American trucking would qualify as a threatened species if we were an animal.

In the next few years this group, which is currently short drivers as it stands, will lose more than 10% not through attrition, but through regulations and subsidized competition.

It is pretty bad when under NAFTA it will be cheaper to move cargo as far as 90 miles North of the Mexican border to Mexico first, and then drive it as far as 600 miles in.

It is sad that it could become Mexico that ships a lot of our goods as well, since it would be cheaper by 30% to have goods hauled 600 miles to a Mexican port than 600 miles to an American port.

The plight of American trucking may be the only thing to unite the Teamsters Union with Republicans. So severe is the damage that my estimate is NAFTA may ultimately cost America 500,000 jobs. Tied with the damages happening due to new Department of Transportation rules and a minimum of 10% of American trucking jobs will be lost.

It would be bad enough if this was the only assault going on right now... but it is not. New rules on emissions have increased the cost of a new truck as high as 125%, cities and counties strapped for cash are pulling trucks over more often due to the higher ticket payouts trucks generate, new regulations make for less pay, new requirements make independent drivers face impossible to continue being independent, and so forth.

We are under a full assault, and we are losing.

Truckers are aware of what is happening, but the general public is mostly unaware. Talks of boycotts keep climbing from drivers... wether denying certain cities goods or with a rolling roadblock effort... the talk is getting grimmer in truck stops.

However those efforts would fail, ultimately because the affected cities would get goods anyways, the roadblocking trucks would get hefty tickets they could ill afford to pay.

Our only two hopes are for the public to hear us, or for politicians to hear us.

If you, reading this today, emailed this to ten others, you can do you part to save 600,000 jobs. Bring awareness, bring stability, bring back common sense! Thank you for your time.

P.S. [Soliciting for payment, is against the rules, no matter how just the cause may be]