Frederick (SilverSurfer_TX) Schaffner and his brother JB, have been working on this vigorously for several months now. I must say, they are probably well known by the VDOT by now. SilverSurfer_TX as many know from Twitter, first broke this story a few months ago. It appears that Virginia State Troopers were/are going into the rest areas and even the truck stops, and telling tired truck drivers that they have to get on down the road. Or they can receive a ticket and even some have been threatened with jail time.

I have followed this story from the get go, and have done my calling and my e-mail sending heck we even have went so far to call for a boycott of the state of Virginia. In which I still say Still should be done. This Boycott is not for only Virginia, but it includes all these not trucker friendly states.

Back on the subject here, there has been a lot of help behind the scenes so to speak with drawing a lot of attention to this problem. Email’s have been sent out and phone calls have been made, and letters have been written. But, it seemed nothing was going to get the right person’s attention. But, we kinda felt the boycott idea would maybe have gotten a little attention, as it hits right where it hurts the most. It hit’s into their pockets.

SilverSurfer_TX and his brother JB, and I am not for sure whether Allen and Donna from Ask The Trucker were involved in finding the information about the Petition to remove Virginia from getting any Federal Funding do to the fact they were breaking some serious laws by causing tired truckers to Violate HOS Regulations and drive on down the road. Then making them to have to park illegally or take chances of having a accident and killing a whole family.

Well I am pleased to say that yesterday SilverSurfer_TX received a phone call he had been waiting on.

Today I received a call from Mr. Yeager, FMCSA Chief Council Office - HOS, informing me of our petition being assigned to Mr. Jack Kostelnik. I spoke with Jack to introduce myself and get some basic info on what happens now. Jack has stated he must first check out the law Virginia is enforcing and will keep me informed with the status of any actions. We’re confident Mr. Kostelnik will discover, in short order, what’s happening and take the appropriate steps with Virginia’s state gov’t. I’ve also been informed there are time frames which must be met…and we’re hopeful for a quick resolution.

I want to point out to everyone a very important thing to identify with our petition being assigned to Mr. Kostelnik. Mr. Yeager is the administrator of his dept section, and obviously reviewed and deemed our petition to be valid in substance to warrant assigning this to his assistant. This is a big step in moving forward with stopping Virginia’s activities against truckers. Whether Virginia has a right to have this law/policy in place…they can not enforce it against truckers (interstate commerce.) And that’s according to MCSAP regulations.

This is a battle we will win. And with this new understanding of an avenue of how to address state’s detrimental actions regarding truckers and CMV safety…we will address many other issues the same way.

I want to thank SilverSurfer_TX and his Brother JB for all that they do. This has all been done after work I might mention, well in JB’s case it was during work and Fred’a has been after work or while on his lunch break.