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It's just getting too hard these days to be a trucker: you deal with ever-changing safety regulations, with laws (state and federal) restricting drivers in all sorts of ways, with rising gas/diesel prices, and you continually watch the economy let down the workforce. Even with all these problems and more (especially for those running their own businesses), Pennsylvania has decided to raise the tolls along the PA Turnpike starting this month.

            First, according to Penndot, the tolls are going to jump an initial 25 % which means truckers who used to pay $6.25 will now pay $7.85, instead. Is this to quickly gain a large amount of money to do road work and to make improvements on the entire turnpike? Unfortunately, that's not it. The PA Turnpike is raising the prices again to three percent annually. These increases may not seem like much at first, but consider that the next toll hike raises the price from $7.85 to $8.10.  Every year it will only cost more and more to travel the turnpike. How are truckers expected to keep up with these constant changes in how much it costs to travel?

            They decided to raise the tolls this year to improve the road conditions along the Turnpike. Now, instead of $619 million dollar revenue, it will jump to $738 million to keep up maintenance on the 74 mass transit agencies and all state bridges and roads.

Hopefully, at this point, you're asking yourself "what can I do?" or "how can we stop all these issues in truck driving?" My first suggestion is to pull together; forces in masses always draw more attention. Now that we've got numbers, I suggest that everyone who wants to discuss this issue contact the Commercial Vehicle Training Association. They represent 180 plus Truck Driver Training Sites, 40,000 Students Annually, 29 Associate Members, 15 Motor Carrier Members, One Voice in Washington D. C., One Family of U.S. Trucking Schools, Representation at the State and National Levels, and Education on Issues Facing the Trucking Industry. Regardless of who you work for, they are interested in helping solve issues for truck drivers all over the country. They hold annual conferences, are available to represent truckers on all kinds of issues, and they are willing to listen to all kinds of issues to help change them for the better. They are welcoming new members all the time and are trying to help by creating one voice for truckers in Washington.  We already trust OOIDA to go to bat for us, and it doesn't hurt to have as many advocates as possible!

For more information on the CVTA call (703)-642-9444

Go to http://www.cvta.org/content/view/52/187/ to sign up for Carrier membership

And http://www.cvta.org/content/view/52/187/  to sign up for School membership