I was at a pu last week when a FCC DR unit came in with no lettering.
Didnt think nothing of it.
Hmmmm, I wonder if the customer or FCC does.
Didnt think nothing of it.
Hmmmm, I wonder if the customer or FCC does.
An open question to owners of unmarked van companies.
- Thread starter xiggi
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BigCat
Expert Expediter
I've seen a bunch lately that have Fdcc in tiny letters on the sleeper. Can't read it until you are right up on it. Nothing on doors or boxes.
Yeah I have seen that as well.
Some have the same FCC lettering on the doors like I do in
a silver grey. My Vin # is in black above the Fed logo
but my box has the new big logo.
The one I was next too didnt have anything on the doors or box.
I do not have strong feelings on this one way or the other. Sure, a marked van looks more like a working van but an unmarked van is no less so. As a practical matter, shippers pay very little attention to the trucks.
An exceptionally nice truck may get noticed and the drivers may receive positive comments, but that makes little or any difference the next time an expediter truck or van is ordered; once or twice in a career, maybe, but on a regular basis? No.
An exceptionally dirty and broken down truck may also be noticed but such trucks can be found lettered or unlettered. It is not the lettering that makes the difference, it is the P.O.S. van and it's food-stained-T-shirt-clad driver.
The notion that an unmarked white van prompts evil perceptions in observers is a stretch. Sure, there may be some who associate white vans with kidnappers and rapists, but there will be far more people out there who have no such ideas. For those who would like to argue the point on way or another, I suggest that it is impossible to do so in a conclusive way because the only evidence that can be offered is the claimed perceptions of other people.
I have never heard of a negative association being drawn about white, unmarked vans before reading this thread. For those who are convinced that such vans are perceived as evil by the general public, I suggest you are doing a disservice to the expediting industry by broadcasting the idea (myth). A number of fine expediters drive white, unmarked vans and they are not evil or otherwise wanting in social merit because one operates such a rig.
It is a different question if you are talking about carriers and their decision to mark or not mark a van. But even there, let's be clear about what the issue is. Are we cloaking our negative feelings toward certain carriers in a conversation about unmarked vans? Perhaps it would be better to talk about how certain carriers operate or fail to operate instead of what letters, if any, appear on their vans.
Finally, in the small town in which I grew up, the town baker drove a white van. He used it to deliver bread and such to churches and grocery stores and community picnics, and as a personal vehicle too. This happy man was a homeowner, tax payer and went to church every Sunday with his wife and children. He was greeted with joy by all who knew him.
The notion that such a person should be suspected of being a pedophile or kidnapper because he drives a white van is ridiculous and offensive. It takes a strong dose of arrogance and intellectual lethargy to make such an assertion.
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BigCat
Expert Expediter
Your local baker didnt sit in parking lots for days either. Also if you have never heard the connections against vans and pedophiles and killers you have lived a very very sheltered life.
That depends on the mind of the person in whom the known and unknown are encountered, on the person or object in question, and on the context. The flip side of fear of the unknown is curiosity about it. Both traits exist in equal measure in human beings, don't you think?
Dat1stChoice
Active Expediter
The notion that shippers don't notice vehicles isn't entirely true. I haul a LOT of parts to a local brewery of a very overly branded adult beverage. If I show up in my unlettered white van, they think nothing of it....but if I show up in my POV, which isn't even a van, they drop the gates and stop me to make sure I'm what I say I am.....
I've taken to not using the POV for deliveries any more, due to the fact my new van gets better gas mileage.....but I have had that problem at a few consignees docks prior to getting the newer van. Shippers DO notice the vehicles you drive, maybe not so much as you'd think they should...but they DO notice.
I've never had an issue being unmarked though, at ANY shipper or consignee.
I've taken to not using the POV for deliveries any more, due to the fact my new van gets better gas mileage.....but I have had that problem at a few consignees docks prior to getting the newer van. Shippers DO notice the vehicles you drive, maybe not so much as you'd think they should...but they DO notice.
I've never had an issue being unmarked though, at ANY shipper or consignee.
A driver may not want to mark his or her van in a way that indentifies one's purpose or intent because:
-- The customer served specifically requests an unmarked van
-- The driver may be an independent who serves numerous carriers and it would be impractical to mark each run with a differen't carrier's markings each time.
-- The driver may live in a community where commercial vehicles are not allowed to be parked in one's own driveway. Marking a van would make it look like a commercial vehicle to local police and neighbors even if it is not a commercial vehicle.
-- The driver may prefer the look of a sleek, clean van over one that is cluttered with letters.
-- The expense of lettering a van may not be seen as one that brings benefits.
As I said, I do not have strong feelings about marked or unmarked vans. A list on reasons why a driver may mark his or her van can be just as easily produced.
That is correct, and it injects an important fact into this discussion. I don't know that there is anythig we can say in general about vans and the people who drive them that is entirely true. For every point made, examples can be cited to counter it. For every assertion made about what people perceive, the opposite assertion can be made on the same evidence.
That may be, but what exactly would it be that I was sheltered from?
Dat1stChoice
Active Expediter
Only the very worst parts of society, consider yourself lucky.
BigCat
Expert Expediter
From Yahoo Answers. Apparently unmarked vans creep the general public out.
karkee07
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Suspicious unmarked van parked in neighborhood every morning....please help
Every morning when I leave for work there is a unmarked white comerical sized van parked on the wrong side of the street with a man sitting in it. It's rather creepy. Since its just sitting there with its flashers. I am starting to get paranoid because I live by myself and you can see me walking to my car from the van. Should I contact the police department or what?
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William: I know that most crazy people wouldn't sit there with their flashers, but ya never know whats going to happen in this messed up world. Also, I was asking was I should do and if it was worth getting the police invloved. Maybe if you were a 19 y/o single girl living on her own you'd feel a bit diffrent about the situation.
There is also a face book page called" If i see an unmarked van,I assume there are bad guys inside"
If I see an unmarked van, I assume that there are bad guys inside | Facebook
karkee07
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Suspicious unmarked van parked in neighborhood every morning....please help
Every morning when I leave for work there is a unmarked white comerical sized van parked on the wrong side of the street with a man sitting in it. It's rather creepy. Since its just sitting there with its flashers. I am starting to get paranoid because I live by myself and you can see me walking to my car from the van. Should I contact the police department or what?
4 years ago Report Abuse
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William: I know that most crazy people wouldn't sit there with their flashers, but ya never know whats going to happen in this messed up world. Also, I was asking was I should do and if it was worth getting the police invloved. Maybe if you were a 19 y/o single girl living on her own you'd feel a bit diffrent about the situation.
There is also a face book page called" If i see an unmarked van,I assume there are bad guys inside"
If I see an unmarked van, I assume that there are bad guys inside | Facebook
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BigCat
Expert Expediter
Oh and to the guys that think, "My van isn't marked so it is less likely it will get stolen" wake up,remover your head from your "You know what" and read the article here about the unmarked van getting stolen.
Van Containing Unmarked ATM Keys Stolen in Connecticut - ABC News
Van Containing Unmarked ATM Keys Stolen in Connecticut - ABC News
I have worked in a prison and in politics. You don't have to go much further than that to be exposed to and interact with the worst of the worst.
BigCat
Expert Expediter
Then you would know those guys were at some point in a white unmarked van. They werent in there for driving around offering candy out of their toyota camera.
The general public is a larger group than the subset you quote from Yahoo and Facebook. That some people are creeped out by unmarked white vans is not being questioned. I recently read about people who are creeped out by tunnels. There are many things that creep some people out, but that does not mean the things are evil in and of themselves. Put it in context and the nonspecific creepness goes away.
In the Yahoo case you cited, my suspicions would be aroused too. In a neighborhood where things are familiar, something unfamiliar comes onto the scene. My personal response would be to transform the unknown into a known. I would do that by approaching the driver, explaining my curiosity and asking him (or her) to explain his presence. If fear was the dominate emotion, someone could call the police and report a suspicious vehicle in the neighborhood.
Is the vehicle a curiousity? Unfamiliar? Unknown? Suspicious? Different? Threatening? Welcome? It could be all of those (marked or otherwise), depending on the person viewing the vehicle and the preconceptions the viewer has.
What's to perceive? Seen repededly in the mornings when the ovserver goes to work, is an unmarked white commercial sized van parked on the wrong side of the street with a man sitting in it, with flashers on." That's it. That's what's seen and that's all that can be known about it unless additional information is obtained. Whatever it is that creeps the observer out comes from within the observer.
I am not without my preconceptions. My first thought was the van belongs to a private investigator who is positioned as he is on the street to get a good camera angle on his subject. The investigator is working of an insurance company and the company believes that a fraudulant injury claim has been submitted. They are trying to get video of the claimant walking down the steps out of his house, bending over to pick up the newspaper, and walking back up the steps to show he does not have the injuries he claims to have.
That preconception is driven by personal experience. I have seen such investigators in action and my wife is an attorney who used to work for an insurance company.
Had I once been a school bus driver, I might think that unmarked van was someone dispatched by the school district or PTA to check up on me.
You can come up with a 1,000 stories that explain the white, unmarked van described above. And that is the point I am making. When it comes to unmarked vans, it's not about what some people think. Too many people think too many things to base an argument on that, one way or the other.
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BigCat
Expert Expediter
Ok then phil you should survey random people to see what they think when they see a white van. Before I got in to expedite myfriendss and myself would see unmarked vans and joke about there being someone tied up in the back or someone giving away candy to kids. I "Think" and this is only a "Thought" more of the general public see unmarked vans as a threat not knowing what lies within.
Your thinking is much deeper than mine but I am usually too busy running freight to sit and decide what 1,000,000 things that van could be. Could be a gardener,painter,medical examiner,undercover cop blah blah blah but first thing that comes to mind is for some reason illegal activities. Get lost looking for a shipper or cons in an unmarked and you happen to stop at the first place possible or even circle the block a few times. But guess what, there is an elementary school on the same block as your p/u or del. What do you think the police officer watching crosswalks is thinking as you either keep circling or stop to look at local directions.
And I know your comeback will be "I wouldn't have stopped there" just for the simple fact that your brain has so much time to think of where to go to park that wont catch someones attention.
Your thinking is much deeper than mine but I am usually too busy running freight to sit and decide what 1,000,000 things that van could be. Could be a gardener,painter,medical examiner,undercover cop blah blah blah but first thing that comes to mind is for some reason illegal activities. Get lost looking for a shipper or cons in an unmarked and you happen to stop at the first place possible or even circle the block a few times. But guess what, there is an elementary school on the same block as your p/u or del. What do you think the police officer watching crosswalks is thinking as you either keep circling or stop to look at local directions.
And I know your comeback will be "I wouldn't have stopped there" just for the simple fact that your brain has so much time to think of where to go to park that wont catch someones attention.
I fully believe that a strange unmarked van driving slowly at.night looking for an address will attract a Leo's attention faster than a marked one. I would imagine the same would be true near our southern border with the bidder patrol.
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Well, I would think the flip side of fear of the unknown is "fearless (or unconcern) of the unknown". Curiosity by definition is an investigation to learn more, an intense desire to know and understand, and isn't usually motivated by an unconcern for, or being fearless of something.
But in any case, I said the unknown is always more "suspicious" than the known, not more "fearful" than the known. Suspicion and fear are not necessarily synonymous, though they certainly can be. But, for example, you don't suspect someone of being up to no good if you already know for a fact that they are.
Reality, the conversations of others, news reports...