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In comments filed July 30, American Trucking Associations told the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that while it supports the agency’s new process for improving its carrier oversight program Compliance, Safety, Accountability, the system still has serious deficiencies that must be corrected.

“ATA supports this new approach to making adjustments to the Safety Measurement System methodology,” ATA’s Vice President of Safety Policy Rob Abbott wrote. “Previously, FMCSA occasionally made changes to the methodology with no prior explanation or announcement.”

However, despite the more open process, Abbott said ATA still had significant concerns about the methodology — specifically the agency’s treatment of non-preventable crashes and the creation of a new category to exclusively measure hazardous materials safety.

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A Lexington woman has been charged with taking more than $200,000 from the trucking company where she worked.

The State newspaper reported 39-year-old Lori M. Caldwell turned herself in to Lexington County sheriff’s deputies late last week.

Caldwell was charged with breach of trust with fraudulent intent involving more than $10,000. She could be sentenced to 10 years in prison if she is convicted.

An arrest warrant says the human resources manager for Southeastern Freight Lines submitted false expense reports for more than four years.

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Celadon Group Inc. on Monday, July 30, said revenue for its 2012 fiscal fourth quarter ended June 30 increased 4.0 percent to $157.5 million from $151.2 million in the 2011 quarter. Freight revenue, which excludes fuel surcharges, increased 4.6 percent to $124.3 million from $118.8 million. Net income increased 63.6 percent to $9.0 million from $5.5 million.

For the fiscal year, revenue increased 5.4 percent to $599.0 million in 2012 from $568.2 million for the same period last year. Freight revenue increased 1.7 percent to $475.1 million from $467.0 million. Net income increased 67.8 percent to $25.5 million from $15.3 million.

“We are pleased with the results,” the Indianapolis-based company said. Fourth-quarter operating ratio, which represents operating expenses as a percent of revenue excluding fuel surcharge, was 87.2 percent compared to 90.9 percent. Operating ratio was reduced to 90.2 percent for the 2012 fiscal year compared with 93.4 percent for the 2011 fiscal year.

Celadon credited an increase of 4.1 percent in rates, a decrease in overall equipment costs and a decrease in operations and maintenance expense, which it attributed primarily to its decrease in average tractor age. Offsetting these improvements was a decline in miles per seated truck of about 4 percent from the prior year, most of which was the impact of improved freight selection, according to the company.

The company said that through a series of acquisitions made during the year, it has been able to increase its average seated count by about 7.2 percent, which provides the capacity to allow it to significantly increase miles as fleets continue to exit the market and for when the economic freight market improves.

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Marten Transport (Nasdaq:MRTN) has been downgraded by TheStreet Ratings from buy to hold. The company’s strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its impressive record of earnings per share growth, compelling growth in net income and revenue growth. However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including a generally disappointing performance in the stock itself and poor profit margins.

MARTEN TRANSPORT LTD has improved earnings per share by 21.4% in the most recent quarter compared to the same quarter a year ago. The company has demonstrated a pattern of positive earnings per share growth over the past two years. We feel that this trend should continue. This trend suggests that the performance of the business is improving. During the past fiscal year, MARTEN TRANSPORT LTD increased its bottom line by earning $1.11 versus $0.90 in the prior year. This year, the market expects an improvement in earnings ($1.32 versus $1.11).

The net income growth from the same quarter one year ago has exceeded that of the S&P 500 and the Road & Rail industry average. The net income increased by 22.4% when compared to the same quarter one year prior, going from $6.19 million to $7.58 million.

The gross profit margin for MARTEN TRANSPORT LTD is rather low; currently it is at 17.30%. Regardless of MRTN’s low profit margin, it has managed to increase from the same period last year. Despite the mixed results of the gross profit margin, MRTN’s net profit margin of 4.80% is significantly lower than the same period one year prior. MRTN has underperformed the S&P 500 Index, declining 17.94% from its price level of one year ago. Looking ahead, we do not see anything in this company’s numbers that would change the one-year trend. It was down over the last twelve months; and it could be down again in the next twelve. Naturally, a bull or bear market could sway the movement of this stock.

Marten Transport, Ltd. operates as a temperature-sensitive truckload carrier in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. It offers protective service transportation and distribution of time and temperature sensitive materials and general commodities. The company has a P/E ratio of 14.3, above the average transportation industry P/E ratio of 14.1 and below the S&P 500 P/E ratio of 17.7. Marten Transport has a market cap of $383.8 million and is part of the services sector and transportation industry. Shares are down 5.1% year to date as of the close of trading on Friday.

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Used-truck pricing stayed high in June, even as new-truck orders fell, according to Chris Visser, senior analyst for American Truck Dealers Official Commercial Truck Guide.

In his Commercial Truck Blog, Visser reports that preliminary data indicates that used-truck pricing remained at a historically high level in June, despite steadily declining new-truck orders.

The ATD/NADA Commercial Truck Guide is predicting a modest increase in the average selling price of a sleeper tractor in June, up about 5% to 7% over May’s price of $48,026.

Visser attributes continued strength in the used market to an ongoing shortage of late-model, low-mileage trucks.

“Truck manufacturers can build as many new trucks as the market demands, but they can’t alleviate the shortage of late-model used trucks,” Visser said.

New truck orders have fallen for the last four out of five months, and are now at a level not seen since immediately before the rebound in late 2010, Visser said. However, new truck sales are still healthy, recovering from a dip early in 2012 to return to a level higher than all of last year save for December. Used truck sales per dealership took a steep dive in May, and preliminary June results indicate a very slight uptick that still leave the results in the “unusually low” category.

All this has not affected used-truck pricing to any noticeable extent, Visser said.

“There is one big reason for the disconnect in new vs. used truck market trends: Supply. The strength in used truck pricing since late 2009 is largely due to the low returning supply of 2008-2011 model year trucks, which has resulted in a shortage of late-model, low-mileage iron. There is no such shortage on the new side.”

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A California court awarded $11.5 million to a woman who was injured by a piece of iron that flew off a flatbed in Sept., 2010.
The truck was operating for Selma-CA., -based Lion Raisins and was on highway 99.

The flatbed was carrying empty wooden bins held in place by cables. At one point, the load shifted and one of the iron corners from one of the bins flew off the trailer and into the windshield of a 2009 Acura, driven by Susan Reyes, who at the time was a 41-year-old teacher.

According to local media reports, her attorney said the verdict is one of the largest he can recall in 40 years of legal work.
Court heard that Reyes has no memory of the event and has lost her driver’s license and has been unable to continue her job as a special-assignment teacher.

The award was divided into money for past and future medical expenses, past and future earnings losses, and pain and suffering. The jury also awarded $350,000 to her husband, for damages.

In other recent big-money settlements, another Fresno woman was awarded $10.5 million in 2008 for brain injuries suffered after her car crashed with a dump truck whose driver later proved to be impaired.

And in 2010, two motorists who were seriously injured in a 2008 rear-end collision were awarded more than $9 million in damages.

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During tough economic times with high unemployment, Americans should be jumping at any chance to work, but trucking companies are struggling to hire drivers.

There are as many as 200,000 job openings nationwide for long haul truckers, according to David Heller, director of safety and policy for the Truckload Carriers Association.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics also sees the demand for truckers increasing, up from the 1.5 million drivers on the road now. It expects trucking to add 330,100 jobs between 2010 and 2020, an increase of 20%.

But these positions are difficult to fill, and even harder to keep filled.

“Nobody wants to drive a truck,” said Heller.

The pay isn’t bad: Truckers earn a median annual wage of $37,930, which is $4,000 more than the median wage for all jobs, according to the BLS. The top 10% of truck drivers make more than $58,000 per year.

So why do so many long-haul trucking jobs remain unfilled?
Related: 100 Best Companies to Work For

First, it’s difficult to get certified. The biggest hurdle for the unemployed is getting a commercial driver’s license. The training course to learn those skills can take up to eight weeks to complete and cost about $6,000.

“Drivers are put under intense scrutiny before they get into the industry, and for good reason,” said Brett Aquila, trucker and creator of the blog TruckingTruth. “It’s incredibly risky putting someone behind the wheel of an 80,000 pound truck with your company’s name on it.”

And when drivers do get on the road, they find the long-haul lifestyle isn’t easy, living for weeks at a time in the cramped confines of the back of the truck.

“You have a gigantic culture shock when someone is suddenly living on the road in a space the size of a walk-in closet,” said Aquila. “Then you have the pressure, the erratic sleep patterns, and the time away from home, family, and friends.”

For these reasons, job turnover is high for truckers. At the same time, as the economy stages a gradual recovery, more new positions are becoming available.

“When people start to spend more money, that means there’s more freight to move,” said Heller. “When shelves need to be stocked, trucks start rolling. There’s not a thing you own that has not been on a truck at some point.”

Several of the largest long haul trucking companies in the U.S. are hiring. Schneider National, J.B. Hunt Transport Services (JBHT), Swift Transportation (SWFT) and Werner Enterprises (WERN) are aggressively recruiting drivers on their web sites.

Derek Leathers, president and chief operating officer at Werner, said that his company has about 100 open long-haul truck driving positions. The current shortage of truckers has forced his company to work much harder than it used to in order to fill these positions, spending more money on advertising and additional recruiting staff.

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The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration wants to be able to weight crashes in the Safety Management System (SMS) differently depending on a motor carrier’s role in those crashes, but a recent analysis that assessed the feasibility of using Police Accident Reports — called PARs for short — has led the agency to the conclusion that more study was needed.

As a result, the FMCSA Administration Anne Ferro, in an address to the Trucking Association Executive Council here Monday, announced that the agency would undertake a focused initiative to analyze a process for updating the 100,000 annual state-reported crash records to including a determination of a motor carrier’s role in a crash.

“While this analysis is a first step in our effort in examining the feasibility of police accident reports to determine crash weighting, more needs to be done,” Ferro told council members Monday.

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