Re: Fw: Check this out

[Tom Harais <tjhemh@domain.elided>]

Greg:

Funny you should mention GIS systems and truckers.

My next door neighbor's 23 year old son drives for Swift Trucking. He was
bragging, as many truckers are wanton to do, about some 18 hour straight
runs he has made from L.A. to the Northwest. I questioned him about that
GIS system as well as his sense of ethics and responsibility. (I even tried
to throw a little "food for thought at him" by mentioning how he might feel
if he ran over some families minivan after illegally driving for 18 hours,
whether it was clearly his fault or not. But, that was useless. He has no
ethics nor sense of responsibility to anyone else. Typically trucker, he
says everyone else on the road is crazy and/or to blame for anything bad
that happens and he isn't at fault - ever!)

Anyway, about the GIS system: He told me that at Swift headquarters they
are tracking his and every other Swift driver's movements. And, the Feds
have access to the system. But, like anything, there are ways to 'foil" the
feds from finding out about his being so many hours over the daily limit or
obviously exceeding the speed limit to make Portland by a certain time. He
said that the, "President of the company would telephone him direct and
tell him what he needed and by when. Then he would order the IT folks to
"take his rig off the computer" which implied that the rig was down
somewhere. Then the Feds wouldn't be able to track what was going on.

Now, I don't understand enough about the systems they are using. But, I;ve
worked with some GIS systems in two government jobs I've had. And, the
ability to defeat some of the measurements, wasn't as simple as he made it
sound at Swift trucking.

What more can I say.

Tom H.