Category: Trucker News

Truck drivers drop off goods at all times of the year. Whether the temperature gets hot or stays cold for a number of months, truck drivers must deliver products on time or run the risk of losing their jobs. However, with the assistance of a trucking dispatcher who knows how to help his drivers stay on schedule, the job of a truck driver gets a bit less difficult.

Get the schooling you need to become a trucking dispatcher. According to O*net online, those who hope to hold this position need to at least have their high school diploma. The bulk of the knowledge you gain to be a trucking dispatcher comes when you mirror the good habits of successful truck dispatchers who have years of experience in the industry.

Write down the things you see good truck dispatchers do while on the job. Though it takes time to learn how to become a good dispatcher, focus on the main duties of your job and tackle them one area at a time. You need to learn how to schedule the drop-offs of various products such as packages, animals and furniture to companies and homes, and send people out to fix items like freezers, washers and dryers. You may also have to let your truckers know about alternate routes to take depending on the amount of traffic in a given area. Among the tools that make the life of a dispatcher easier, are GPS (Global Positioning System) devices and database programs to keep everything organized and on schedule.

React well to pressure. If you want to be a trucking dispatcher, you need to learn how to perform well under pressure. For instance, if a truck driver that you guide needs to get to a certain location by 6 p.m. to make a delivery, focus on getting him there in the quickest manner possible. Give him the directions he needs, help him to avoid routes with too much traffic and stay in constant communication with him on your two-way radio while you speak in a calm, collected manner.

Jobs that pay you in cash or allow you to make extra money in cash tips can provide you with a sense of freedom. Walking away from a job each and every day with cash in your pocket gives you immediate access to your money if you need it. Driving jobs that pay cash typically allow you to make most of your cash through tips, although some jobs may require you to become an independent contractor.

Pizza Delivery
Pizza delivery is a popular job choice among many high school students because it allows them to make some extra spending cash on a daily basis. Many adults have likewise realized the benefits of pizza delivery as a way to generate regular cash. Pizza delivery drivers typically make an hourly wage and obtain the rest of their money through cash tips. Some companies will reimburse you for mileage also. According to Payscale.com, pizza delivery drivers made an hourly wage of between $6.31 and $7.76 in October 2010, while taking home an additional $2.45 to $6.00 per hour in cash tips.

Chauffeurs and Taxi Drivers
Chauffeurs also make cash tips as part of their compensation. Most chauffeurs work for limousine companies and are hired to drive others around to their chosen destinations. Chauffeurs often work during special events like concerts and may find themselves driving around celebrities or other well-to-do individuals. They also work other events like high school proms. Taxi drivers do much of the same in their jobs, except they typically drive sedans or minivans instead of limousines. Taxi drivers pick up passengers from places like airports or hotels and usually transport them a short distance. Taxi drivers tend to be more common in large urban areas where public transportation is commonly used as an alternative to private transportation. According to Payscale.com, chauffeurs and taxi drivers made an hourly wage of $9.28 to $14.45 in October 2010, while pulling in an additional $2.46 to $6.36 per hour in cash tips.

Urban Paper Route
Another cash-paying job involves delivering newspapers. In large cities, many people buy the morning newspaper on their way to work each morning from newspaper dispensing machines in which they deposit coins in exchange for the newspaper. Some newspaper delivery drivers have routes that consist almost exclusively of these types of machines. Some may also deliver to businesses like convenience stores. Depending on the newspaper’s circulation, these newspaper delivery drivers may collect cash in the form of coins from their dispensers each day. In some cases, collection may occur less frequently. It is difficult to estimate what percentage of pay received by newspaper delivery drivers is in the form of cash since each paper route is different. Payscale.com reports that the total average annual compensation for delivery drivers was $18,322 to $31,074 in October 2010.

A Mid-Michigan towing company is fighting breast cancer in an eye-catching way.

“The looks and staring, you don’t realize why they’re staring at you until you think about it twice and then you realize you’re in a giant pink truck. It’s kind of an eye catcher,” said Raymond Darabos, driver for Tim’s Towing. Her name is Lady Luck and she brings out the softer side of the men who work at Tim’s Towing in Linwood.

“You have green and yellow trucks then you drive a pink truck. It’s a lot different,” Darabos said.

Lady Luck is a true diamond in the rough story. Her good looks were hidden beneath a coating of rust and disrepair – before the guys at Tim’s spent weeks transforming her into the vibrant pink truck you see today.

“We actually mixed our own color of paint for it. Lady Luck pink and painted everything on it,” said Matthew Ballor of Tim’s Towing.

The inspiration came from Ballor’s grandmother. She battled and survived breast cancer before losing her life to a different cancer later on.

“She went through the whole fight. She was a tough lady. She’d love it. She’d probably want to take a ride in it,” Ballor said.

In honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month, 10 percent of the proceeds from every call Lady Luck goes on will be donated to Making Strides for Breast Cancer.

It’s an effort close to driver Darabos’ heart, too. “I have family that have survived and lost breast cancer, so it kind of relates to me also,” he said.

“Once we bring it out there you just hear all these stories how it affected their families. Even themselves just hearing their stories, you’d like to think it helps a customer,” Ballor said.

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The traffic case of the driver of a sod truck involved in the fatal school bus accident on March 26 is scheduled to go before a county judge at 1:30 p.m. Monday at the St. Lucie County Courthouse.The bus driver, Albert Hazen, of Port St. Lucie, was cited for being at fault in the accident. Hazen was fined $1,000 and his license was suspended for six months for failing to yield while making a left turn onto Midway Road, from Okeechobee Road.As he turned, the sod truck hit the school bus.

The Florida Highway Patrol wrote up truck driver Charles Cooper, 24, of Virginia, for technical violations: not properly filing out a state-required trip travel log. And the truck brakes needed adjustment, according to an FHP accident report. However the report said that didn’t contribute to the collision.Cooper’s case goes before County Judge Philip Yacucci. Cooper is represented by a private attorney.The parents of a student killed in the accident, Aaron Beauchamp, have filed a lawsuit against Cooper and the company he worked for, Cypress Truck Lines.

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The small group of trucking companies that agitated for mandatory electronic onboard recorders in the recent highway bill is on a mission to apply the same laser focus to a half-dozen additional safety initiatives, including mandatory speed limiters and improvements to drug and alcohol testing.
“I didn’t feel that there was any other issue, ever, probably within my lifetime in trucking, that was more important to get done and get done as soon as possible than to get an EOBR mandate,” said Steve Williams, chairman of the eight-member Alliance for Driver Safety & Security, known for short as The Trucking Alliance.Williams, chairman and CEO of Arkansas-based truckload carrier Maverick Transportation, helped launch the group in 2010 for the sole purpose of getting Congress to pass the mandate. The alliance was motivated not just by their shared commitment to the mandate, but also by frustration with the regular order of trucking business on Capitol Hill, which they found too slow and tenuous.Now that recorders are the law – the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has one year to finish the rule and three years to put it into effect – the alliance is doubling down.

Its agenda for the next two-year congressional cycle is to promote hair testing for drugs, creation of a drug and alcohol clearinghouse, mandatory speed limiters, higher financial requirements for would-be truckers and consideration of alternative compliance methods for determining safety fitness.None of these issues is new. Some of them already have been proposed as rules. And all are on the safety agenda of the American Trucking Associations.But the Alliance intends to push them using a new business model for truck lobbying, a model created out of impatience with the style of representation that ATA brings to Washington.

ATA is a federation of state trucking associations and operating groups such as the Truckload Carriers Association, as well as its trucking company members. The policy agenda that ATA’s professional staff carries to Congress and the regulatory agencies is shaped in a committee process that reflects the interests of the broad-based federation.Williams, a former chairman of ATA and current chair of the association’s research arm, the American Transportation Research Institute, was not satisfied with how onboard recorders fared in this process.
“ATA has to lobby a laundry list of issues that are collectively important to everyone but have different levels of importance to different factions within the industry,” he said.

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A full-time truck driver at the port, Mark Whetstine, said the number of trucking jobs being counted at the port is seriously inflated.Port executives claimed 1,363 trucking jobs before Hurricane Katrina, in an action plan submitted to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for grant money being used to create jobs. Trucking jobs were included under the category “others” in the port’s post-Katrina job numbers. The port listed 812 jobs under “others.”

The most recent job numbers lump in truckers with vendors, with a total of 602 jobs listed in that category Whetstine estimates 10 to 15 trucks work the port daily, with other truck drivers in and out for shorter periods of time. Most of those drivers do not live on the Coast, Whetstine said, or even in Mississippi. If they were not hauling cheese from Gulfport to New Orleans, they would be hauling some other load for one of the big, out-of-state trucking firms that do business at the port.
“What do they consider a trucking job?” he said. “That’s the thing.”

Only a few of the trucking companies that work out of the port are based in Mississippi.Colonial Freight Systems, a Gulfport company, has 25 to 30 drivers who serve the port. “That’s our bread and butter,” said Colonial agent Susan McBride. She said eight of her drivers live in one of the six Coastal counties, and the others are scattered along the route.Fayard Fast Freight, also based in Gulfport, has 10 to 15 drivers who work locally, including at the port, transportation director Jerry Talton said.

He said two to three drivers a day usually work a full day at the port, depending on whether a ship is docked.If the port plans to count hundreds of truck-driving jobs as part of the total jobs its expanded West Pier will create, there could be a problem.According to HUD, out-of-state truckers would not meet the economic-benefit requirements, tied to the federal funding, for job creation on the Coast.

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Boston Police officers arrested a North Attleboro man in Dorchester Saturday night on drunk driving charges, after the man sprayed cologne into his mouth, presumably to cover up the smell of alcohol.

A man driving a gray vehicle struck a parked Boston Water and Sewer dump truck just before 8:30 p.m. Saturday night near the intersection of Dudley and Belden streets, police said. The truck driver went to the vehicle to get the driver’s information, but the driver fell asleep during the conversation, according to police reports.At one point, the man attempted to drive away, but was unable to leave because of the damage to his car, police said.

The truck driver told officers that he saw the man spray cologne into his mouth, presumably to mask the smell of alcohol. When Boston Police arrived, officers also saw the man spraying cologne on his body, according to a report.Officers said that in addition to bloodshot eyes and a lack of balance, the man’s breath smelled like alcohol. Officers arrested Hoi Ngo, 40, on charges of operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol.

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The National Mining Association’s (NMA) quadrennial exposition, MINExpo INTERNATIONAL® 2012 rolls into the Las Vegas Convention Center September 24-26, 2012, featuring fascinating visuals you will see nowhere else. The sheer size and scope of this industry are illustrated by some of the largest trucks and equipment in the world on the showroom floor. This equipment is so oversized that it must be shipped in pieces and assembled on-site weeks in advance.The Caterpillar Electro-motive Diesel (EMD) SD70ACE Locomotive — The first heavy haul locomotive to be displayed at MINExpo is designed specially to bring minerals to market. It weighs 420,000 pounds, or 210 tons, and is powered by a diesel electric motor that can get more than 600 miles to the gallon.The Liebherr T284 Mining Truck — This massive truck, designed to haul material to processing centers, weighs 261 tons and is over 51 feet tall. The trucks tires alone are over 12 feet tall.

MINExpo is the mining industry’s premier exhibition of equipment, technology and services. Once again, the 2012 show will break its own previous record for size and number of exhibitors. It will cover the entire Las Vegas Convention Center for a total of 860,000 square feet of exhibition space.The show is 42 percent bigger than the 2008 exhibition. Exhibitors will cover 12 halls as well as outdoor space at the Convention Center and, for the first time, the show will extend to the South Halls, where full registration and shuttle service will be available. More than 1,800 exhibitors from the U.S. and 35 countries are expected—a 40 percent increase over the prior show. MINExpo covers the mining industry gamut, from excavating, materials handling and haulage, processing and preparation, drilling, and safety equipment—to computer technologies, replacement parts and engineering, construction, mining, and reclamation services—all in one place.

To maximize time and efficiency at the show, attendees can indicate the products that interest them, and a list of exhibitors that match those interests will be emailed. An expanded online product directory will also be available, as well as a new mobile app. Pavilions from Australia, Canada, Chile, China and Germany are scheduled and information on joining delegations from from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Honduras, India, Mexico, Mongolia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Slovak Republic, Sweden and Ukraine is available at www.minexpo.org. The International Business Center, an escalator ride above the main entrance to the show, will provide translators, private meeting rooms, a lounge area and a complimentary copy of MINExpo INTERNATIONAL® 2012 Export Assistance Directory. The U.S. Department of Commerce will also have trade experts on hand to answer trade-related questions and to assist with exhibitor contacts.

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