A year ago I was driving down the interstate minding my own proverbial business, “but what to my wondering eyes did appear, what is that great big box on the interstate doing around here?” It was bigger than a house trailer and there was a state police car way out in front. I didn’t know what to make of it. To be truthful, I thought it was a Vice President Mike Pence motorcade. Had it been Trump, I would’ve heard about it on the news.
Eventually, there were two more police cars, each straddling I-74 like pace-cars at the 500 parade lap. Eventually, all lanes were bumper-to-bumper with traffic moving at 45-miles-per-hour. I thought thank goodness this doesn’t happen very often and thank even more goodness that I’m not in one of the thousands of vehicles behind it. Being a creature of logical thinking, I said surely this must be some aerospace or national defense delivery to be as invasive as this was. The only thing I knew for certain, this was not Mike Pence.
Being a creature of logical thinking, I said surely this must be some aerospace or national defense delivery to be as invasive as all this was. The only thing I knew for certain, this was not Mike Pence.
Nowadays, I might pass two or three of these mega-motorcades transporting everything from 300-foot long wind propellers to great big boxes full of I do not know what. Sometimes, the police allow you to slowly pass by the motorcade, at other times the shipment is so big that traffic just crawls along behind. Yes, eventually I got stuck behind one of these, not once but two or three times. I could see me going to an early morning meeting that I called myself, only to arrive late to a room full of angry people and explain, “It wasn’t my fault, it was the fault of a 300-foot long propeller”.
When did this all start? Whose permission did they seek to ruin everyone’s day as we try to get to work on time? Who pays for this and is it a token fee or are they paying the real cost of people and wear and tear on state owned vehicles and the like? Can your business tie up the interstate for hours on end during rush hour traffic? Mine cannot. Maybe I have nothing to do with aerospace or national defense or the greening of America, I’m just a local car dealer.
One time years ago, a friend of mine shipped a very large boat down the interstate. He needed to secure a special wide load sign and as I recall, good only to haul this vehicle after dark. Why aren’t these people hauling this stuff after dark where the invasiveness into other people’s lives is not nearly so severe.
I am not a “go write your congressman” kind of a guy. When you have a Republican state, generally speaking, logic dictates the activity. I know most of this activity is occurring on interstates, with a Republican Congress, and I would think logic would dictate there as well. For my two cents, these people need to be moving their equipment after dark. howard@hubler.com