown parked on Constitution Ave. last year during anti-ELD mandate demonstrations the first week of October. He’s hopeful this year’s event on the mall proceeds with less confusion for participants than was engendered last year, though Allen Kelly is quick to note last year’s events as a “foundation that we built on” to put this one together. Organizers have posted information for potential willing participants in the convoy and/or truck show/public outreach events at the TenFourDC.com website.“We are attempting to break the world record in a convoy, while uniting the trucker community,” says another of the event’s organizers, Bonnie Kelly of AB Kelly Trucking in Clearville, Pennsylvania.
Bonnie Kelly hauls LTL reefer to the West Coast, produce back, in a team with her husband, Allen, who noted that a record-breaking convoy could be the very thing to draw media attention to the truckers’ issues, and the truck-show atmosphere expected on the mall could also be effective in “getting the message out to the public,” he said.
Permits have been obtained to park on the mall from Oct. 4 until 9 a.m. Oct. 6, a Saturday, when attendees then will be escorted out of Washington. “We will be convoying back to the fairgrounds in Fredericksburg, where there will be an Appreciation Day for those who attended and the general public,” Bonnie Kelly says.
Organizers recommend securing hotels in the D.C. area, as idling will be prohibited on the mall and in the surrounding areas.
“Our goal is to bring awareness to what we do as drivers, a snapshot of what our daily life is as a trucker,” she says. “The ELD mandate, put in place to make our industry safer, is the means to the end of safety for the trucking industry. Drivers are pushed to driving tired, are pushed to driving in adverse weather conditions and have to park in unsafe places with no services. It is a risk to our national security for an 80,000-pound truck to be tracked 24/7 with our locations available to hackers.”
Organizers have spent time inviting legislators, regulators and others to visit with drivers on the mall to “get our side of the story” as regards the reality of trucking, regulation and safety, says Allen Kelly.
Further information is available at TenFourDC.com, where Kelly recommends those who will be participating register their trucks to help get an accurate-as-possible count ahead of time. The Kellys sent Overdrive this recent draft itinerary of events as well.
Find the event on Facebook at “That’s a Big 10-4 on DC,” and more information is available by phone by calling 814-977-7087.
