Case in Point

You may recall that I’ve been saying for some time that our problem isn’t that government should do more or do less but do differently. While I was out walking the dogs through the three inches of snow that fell last night, just down the street from us I saw an example that might illustrate what I mean as well as explain why a billion dollars doesn’t seem to result in as much infrastructure building and repair as you might think

About a block down the street a crew of seven was working on something that I presume was repairing a problem with a gas line. A more accurate characterization might be that five men and a woman were standing around chatting with each other while one man was operating a large piece of road equipment. Judging from the medallions on the trucks and the insignias on the jackets by my reckoning five were employees of Chicago’s Department of Streets and Sanitation while the other two were People’s Gas employees.

I suspect that the reason that so many were involved and were so idle was work rules. One to operate the road equipment, two to drive the trucks, two to turn off the water from the nearby main, one to work on the gas line, one to check the work on the gas line.

I suspect that none of the workers had more than a high school education (what was being done certainly doesn’t require a college education) and it was quite possible that some didn’t even have that. Judging by Chicago city wage scales they’re probably all making more than the city median income. And people wonder why so many young people in America don’t think that they need a college education.

BTW, both trucks were idling. Keeping two ten ton truck idling for a half day can chew up a lot of diesel. I suspect that’s work rules related, too.

2 comments… add one
  • steve Link

    I have talked with a number of truckers about the idling. It is common trucker lore, that it is easier on the engine to keep it running if you are planning on moving within a few hours. Many truckers will also tell you that the diesels use very little fuel while idling. If is cold out, some drivers worry about the fuel gelling. never bothered to verify these, but if you chat with some truckers, someone will tell you these ideas about idling.

    Steve

  • I don’t much care what their folklore is. Idling engines use fuel. Idling trucks may use as much as a billion gallons of diesel annually. Trucks in the class I observed today are particularly egregious offenders.

    I remember back during the 70s when the 55 mph speed limit was adopted that truckers swore up and down that their trucks used less fuel at higher speeds. Every test I ever heard of falsified this claim (the savings that resulted from the speed limit weren’t as high as had been hoped, probably largely because the limit was so widely disregarded).

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