We’ve all seen the “vids” on the news and on YouTube. The texts, Tweets, IM’s and e-mails instructing people where to go, meet up, hang out and we’ll see what happens next. The definition of a flash mob (or flashmob) is “a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and pointless act for a brief time, then disperse. Or, any group of people who appear from out of nowhere, to perform predetermined actions, designed to amuse and confuse surrounding people."
Have you ever seen a flash mob in trucking? Think hard. You’ve seen one and perhaps not realized what it was. Here’s the scenario. A busy truck stop at about 5:30pm on a sweltering humid day. Trucks are coming in off the road to find a space to stay overnight or to park, get some dinner, a shower and then depart for their nightly run. Maybe, it’s one the those medium sized old T/A’s in the Northeast, or that unsafe poorly designed FJ (Flying J) in Phoenix or the “tight” Pilot in Birmingham.
The fuel islands are backed up into the street, and there is a convergence of Swift and England newbies alongside veterans who have no tolerance for them. A trainer jumps out of the truck to try and direct a driver with his 53 ft axles to the rear, fully loaded heavy trailer back along the melting pavement into one of the tight spots. The line of trucks and drivers waiting to proceed and get on with business is growing. Some, already parked, are rushing inside the travel plaza to grab a shower before the wait list gets too long. Mix in the beggars, peddlers and sellers (and lot lizards) running up to every parked rig that has successfully navigated into a space and has just applied their brakes to shut down for the night.
You’ve been here before. You know what it’s like. You’re expecting it. Then, BOOM! A trailer backing up cut it too tight and ripped the bumper and marker light off of the adjacent trucks. It shook the driver right out of his bunk. And, like ants converging on a piece of discarded fruit, truckers arrive on scene from everywhere. They come to witness, to accuse, to call the cops, to take photographs, to say I told you so, to chastise the stupidity of the offending driver and to blow off steam at the end of a hard, hot day. It starts off innocently, but I’ve seen it erupt into arguments, fist fights, pushing and shoving, arms flailing and name calling, threats being made, all having nothing to do with the actual accident.
It’s the trucking version of a flashmob. With truck drivers, you don’t need social media to start it. It’s just something that happens on the road. I’ve also seen it “flair up” at some shippers and consignee’s. The question is though, will the dramatic increase in the use of Twitter, Facebook, Google+, texting and IM’ing (instant messaging) among truckers, result in a flash mob mentality – possibly resulting in violence? We’ve all seen what happened the past week over in the UK, when young gangs, communicating by way of “social media”, defied police and looted, mugged and set ablaze businesses and residences as people watched in horror.
What if a driver is being given a “hard time” by a DOT officer in a weigh station somewhere. He feels he is being singled out and unfairly shut down. It’s a busy “chicken coop” and the line of trucks waiting to go over the scale goes way out on to the interstate. PrePass is not working. Most drivers have their CB’s shut off, listening to satellite radio and keeping an eye on the Facebook and Twitter “chatter”. What if an angry driver listening to the exchange inside the scale house tweets that this DOT officer needs to be taught a “lesson.” Haven’t we all had enough of “this” he IM’s? Let’s stand up for our rights already!
Back on the line for the scale and out on the highway “friends” get the message. Could you not see these drivers pulling over and getting out of their trucks and walking over the support the driver? That this is the end of the days that truckers should be seen and not heard and some action is finally taken? What is a driver is in a truck stop and getting angry because the truck in front on him/her on the fuel island hasn’t moved for twenty minutes? What about at the Wal-Mart DC and a driver is yelled at by security for driving too fast though the lot? There could be a thousand reasons.
Could this be the “venting” that truck drivers have always been seeking? In London the flashmob succeeded in burning down an entire Sony distribution center. Would this happen here? Why not? Clearly, we have not seen the “flash-point” of truckers anger in many years. It used to be there – the threat and reality of strikes and protest involving pay and fuel prices – but that was decades ago. But it’s out there, lying under the surface. Is it just waiting for a “vehicle”, a “platform” to launch an explosion – a flashmob?
I say yes, what say you?
PS/from Wikipedia -
If you liked that post, then try these...“The first flash mob was created in Manhattan in May 2003, by Bill Wasik, senior editor of Harper’s Magazine. The first attempt was unsuccessful after the targeted retail store was tipped off about the plan for people to gather. Wasik avoided such problems during the second flash mob, which occurred on June 3, 2003, at Macy’s department store, by sending participants to preliminary staging areas – in four prearranged Manhattan bars – where they received further instructions about the ultimate event and location just before the event began.
More than 130 people converged upon the ninth floor rug department of the store, gathering around an expensive rug. Anyone approached by a sales assistant was advised to say that the gatherers lived together in a warehouse on the outskirts of New York, that they were shopping for a "love rug", and that they made all their purchase decisions as a group. Subsequently, 200 people flooded the lobby and mezzanine of the Hyatt hotel in synchronized applause for about 15 seconds, and a shoe boutique in SoHo was invaded by participants pretending to be tourists on a bus trip.[9]
Wasik claimed that he created flash mobs as a social experiment designed to poke fun at hipsters and to highlight the cultural atmosphere of conformity and of wanting to be an insider or part of "the next big thing”. The Vancouver Sun wrote, "It may have backfired on him … [Wasik] may instead have ended up giving conformity a vehicle that allowed it to appear nonconforming." In another interview he said "the mobs started as a kind of playful social experiment meant to encourage spontaneity and big gatherings to temporarily take over commercial and public areas simply to show that they could.”
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