You Gotta Love (NOT) Advertising

[Turtle]

Actually outside of p*ssing my pants laughing at all of this, the point I am trying to make is that you can't be considered a commercial vehicle for one thing and than claim you are for another.

Of course you can. If a cargo van is laden then it's a commercial vehicle, if it's unladen it's not. If a cargo van is laden with HAZMAT, the driver needs a CDL with a HAZMAT endorsement because the vehicle suddenly becomes a commercial motor vehicle, if it's unladen then a regular operator's license is all that is required. One of the problems is, apparently, many people do not understand the distinction between "commercial vehicle" and "commercial motor vehicle".

Really the professional driver thing is not the issue, it is what you pull up in at the pumps that give them the reasons to offer or not to offer you an incentive to buy from them - which there really is no incentive for them when you look at the reality of it from their point of view.

As Amonger points out below (or above, as the case may be), there are many reasons that a truck stop should want van business, not the least of which is restaurant and convenience store sales, which nets them far more profit than anything vanners (or big trucks) would buy at the pumps. Pilot has a history of being weird about a lot of things. They've always had the attitude of "get in, buy fuel and a hot dog or something, then get out", regardless of the type of vehicle. This merger probably won't affect the Pilot locations much one way or the other, but same store sales for the Flying J with respect to restaurant and convenience store sales will absolutely be affected. The manager of the J in Oak Grove has already seen it, and it's not even Frequent Fueler D-Day, yet.

Crying goes both ways, I don't like the idea of any yahoo idiots getting behind the wheel who have very bad driving habits, it puts all of us in danger. I feel there should be some standards with any commercial enterprise regardless what they are driving - but that's me and my stupid idea that we need to be safe on the road.

Far as I know, all carriers have standards in place to handle drivers with bad driving habits. But surely you aren't suggesting that van drivers have bad habits while straight and big truck drivers don't, simply by virtue of they type of vehicle they drive, are you?

Anyone can be a "professional driver", anyone can be a doctor or lawyer or even an Indian chief but that doesn't make the person a Professional or have professional qualities.

I don't think anyone has said anything to the contrary.

To recap, it is the vehicle that you are driving that these companies are looking at, with only a 15 gallon purchase and competition on a lot of the street corners, there is no incentive that they have to capture more revenue at a cost that can't be justified.

The TA would disagree with that statement, at least with respect to showers. As for points and gasoline purchases, that's true, and it's why the TA nor Pilot gives points for gas purchases, as they have a much smaller profit margin on gas than they do on diesel. But offering free showers even on gas purchases will capture additional revenue on convenience store and restaurant sales, which does come with a healthy profit margin. Pilot is simply shortsighted in their view of cutting the 50 gallons for a shower in half for 25 gallons for 1/2 a credit. On paper such a policy makes sense, but they failed to take into consideration fuel tank size of vans in relation to fuel tank size and the 50 gallon minimum purchase for big trucks.

But they don't care. They do things the "Pilot Way" and they've never had much van business at Pilots in the first place, so they don't see this as a problem. They are content with turning the Flying J locations into pseudo-Pilots without regard to how Flying J's operated in the past. Pilot is in charge, and by gum they'll show it. The interior of Flying J's are already quickly morphing into the interior of a Pilot, everything from the types of stuff that's displayed for sale (note the movie candy) and the entire setup behind the registers (cigarette displays and other layouts). I haven't seen it yet, but I won't be surprised if the deli cases disappear, too.