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Trucker News

Highway funding can’t be weakened

The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance last week warned Congress that funding commercial motor vehicle safety programs at lower-than-current levels would weaken state enforcement efforts, and that large truck-related injuries and deaths could tick upward.“We are finally heading in the right direction with a downward trend in heavy truck fatalities,” says Capt. Steve Dowling, CVSA president. “With the economy picking up and highway traffic increasing, I don’t believe we could continue that trend if the Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program and state safety grant funds are cut.” Dowling was speaking before the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit during a two-day hearing on the re authorization of the nation’s surface transportation programs.

CVSA urged Congress to continue to focus funds on enhancing the MCSAP, as there is FMCSA data indicating that roadside inspections and traffic enforcement have a clear and substantial safety benefit, and are providing a tremendous return on the investment of tax dollars. “Through targeted investments, we can improve upon our successes and provide the necessary tools for enhancing enforcement’s ability to remove the unsafe operators from the road,” said Dowling. “We recommend making the safety grant programs more flexible and streamlining the administrative and delivery processes to reflect the reality of today.”

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Trucker News

1,600 Trucking Jobs Reported

The U.S. economy added 216,000 non farm jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis during March, and trucking companies accounted for 1,600 of those jobs, according to the preliminary estimates released April 1 by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Happy Driver
Total employment in trucking in March was more than 1.267 million – down 186,000, or 12.8 percent, from peak trucking employment in January 2007. The BLS numbers reflect all payroll employment in for-hire trucking, but they don’t include trucking-related jobs in other industries, such as a truck driver for a private fleet. Nor do the numbers reflect the total amount of hiring since they only include new jobs, not replacements for existing positions.Although the economy added 216,000 jobs in March, the unemployment rate was little changed, dipping one-tenth of a point to 8.8 percent, as the number of people seeking employment rose at almost the same level as the number of new jobs added.

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Trucker News

Con-way Expects Full E-log Implementation

Con-way Truckload announced that 71 percent of its 3,000-driver fleet is using electronic logs (e-logs), with full integration of the technology expected in June 2011.The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is expected to make the adoption of e-logs mandatory for all carriers by 2014.

Electronic Onboard Recorder
E-logs, also known as electronic onboard recorders or EOBRs, automatically capture hours-of-service data, reducing the potential for inaccuracies and risk of violations associated with paper logs, which negatively impact safety, on-time service, operational efficiencies and CSA scores, among other issues. Because satellite-based mobile communications units have been installed in Con-way Truckload tractors since 1994, the company was able to integrate e-logs at a minimal cost. And, as a result of reduced costs associated with providing and managing traditional paper-based log books, the company has achieved 59 percent savings to date.
Con-way Truckload began testing e-logs in February 2010 and started integrating the system in its trucks fleet wide in November. Currently 2,145 drivers are using e-logs, with another 75 drivers transitioning to the system each week, on average.One of Con-way Truckload’s long-time drivers, Gary Sorell, was selected to use e-logs first.”When I started using e-logs in March 2010, I wasn’t sure what to expect; now, I wouldn’t give it back,” said Sorell. “With a computer to do all of the work, a driver doesn’t need to spend time filling out a paper log or calculating hours manually. There is no way to make a mistake, which eliminates log violations and makes it easy to work with the Department of Transportation.”

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Lifestyle Trucker News

Traffic Deaths Plunge

The number and rate of traffic fatalities in 2010 fell to the lowest levels since 1949, despite a significant increase in the number of miles driven, the U.S. Department of Transportation reported April 1.According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s early projections, the number of traffic fatalities fell 3 percent from 33,808 in 2009 to 32,788 last year.

Since 2005, fatalities have dropped 25 percent.NHTSA projects the fatality rate will be the lowest recorded since 1949, with 1.09 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, down from the 1.13 fatality rate for 2009. An estimated 21 billion miles were traveled last year.

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Lifestyle

Technology-Truckers love to hate

Not only do truck drivers travel on the open roads but they also journey down the internet! Modern Technology gives truckers a big boost in countless areas and can make life on the road easier or at least a lot more tolerable as they are away from home. Truck driving software programs help to make all of the book keeping and paperwork less difficult to handle and keep organized. Laptop computers assist with keeping in touch with family, pals and also the trucking corporation they work for.
Old Driver Confused with Technology
Truckers by nature are fiercely independent and they don’t like being told what to do. They also face impossible cost pressures that force many to drive far more hours in a day than may be safe – or legal. Replacing paper logbooks with electronic ones could improve compliance. But faced with rising fuel costs and EPA mandated equipment, most see information technology as just another cost burden. Electronic logbooks could make hours of service and other data logging faster and easier. Widespread use could also make roads safer by making it harder to falsify driver logs and drive beyond the 11 hours legally allowed per day per Federal Moter Carrier Safety Administration rules. But in the battle between these groups, electronic driver logs are viewed as a competitive weapon – or threat.

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Lifestyle Trucker News

Volvo to recall 700 truck plant workers

Volvo Trucks North America in Pulaski County, Va., will recall approximately 700 employees between May 2 and June 13, according to a March 30 announcement.The New River Valley plant, which employs about 1,500 people, is facing a surge in orders for heavy-duty trucks, the Roanoke Times newspaper reported. Volvo’s U.S. and Canadian sales grew 46 percent in 2010 and were 47 percent higher through February compared with a year earlier.


Trucks sales boost has company adding a second shift back at Pulaski County plant.

Unionized production workers recently agreed to a two-tier compensation plan that requires recalled workers to be paid less than those currently working in the factory, the newspaper reported. It is a provision of a recently signed 5-year contract that runs through March 2016.

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Trucker News

Is Freight Transportation makes you Profitable?

When deciding if freight transportation might be a profitable business, the first thing you must do is take a look throughout your residence. Look at your garage, kitchen or office and find something that didn`t get transported as freight. Once you realize the fact that transportation services is about the most wide reaching industry you can think of, it`s time to decide if you want to attempt to start your own freight transportation business. Being as the industry is so huge, there are plenty of opportunities for even a small start-up to build business and make a realistic profit. The decision you must make is which sector of the industry would be most valuable to you. This created an outburst in the business of organizing the shipments via inter-modal transportation. Tertiary logistical organization of freight shipping is key to the existence and growth of the transportation services sector. Because the sector is so enormous, there is a diverse range of different businesses that all profit and have a role in the inter-modal transportation services sector.

Freight Transportation

The key player in every shipment involving freight transportation is a freight broker. This individual or firm performs as a middle man to link shippers with freight carriers. They organize the process and figure out how the items will get form point A to point B. The person who sends the freight is the shipper. He operates with a broker to get the cargo picked up and on their way. A motor carrier is the company that supplies truck transportation. These individual positions open up a massive amount of different opportunities that definitely make the freight transportation commercial enterprise to be profitable business venture.The only thing to understand about the inter-modal freight transportation services industry is that it is a consistently altering entity. While each different type of business may seem unassociated, each step of shipment overlaps. Thereby certain entities may direct many of these positions.

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Lifestyle

Truckers against Trafficking

Truckers against Trafficking, an industry program to fight human trafficking, will be at the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville. Human Trafficking is a crime against humanity. It involves an act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring or receiving a person through a use of force, coercion or other means, for the purpose of exploiting them. Every year, thousands of men, women and children fall into the hands of traffickers, in their own countries and abroad. Every country in the world is affected by trafficking, whether as a country of origin, transit or destination for victims.

The non-profit Chapter 61 Ministries started the project two years ago to educate and empower the trucking field to battle the problem on the job. TAT produces educational material for the industry to distribute to locations such as trucking schools and truck stops. The project seeks to inform the industry of the problem and how to recognize and report it. A 2010 Congressional Research Services report stated human trafficking happens in the United States to U.S. citizens and non-citizens and in every state. About 17,500 people are trafficked to the U.S. each year for use in labor and the sex industry.

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Trucker News

How to Start a Trucking Business?

Trucking businesses have therefore flourished because of the necessity for trucking services in moving food and consumer goods. If you are planning to get into the trucking business, it is important that you know basic things about operating a trucking business.
Trucking business clients
Targeted market for a trucking business includes people and business organizations that manufacture, sell and distribute goods and materials. Getting big companies to work with you will be difficult though if your trucking company is just starting up and your trucking transport business has limited coverage. It is therefore important that you look for alternative potential clients which can include small business operators that are participating in trade shows to showcase their goods and products. These clients need trucking services when moving their goods from one location to another.

Marketing

Marketing your trucking business
You can increase the number of clients who avail of your trucking services by advertising your trucking freight business. You may, for example, post ads in trade magazines where prospective clients are able to find them. You can also offer better rates than other trucking businesses and highlight your special rates when sending brochures to potential customers. Word of mouth remains to be helpful so take the opportunity to provide the best service to your clients as this can help spread the world about the excellent trucking services that you offer.

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Lifestyle

Long Haul History

The trucking industry in the United States has a affected the political and economic history of the United States in the 20th century. Before the invention of automobiles, most freight was moved by train or horse-drawn vehicle.Trucks of all kinds occupy the roads, from semi-trucks carrying mega payloads across major highways to stylish Studebaker personal truck models from the middle of the twentieth century being carefully maintained by classic truck enthusiasts.People have long used truck-like vehicles to transport goods, though before mechanical engines they were often drawn by pack animals or humans. But as civilizations have advanced, the need for better, more powerful methods of transportation has evolved alongside the evolution of society.The trucks of today fulfill many job descriptions, but their usage is solidly defined in the human consciousness: a truck is not mistaken for any other type of vehicle. From its early use as “a cart for carrying heavy loads” to the modern “motor vehicle for carrying heavy loads,” the word “truck” definitively embodies the idea of moving goods—but the idea has come a long way.
Beautiful Sunset
Before motor trucks, railroads controlled inland transport of goods and services in the nineteenth century. The powerful railroad industry was the focus of technological innovation in an era when intermediate transportation needs were largely met by vehicles drawn by pack animals.The “flexibility of the horse” in transportation had no equal until self-propelled steam-powered vehicles began emerging, first in Europe and then in America, in the late eighteenth century.
Trucks are not just commercial motor vehicles. They have profound importance in the freight business, specifically in the trucking industry. For practical reason, there is no individual who wants to purchase trucks and trailers if he or she does not engage in a trucking business. A multibillion-dollar industry, the trucking business has a huge impact in the supply chain, in the economy, road transformation and in the employment aspect. It contributes a great portion in the US economy and is a very important link in the supply and demand activities.