Every recent discussion regarding the many issues within the trucking industry today has included at some time these words “is anyone listening?” The FMCSA, MCSAC, and DOT have all made claims that they listen to input from all parties involved, they even set up listening sessions and surveys that were promoted as their agencies listening to the concerns of the professional truck driver. What they didn’t tell you is that in many cases a computer was replying to their concerns with pre-canned messages that were triggered by select keywords within the comments sent in by a driver.

They held a listening session at the recent MATS truck show in which drivers were invited to appear in person to speak their mind or to send in questions and comments via email and they would be addressed during the session. A large portion of those questions were simply answered by Anne Ferro…