Tag: carriers

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Newbies

Trucking Salaries

When you are just entering into the trucking industry, you are going to have to “pay your dues” so to speak. The most important factor is getting that one year of driving experience under your belt. After this, you will be able to find enhanced trucking companies offering higher truck driver pay. Once that first year of driving is completed, better trucking job opportunities will open up for you. Depending on many factors such as: the state of the economy, the number of years you have been driving, your safety record, you’re on time record, etc… You will eventually be able to move to a better truck driving job, Just in case the trucking company you are with is not working out (when you first start out, this may be the case.)

Experienced and Time will PAY

Just remember that you will see and hear about those driver jobs paying $100,000 per year…you will be told that you can make $50,000 to $85,000 per year driving a truck and be home every night…and these facts can be true. However, just know that these higher paying truck driving jobs are more difficult to come by, and they are not the trucking jobs that happen over night. To have one of these better paying truck driver jobs takes time, experience and skill. Also, you can imagine that not too many truck drivers quit these types of trucking jobs. You can make very good money in the trucking industry. Just be realistic and do not let anyone set your goals too high.,,,TOO EARLY. You will have to “pay your dues” and build up your experience and driving skills.

Categories
Lifestyle

DRUNK DRIVING

Drunk driving is the act of operating or driving a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol and or drugs to the degree that mental and motor skills are impaired. Holidays are some of the most dangerous times of the year on the road. Two to three times more people die in alcohol-related crashes on U.S. roads during Christmas and New Year’s than over comparable periods of time during the rest of the year, according to the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Holidays should be a time to spend with loved ones, not bury them.

BE SAFE!
Every single injury and death caused by drunk driving is totally preventable. Although the proportion of crashes that are alcohol-related has dropped dramatically in recent decades, there are still far too many such preventable accidents. Most drivers who have had something to drink have low blood alcohol content or concentration (BAC) and few are involved in fatal crashes. On the other hand, while only a few drivers have BACs higher than .15, a much higher proportion of those drivers have fatal crashes. Drunk driving, like most other social problems, resists simple solutions.

However, there are a number of actions, each of which can contribute toward a reduction of the problem just remember the three letter “D” “Don’t Drive Drunk“.

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Trucker News

Diesel Drops

Since falling the week of Nov. 29, the price had increased 74.5 cents over 15 straight weeks of gains. The national average price is 96.1 cents higher than the same week last year. For the first time since late November, the national average retail price of diesel dipped 0.1-cent to $3.907 a gallon during the week ended March 21, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration.Since falling the week of Nov. 29, the price had increased 74.5 cents over 15 straight weeks of gains. The national average price is 96.1 cents higher than the same week last year.

Diesel
Although the national price slipped a bit, prices in some regions continued to escalate. Prices increased 3.7 cents in the Rocky Mountain region, 1.3 cents on the West Coast (exclusive of California) and 2.9 cents in California, the most expensive area at $4.199. The New England price also gained 0.6-cent.Oil slipped under $100 a barrel last week for the first time since March 1, following demand downturns after Japan’s big earthquake on March 11.Crude rose $1.26 Monday to finish the New York Mercantile Exchange trading day at $102.33 a barrel — the highest closing price since March 10 — following U.S. and allied military strikes against Libya, an OPEC oil producer, over the weekend, Bloomberg reported.Each week, DOE surveys about 350 diesel filling stations to compile a national snapshot average price.For state-by-state diesel prices, updated daily, click here.

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Trucker News

How to become Owner Operator?

Owner operators are those individuals, fleet operators, ship organizations that own and operate commercial vehicles themselves.Being an owner-operator has many advantages. It puts you in charge of your truck-driving career. Your truck your choices of where and when to go and what to haul. But it is also more difficult: you have to keep your truck running, find jobs,cover all of your expenses yourself, there is no carrier to do it for you.

OWNER OPERATOR
You long for the life of the open road, sitting behind the wheel of your truck, driving across the country hauling loads far and wide. But you want more than to be just a driver for a carrier, you want to be your own boss, and make your own decisions. Being an owner-operator can have many advantages over driving for a carrier. Owner-operators can make quite a bit more money than they would drive for a company. Many successful owner-operators even go on to buy more trucks and hire their own drivers as well, creating their own fleets.
OWNER OPERATOR
Because you don’t just have a job, you have your own business; you also have to pay for many things that normally a carrier would pay for: health coverage, dental coverage, truck insurance, life insurance, workman’s compensation, etc.Being an owner-operator is a very involved business, far more so than driving a truck. If you want to become an owner-operator, the most important thing is: be prepared. Before you make the step into the world of owning and operating your own truck, make sure that you know what you’re doing. You might be a great driver, but in order to succeed you also have to be a good businessman.

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Trucker News

Shippers Top Priority for Carrier Leaders

The unifying theme of a wide-ranging discussion among several chief executives at the Truckload Carriers Association conference this week was that trucking needs to make sure its customers have a clear understanding of the challenges the industry now faces.Shippers need to be as familiar as carriers are with the complexities of the driver shortage, industry costs, inflation and fuel prices, said the presidents of Swift Transportation, Knight Transportation and Prime, Inc. Talking about the coming driver shortage, Robert Low of Prime said that it is hard for shippers to understand but the truth is that drivers are not making enough money to reward them for their sacrifices.

SHIPPER
That’s in part because shippers are used to the truckload sector’s ad hoc business model, which makes for efficient trucking but is hard on the driver, he said. Over the past several years the industry has not made much progress on this issue because with business down there was not much need to. That’s going to change this year, he said. “It bodes well for rates but we need drivers.”Richard Stocking of Swift echoed the point: “The burden is on the industry to educate the shipper,” he said.

SHIPPER
One tactic Swift has adopted is to bring in unemployed workers for training to get a CDL and then indoctrination into the company as drivers. The average age of those novice drivers, by the way, is 43. “We’re not growing kids to be truck drivers,” Stocking said.Stocking stressed that it is important to create a driver-friendly environment. “(Drivers) have the hardest job out there and we owe them a lot of respect,” he said. Another Swift tactic is to start assigning several drivers to a single truck, so that it’s easier to schedule time off.Kevin Knight of Knight Transportation said that because his company has always hired experienced drivers, the recruiting job is getting more challenging. In preparation, the company a couple of years ago started a training business that takes on CDL holders and integrates them into the business, as a supplement to its recruiting efforts.Knight returned to his core message: “We need to work with customers to make them understand that this industry needs reinvestment. It is a difficult mission but if all speak loud and clear there’s a great opportunity that we will have breakthrough.”

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Trucker News

Trucker pleads guilty to theft through Gov’t Fuel Cards

A trucker faces sentencing July 8 after pleading guilty to using fuel cards without authorization to steal more than $300,000 from the U.S. Postal Service. On March 11, Vincenzo Bender, 36, of Collings Lakes, N.J., entered a guilty plea to one count of theft of government property before U.S. District Judge Joseph E. Irenas in Camden, N.J.

FUEL CARD SCHEME
The USPS contracts with trucking companies for long haul delivery of mail, including with a trucking company that employed Bender. The USPS gave special fuel credit cards called “Voyager cards” to the company, which its drivers were to use to buy fuel for trucks used to transport the mail. The USPS was billed directly for all charges incurred.Bender admitted that from November 2005 to October 2008, he used the cards to make numerous unauthorized purchases of fuel for his personal use, including for a side towing business and to sell to others at a discounted price. Bender used a number of cards – issued to trucks he drove and to trucks operated by other drivers – and visited multiple gas stations, often hear his home. As part of the scheme, Bender installed a large rubber bladder in his personal truck which held approximately 100 gallons of fuel.
FUEL CARD FRAUD
The theft of government property charge to which Bender pleaded guilty carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000, or twice the amount of loss caused by his offense. In addition, Bender agreed to pay restitution of $335,972.U.S. Attorney Fishman credited special agents of USPS, Office of Inspector General, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Elizabeth Farcht, Eastern Area Field Office, for the investigation leading to today’s guilty plea.

Categories
Lifestyle

Touching Reality of a Trucker Driver

Truck drivers are a unique group of people, a group of men and women from all races and religions. The one thing that they have in common is that they spend their days and nights driving the highways of the world. There are drivers that only drive close to their home town, which allows them to be home with their families most nights. Truck drivers today have cell phones, computers, and nice sleeping quarters in their trucks. This makes their days a little more comfortable. The truth is they still spend the majority of their time alone.Unfortunately this technology does not make it possible for them to hug their spouse and kids before they lay down to sleep each night.

REALITY LIFE
Woman who is married to a truck driver doesn’t have the luxury of having her husband physically available to help with maintaining the household, and more important, he often isn’t available when needed in the most critical times.Loneliness is just one aspect of a truck driver’s life; they also deal with a heavy stress load. They pull large heavy trailers through bumper to bumper traffic, sitting for hours in traffic jams, as well as driving in terrible weather conditions in order to make a delivery deadline. They deal with irate customers because a load is an hour late due to a wreck that had the highway shut down. So the next time you are sitting at a traffic light grumbling about how slow the truck in front of you is moving, please remember that the driver of that truck makes it possible for you to have access to most of the things that you have around you. Remember that driver might have been away from his family for weeks or months, so instead of grumbling or making mean gestures, smile and wave. You might just make their day, and let them know that the unconventional and lonely life that they lead is appreciated.

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Lifestyle

Who do you think is worst? Men or Women drivers?

Women always point out that they are more scrupulous, while men boast about their reaction quickness. Women and men are very different. And our driving habits make this evident. At some things men are more successful , at some – women. In this lens I am going to analyze and compare female and male driving from various aspects.

In addition to the one-third of men living in fear of the passenger seat, one-fifth said they’d literally grip the seat cushion due to their anxiety. (Fraidy cats!) And, of course, a large majority boasted the superiority of their own driving prowess over their spouse’s.

Women VS. Men Drivers
Yes we are! Sorry ladies but it’s not because that we feel that you are better drivers than us, but our main fear stems from the fact that we know deep down inside, that women might lose control in any moment and get involved in an accident.When a woman panics behind the wheel, they usually do the opposite of trying to avoid the accident. They either slam the gas, let go of their steering wheel or just scream with their eyes closed. So now that’s out of the way, women, does this sound accurate? What are some of your most harrowing moments driving at the wheel? Ladies, is this total BS and guys are just too controlling in the car?

Categories
Trucker News

How to become a driver in complete package?

If it seems as if more and more big and small rigs fill the highways every year, it’s not just your imagination – over 3 million Americans drive trucks for a living.

Most of us while driving tend to drive subconsciously while we are engrossed in our other tasks like field phone calls, chat, eat or drink. The most crucial and the most important step of safe driving is ‘paying attention’. Now don’t try and fool yourself with those counter points of your saying ‘no, we pay attention’ but the truth is you don’t. If you want to talk, then go park the car and talk. What’s the matter with parking and taking your call? But we don’t get that point until we ourselves get into the worst situation.

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DRIVES BADLY

1) Everyone else drives badly– if you assume everyone else is going to be doing something dangerous, then the chances are that you will be more prepared when someone does.
2)Open your eyes– read signs around you, watch people other than just in front of you, and keep an eye on the road.
3)Keep a good distance from the driver in front – if you give yourself some space, then you also buy yourself time.

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FOCUS

4)Use your seat belt – seems like a bit of a no brainer but studies show that people tend to have accidents closer to their houses, which means that that pint of milk may be more dangerous than you think.
5)Don’t fight – just be calm. If someone cuts you up, ignore them, don’t flash your lights madly or tailgate them. It’s not courteous, and will invariably end up with trouble.
All in all, be cautious of other drivers. To keep your no claims bonus on your Car Insurance, you want to avoid accidents at all costs.

Categories
Lifestyle

Importance of Transportation to Industry

Freight transportation is a very important need of every business these days. In fact this is the backbone of several industries and business. One cannot deny its importance in any respect. Although freight transportation depends upon three main modes of transportation Air Cargo, Railways and Road Transport (involving trucks), but trucks remain the major contributor of all time.
Different Roles of Trucking Companies
Trucking companies play an important role in moving freights from one place of country to another. For agro businesses and several small, medium and large industries these trucking companies are lifeline. Its impact can be felt in case of trucking companies’ strikes when the prices of all commodities go up.

Trucking Business
Importance of Trucks for Industries
Importance of Trucks for Industries – Every industry needs raw materials and fuels to keep their operations smooth. To keep their output rate intact, they need proper supply of both raw materials as well as fuels to induce their production in provocative manners. To serve this need they have to maintain the flow of raw materials and fuels regularly, trucking companies help these industries in maintaining required flow. At the end of production process, trucking companies also help industries to transport their end product to their end customers. Thus, trucking companies are of great help to industries in both pre and post production operations.
Trucking Business
Importance of Trucks in Agro Business
Importance of Trucks in Agro Business-Trucking companies are among one of the most vital factors for the success and failures of agriculture and other agro businesses. Right from the transportation of seeds, fertilizers and required machinery for agriculture, to the transportation of final products and by-products of agriculture, trucking companies help farmers and other people associated with agriculture based businesses or small industries.
Truckgif Pictures, Images and Photos
Trucking Business
Trucking Needs of Common Man
Trucking Needs of Common Man – Not only industries and business but also common man needs services of trucking companies at several point of time. People need services of trucking companies in home construction, transportation of their furniture and other home stuff in case of shifting to some other places. Even some business entities like packers and movers are completely dependent on trucking companies for all their operations.Thus, we can easily figure out how important trucking companies for everyone are. In first look, not everybody can understand its importance directly, but after an observation everyone can figure out the involvement of trucking companies.