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At least some of us had mothers or fathers who warned that the risk of opening one’s mouth might just reveal more than we ever intended.

A recent case in point occurred during the nagging dispute between truckers, ship lines, ports and railroads over the roadworthiness of intermodal equipment, and where the responsibility for it should rest.

Interminable delays at the rail- and ship-loading facilities, combined with questions over the responsibility for maintaining the equipment — basically, the chassis onto which the ocean containers are placed — has led to increasing friction between the parties and, in some places, to shortages of drivers willing to move the freight, strikes and union efforts to organize the drivers.

Many of the truckers that move freight containers and trailers between customers’ loading docks and ports or rail terminals work for small companies or are owner-operators. And most of the arrangements at ports provide that they get paid per load, not per hour. Thus, when congestion ties a driver up for hours, or when equipment defects leave a driver with the choice of waiting additional hours for repairs or taking potentially unsafe equipment on the road, the person behind the wheel ends up on the short end of the equation.

In response to a petition from the American Trucking Associations that the government make the company that hands off intermodal equipment responsible for its condition, the Department of Transportation recently held three “listening sessions” around the nation to give all parties a chance to air their thoughts.

Truckers testified at last week’s session in New York that reporting repairs to the terminal both slowed their drivers down and left them open to being charged for the repairs whether they had caused the damage or not.

To which Bernard Gotti, a consultant for Farrell Lines, a U.S. ship line that serves the Mediterranean from the East Coast, ended up representing what truckers have maintained is the terminal industry’s arrogant position.

Gotti responded that truckers were simply looking to blame others for their own safety shortcomings. As to the truckers’ concerns about time lost, Gotti replied: “Your waiting time is not our problem.”

Need we say much more? Our parents were right. Mr. Gotti should have listened to his, and kept his mouth closed. Truckers’ complaints about terminal operations need to be addressed.