Name an industry that can get
away with leaving a labor force stranded across the United States days
before Christmas and hardly any mainstream media giving it any coverage.

This is the power of controlling
media and the trucking industry proved it during December 2009 when
Arrow trucking turned off gas cards, bounced paycheck, closed its doors,
and left truck drivers stranded.

I decided against a picture of
an Arrow Truck for this post but instead I chose this nifty picture
of Bill
Graves the CEO of
the “American Trucking Association” with Ray LaHood & Anne Ferro
because they obviously all know each other.

On December 22, 2009 the Christian Science Monitor reported the Arrow closing and the story
made its way to Twitter shortly afterwards. In researching the
timeline for this post I noted that the editor has made a comment about
the original title. It makes me wonder if someone “contacted them”
and a correction or wording was made. Speaking out about human indignities
by the trucking industry seems to be monitored very carefully.

Twitter became quickly a buzz
on the 22^nd with that initial article. Shortly thereafter
a second report via Landline eNews article called “ Nightmare before Christmas ” by Clarissa Kell-Holland was also
circulating.

Remarks by the truckers on twitter
quickly became heated when it became clear that the twitter tags of @RayLaHood who is the U.S.
Secretary of Transportation
and frequently tweeted about job creation during that week & the ATA Twitter tag @TruckingMatters remained silent on the Arrow Issue.

Ellen Voie of @WomeninTrucking tweeted an announcement that Anne Ferro of the FMCSA would speak at the “Salute to Women Behind
the Wheel” but said
nothing about Arrow. In a private email I was advised she was very much
aware of the situation but for whatever reason did not tweet any articles.
I still have those dated emails but some of the remarks are not flattering
about Ellen Voie and they were made by one of her members so I will
refrain for now.

Meanwhile others like @HDTrucking tweeted “Arrow Drivers get one heck
of a lump of coal for Christmas” in between “Retweeting” things
for Hubby Evan Lockridge @LockridgeReport who tweeted he would be doing a show
on the 23^rd about the Stranded Arrow Drivers.

Individual Truckers on Twitter
were tweeting: “Hope
we never see management from Arrow trucking in management jobs in any
other trucking company. #Fail 9:52 PM Dec 22nd, 2009” which was just one
of the popular “ReTweets” that went on for days. (This was a retweet
I copy & pasted from Jami Jones @Shewhoknowstruck )

On Facebook remarks
of disgust that no one knew about the drivers went like this: “…I talking to some at church, they have no
clue what just happened! Sad! Some said they would have just brought
the truck home. I ask how? Most of these guys had no money. How you
going to buy fuel, pay tolls, cross border without cash? Plus they lost
all contact with their company!” were
made on the newly created Fan Page called “Stranded Arrow Trucking Drivers-Coordinate
Efforts Here”
which was made by the Landline Staff on Twitter. (The title has since
been changed as well as the mission)

In prior projects
on twitter such as @JasonsLaw & the Virginia Rest Area
Issue
, there had been interference by the Landline Staff on Twitter so I
would be lying if I said everyone believed that OOIDA was creating the
page for anything more than a membership drive.

That afternoon
in fact a well known Canadian Trucker had some mixed signals from comments
made by Jami Jones the Senior Editor of Landline and challenged her
to call into Daniel
Audet’s
“Truck
Star Radio”
to discuss the Fan Page.

At first she declined
but when pressed to show that she truly cared to get the word out through
all mediums, she agreed and convinced the listeners that the OOIDA Fan
Page was an effort to help the stranded drivers and not a membership
ploy as we had seen in the past.

I was aware that OOIDA Media had
also been around. I
was on hometime, I was very sick with a high fever and my truck starter
had died so I had to drive to Denton, Texas to go into the shop. I was
actually parked in the mechanics bay for the night on the 22^nd
and was hestitant to become a fan of the page until I was convinced
by Daniel Audet that Jami Jones was sincere. At about 9pm CST I became
a fan of the page and forwarded it to MANY people.

Dan Little President
of the “Owner
Operators United” @DDLittle on Twitter had already
begun Tweeting & making phone calls on behalf of the Stranded Arrow
Drivers.

Dan Little was
in close contact through Twitter, Facebook and nightly on “Truck Star Radio” and reported that OOU members were going above the call
to assist the Arrow Drivers in getting them home, fed, & get them
motels. The OOU board of Directors also offered a 1 year 100%
free membership to all Arrow Drivers.

Within a hour of the Qualcomm
message that was received by the Arrow Drivers telling them that
the company had folded the OOU was contacted and that information
was passed on to Bob
McCarty and several
other national media contacts. According to Dan Little it was
Mr. McCarty who contacted CNN who broke the story worldwide.

On the morning of December 23,
2009 I was received an early morning call from @Longhawl a trusted friend from twitter who has
dispelled many misinformation campaigns by “The Trolls of Trucking
on Twitter”.

My friend “Longhawl” was deeply
disturbed by the news of the Arrow closing and more so that the ATA
had the nerve to sit quietly and say nothing and do nothing. I
agreed that the ATA was a despicable example how to represent an industry
but the truth about trucking is that this is how truckers are treated
and most people could care less. Longhawl told me he was just
plain tired of seeing the arrogance that the ATA displayed toward the
hardworking American Trucker and he wanted to help. He asked me why
no one was attacking the ATA on Twitter outright and I said that retaliation
in trucking is very real so most individuals are intimidated, also much
of the trucking media sources are very much controlled. Longhawl said
“Well I don’t work for the Trucking Industry and I am going to say
a few things” I said “Okay, I will ReTweet what you say.” I also
introduced Longhawl to Mike
Rone of “RMR Consultants” who was working on cleaning up a DAC
for a woman trucker named @NJKatwoman .

Mike was disturbed that no one
had assisted the drivers by notifying truck stops properly, making sure
the drivers who were cut off from the outside world suddenly could make
their way home with their belongings for the holidays. I spent a few
hours on the phone with both Mike & Longhawl that morning while
I awaited the repair on my truck. During that time I saw an Arrow driver
try to turn in his keys to the Service Desk and the girl had no idead
what he was talking about. Then he went to the furl desk and she had
no idea either.

Mike Rone had called Dallas Radio
Station KRLD to get them to cover the story and I spoke to the girl
at the fuel desk and told her what was going on. While I was speaking
to her another girl walked up and said that the day before an Arrow
driver was able to fuel up but the card did not go through so they had
to pump out the fuel. Still they did not know what was going on, they
did not know the drivers were stranded. How humiliating is this for
a driver who is on his way home for the holidays, has already had one
bounced paycheck and has been cut off to company via one qualcomm
message that says in essence “See Ya wouldn’t want to be Ya”.

The OOIDA Fan Page had numerous
offers to help the drivers but there was no rhyme or reason to it. There
were carriers offering jobs and rides but in practice that meant nothing
more than a free link ad. There were no drivers on Facebook because
they were out-of- touch. When companies like Swift & Schneider came
forth to offer rides home it sounded grand but in practice how would
the Arrow drivers know this? Were Schneider’s drivers advised to go
track them down? What if they did see an Arrow driver who was stranded
and they needed to Florida but the Schneider tuck was under a load going
to Washington? Then what? I mean it looked great on the surface
but in reality it was not any sort of practical rescue operation being
conducted.

Together, Longhawl &
Mike Rone created a forum to sort out offers for assistance from all
over the internet to make it easy for the drivers once they were located
but not many people every found that forum. It was submerged before
it took off but it was made to help the drivers and that was all.

We had twitter
going crazy despite the lack of mainstream media attention. The ruckus
of the Stranded Arrow drivers and our constant circulating of the OOIDA
fan page link was everywhere you looked. Within hours if you googled
“Arrow Drivers” the 2 lone articles were complimented by thousands
of additional items which were actual tweets that were going into Google.

Not many people
realize that what you post on Facebook is in Facebook but on Twitter
it escapes the “Twitoshepre” into the “World Wide Web”
and goes into Google!

The chatter could
not be ignored, this was not just truckers on twitter who had jumped
onboard, the news of the Stranded Arrow Drivers was being circulated
by concerned citizens from around the world on Twitter who were OUTRAGED!!!!

On the morning
of December 23, 2009 “Fleet Owner” magazine put out an article called
“Social
Media Comes to the aid of Stranded Arrow Truck Drivers” but here’s the thing,
these are all ATA skewed publications and it was sort of a slap in the
face with some feeble acknowledgement that said: “Yes, we see you
are making an impact but we are still not going to do anything about
it.”

I personally monitored
those tweets in Google regularly and forwarded the increasing stats
to interested parties. There were many familiar faces in those tweets
who were not only my followers but even my DOG’s followers!

My Damn Dog was
doing more for Arrow Drivers than the FMCSA, Women in Trucking or the
American Trucking Association! Merry Effing Christmas Truckers!

Okay, so I’m
getting a little pissed… Breathe Breathe.

The tweets were
very targeted by utilizing “Hashtags”, we had seen success in several
project by doing this method for the Virginia Rest Areas, Pickens Plan
and Dog Rescue Projects.

In the future
I will detail this but I did go on “Truck Star Radio” and give
a tutorial to people who wanted to help.

This was an enormous
success and by the 24^th I had been introduced to a group
of former Arrow drivers and volunteers on Twitter and Facebook who I
invited to join “Truck Star Radio” as much as they wanted to tell
their true story.

It was not long
until reports began coming back that pledges to give help were being
ignored and that the OOIDA page was not being managed properly. Still
it was an amazing outpouring of people wanting to help. Still today
it is inspiring to see all the people wanting to help truckers and it
stands as a testament to the power of social media.

In those beginning
hours there was truly more offers for help than there was drivers. That
was the problem, how would a stranded driver know that they needed to
get on the internet?

As I said in the
recent “Blog Talk Radio” broadcast I was deeply moved when
I observed former Arrow Driver Brandon White organize efforts while
enroute to his new job on the greyhound bus.

I was included
in a circulating email of volunteers but I did not post publically because
I did not want to alert “The Trolls” about my involvement which
would derail the cooperation that we thought was taking place.

I have included
the radio broadcast link and I don’t want to recap everything here
but basically at this time I did not know about Donna Creekmore but
learned of her shortly afterwards and her list of drivers.

This list was
crucial to weed out the scammers who emerged. The other disturbing thing
was that people who were disgusted trying to pledge assistance on the
OOIDA board were reporting they went ahead and gave to some of the designated
charities but then some drivers were reporting those same charities
either ran out of funds or the told the drivers that they did not meet
the criteria to get assistance.

This was a problem
for me and others who felt if Donna Creekmore had verified them as drivers
and there were people willing to help assist them they should be matched
up, end of story.

Again, I won’t
get into all the backroom shenanigans FOR NOW but I did receive the
exchanges between OOIDA & the Volunteers and it was not surprising
but still disappointing that this crisis was turning into a media power
struggle.

Another page on
Facebook surfaced on the 24^th called the “Ex-Arrow Employee’s
Page”
and it seemed odd that OOIDA had not been in direct contact with these
folks and Donna Creekmore as soon as they appeared on the scene to collaborate.

Donna Creekmore
was assisted by a woman named Dana to organize help directly to drivers.
I personally called both of them to see who they were because it was
true that scammers were coming out of the woodwork on the OOIDA page
and it seemed like no one was managing it properly. My own followers
on twitter were getting too personally involved and I did not want any
of them getting ripped off.

Donna Creekmore
was actually in the emergency room with her Husband when I reached her,
she said she was concerned with getting “her drivers” home.
To my knowledge no one from OOIDA had contacted her at this time nor
were they aware that Dana, Donna, Brandon and other Volunteers had set
up a base of operations to help the actual drivers on their list to
all the pledges for help from individuals.

On the Monday
after Christmas however the emails were flying. Soon after, Dana set
up a third page of Volunteer effort for the Arrow drivers and Donna
Creekmore and continued assisting drivers while Donna Creekmore was
admitted to the hospital with pneumonia.

It was an amazing
weekend! A huge storm had hit Oklahoma & Texas and shut down I-40.
Many truckers were stranded and some were attempting to assist Arrow
drivers when the storm hit.

Despite my attempt
to stay in the background I was compelled to post publically after an
OOIDA member called me to dispel rumors about repo men being at truck
stops. I also called Freightliner and posted on their Facebook page
asking for a public announcement. I did not get a response but it sure
brought the trolls out.

Private texts
to me by other truckers on twitter asked for me to pass along offers
of help and jobs to Donna & Dana because they too did not want to
stir up the trolls.

It was already
too late; in fact the King of Trolls had posted on the OOIDA page Jan
2^nd to stay away from any of the “other groups” and wanted
to know if anyone had a concrete list. He had been tweeting with Jami
Jones who was ensuring that to him that, “…/amazing/ isn’t
the word for it. It seems like we spend as much time killing rumors
as productive good some days. & we have debunked some requests from
alleged Arrow drivers needing help. We didn’t just fall off the turnip
truck here” but that was not the truth.

There was problems
behind the scenes and Jami Jones “Imagine
All the People”
which was sort of crazy because all the people I knew of had been up
24/7 tweeting, donating every last nickel they had and making phone
calls to help Arrow Drivers while they were in bad shape themselves.

One woman who
is a big fan of @TruckinDogKarma was in the ICU tweeting
from her phone and had to have it removed from her by her doctor! She
later made phone calls with a partial list and got deeply involved with
the missing trucker story when the Mother of that guy poured her heart
out to her.

If that were not
enough to turn my stomach, on January 5, 2010 the ATA finally remarked
on the Arrow driver situation. Like a synchronized swimming event Ellen
Voie tweeted “Angels
Among Us”
which originally had comments on it that have been moderated off but
I was sent the copies and they are not flattering to say the very least.

In this article
Ellen states she was called by OOIDA to bring home the last Arrow drivers
but according to Donna Creekmore there were many drivers who were still
not home or had no home to go to.

On this same day
OOIDA edited their Mission Statement and Title on the Facebook Fan Page
and the ATA Twitter @TruckingMatters account tweets this dumbass
remark “Thank you to all
the trucking companies working from day 1 to help former Arrow drivers
#SupportArrowDrivers #Win “

That was in addition to this tweet
right next to it: “TweetsSchneider National encourages former Arrow
drivers to apply www.schneiderjobs.com #SupportArrowDrivers #trucking
“

OY VEY! So those are the Holy
Grail of Hope to the American Trucker? Seems to me every day is media
day in trucking!

There was huge lesson to be learned
in the Arrow Trucking mess and that is people do care about truckers
but they are not getting the information they need to help them.

Many people came together who
were formerly divided and eventually worked together.

Good can come out of what happened
at Arrow in the sense that an awakening should begin to come about that
ordinary people can make a difference. You can gather the rest on your
own when your eyes begin to clear like mine have.

Listen to the Blog Talk Radio
called “Truckers Home” with former Arrow Trucking Employee
Donna Creekmore that aired May 6, 2010

There were so many individual
people to thank it was not possible to remember everyone. If you would
like to thank someone please post and let them be recognized.