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Lifestyle Trucker News

Tax credits for electric trucks, anti-idling

Idling comes from idle which means absence of motion. In the present case IDLING relates to a running engine that is powering a vehicle when it is not moving. An idling engine consumes only enough power to keep itself and its accessories running, therefore, producing no usable power to the drive train. On a school bus, the practice is actually beneficial to the engine during pre-route. It warms the engine and circulates the fluids, preventing the interaction of cold parts, reducing friction and maintaining maximum driving efficiency during route.

U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl recently introduced legislation to provide tax credits for buying hybrid, plug-in hybrid and electric trucks, and idling reduction devices.The Wisconsin Democrat’s bill, the Hybrid and Electric Trucks and Infrastructure Act, was referred to the finance committee with one co-sponsor.

The tax credits would include application to trucks with a gross vehicle weights in several classes, includes those with rating of more than 26,000 pounds and more than 33,000 pounds with a maximum credit of $24,000.The bill also creates a tax incentive of up to $3,500 for anti-idling infrastructure and anti-idling devices installed on trucks, which would expire before 2014. An example of this credit for infrastructure would apply to truck stops installing electrification units.

Finally, S.1285 would extend the tax credit for recharging and refueling infrastructure for plug-in and alternative fuel vehicles.Kohl introduced a similar bill in 2009, which was referred to committee with five co-sponsors.

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Carriers Lifestyle

Used truck sales, trailer orders drop

Used truck sales in all sales channels dropped about 15 percent in May from April, due to a lack of available inventory, according to ACT Research Co.

ACT also reported U.S. trailer net orders fell 9 percent in May from April, the second consecutive monthly decline for the industry. Despite that decline, commercial trailer backlogs grew 1 percent from April to 102,500 units.

New truck sales should help ease used truck supplies and pricing, said Steve Tam, ACT vice president-commercial vehicle. “Due to new truck buyers holding on to their equipment longer, used truck mileage continues to trend upward. Vehicle age and mileage are expected to increase throughout 2011,” Tam said.

ACT noted trailer build was up 87 percent from May 2010, while industry backlog was 122 percent higher for the same time period.

“The decline in net orders was actually in line with what would be expected from normal industry patterns,” said Frank Maly, director of CV Transportation Analysis and Research. “The order board continues to appear solid, as supported by extremely low order cancellations.”

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Lifestyle Trucker News

$5 million in DOT funds for North Dakota

The U.S. Department of Transportation on June 27 announced $5 million in emergency funds available to the North Dakota Department of Transportation to begin restoring federal-aid highways damaged by flooding.

Minot damage was just the latest in relentless flood events throughout the state caused by snow melt and heavy spring rains of unprecedented magnitude affecting at least 43 of the 53 counties throughout the state. In Minot, at least 10,000 people were evacuated as water began spilling over the town’s emergency levees.

The Souris River, which flows from Canada through north central North Dakota back into Canada, reached uncharted levels and inundated thousands of homes and businesses. Crews continue to work to protect homes and critical infrastructure.

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Trucker News

Congress eyes broker bill

For the second year running, Congress is considering a bill trucking and broker organizations say will mitigate unscrupulous broker practices.

On June 24, U.S. Rep. Frank Guinta (R-N.H.) introduced the “Fighting Fraud in Transportation Act,” after working on it with the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, American Trucking Associations and Transportation Intermediaries Association.

Todd Spencer, OOIDA executive vice president, said current law provides too much opportunity for fraud. “Too often, we’ve seen deceitful brokers get away with collecting payments from shippers, but cheating truckers out of what is rightfully theirs,” he said.

TIA, the third-party logistics association, said the federal broker bond requirement has been $10,000 since the mid-1980s. In recent years, some transportation associations pushed for requiring escrow accounts and upping bond to $500,000, while there was a Congressional move to demand brokers disclose profit margin on invoices.

The trucking and brokers industries compromised with a $100,000 bond requirement and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration Administrator would have the option of reconsidering that amount every five years.

The bill would demand the U.S. Department of Transportation establish an annual screening of registered motor carriers, brokers and freight forwarders and list only those with current operating authority.

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Lifestyle Newbies Trucker News

FMCSA plans driver onboard monitoring study

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration plans to assess commercial motor vehicle drivers’ responses about onboard monitoring systems via a questionnaire as part of a field test study.

FMCSA plans for 500 CMV drivers to participate in a questionnaire.

The goal of the questionnaire and study is to determine whether onboard monitoring and feedback will reduce at-risk behavior among CMV drivers and improve driver safety performance. The purpose of the questionnaire portion is to assess CMV drivers’ acceptance of onboard monitoring systems being evaluated in the study.

A series of four questionnaires will be conducted in the baseline (no feedback), intervention (receiving feedback) and withdrawal (no feedback) periods. These questionnaires will address the CMV drivers’ expectations, experiences and attitudes toward onboard monitoring systems and assess changes in their perception over the 18-month study period.

All study questionnaires will be available in both paper and electronic form. The results will be summarized and integrated into the rest of the larger study report that evaluates the effectiveness of onboard monitoring systems in improving safety and driver performance.

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Lifestyle Trucker News

Nevada bans all cell phone use while driving

Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval signed a new law June 17 that prohibits talking or texting on a cell phone while driving.

The law makes Nevada the 34th state to prohibit texting behind the wheel and the ninth to prohibit all handheld cell phone use while driving.

The new Nevada law makes it illegal to text or talk on a handheld cell phone while driving. Under the new law, violators face a fine of up to $100 for the first offense, up to $200 for the second offense and up to $250 for the third offense. In addition, third-time offenders also can have their driver licenses suspended. The law is due to become effective on Jan. 1, 2012; law enforcement officers will begin issuing warnings on Oct. 1.

With the addition of Nevada, 34 states, the District of Columbia and Guam have banned text messaging by all drivers. Nine states, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands have prohibited all handheld cell phone use while driving.

States that haven’t yet banned texting while driving are Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and West Virginia. Some localities in those states have passed their own distracted driving bans, but Florida, Mississippi, Nevada and Oklahoma prohibit localities from enacting such laws.

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Lifestyle Trucker News

EPA seeks SCR alert system

The Environmental Protection Agency has updated its guidance for certification of truck engines using selective catalytic reduction to reduce emissions, calling on SCR engine makers to develop warning systems that alert drivers when the truck’s diesel exhaust fluid tank is nearly empty or filled with a liquid other than DEF.

The new guidance, mostly in response to claims made by Navistar Inc. that SCR technology can be circumvented, also urged OEMs using SCR to research methods that would inhibit tampering with SCR system operation and incorporate further inducements for drivers to comply.

Concerns about SCR’s environmental compliance were brought to EPA’s attention by Navistar, which uses a competitive technology, exhaust gas recirculation, to meet EPA 2010 regulations. Navistar had sued both EPA and the California Air Resources Board over their acceptance of SCR technology without stronger measures to prevent engine operation without DEF or an operational SCR system. The truckmaker last year settled both lawsuits by garnering a commitment for further review.

Navistar representatives contended that independent test findings showed new commercial vehicles that must contain liquid urea to meet federal NOx emissions standards continued to operate effectively when urea was not present. At such times, Navistar said, the vehicles threw off levels of NOx as much as 10 times higher than when urea was present.

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Lifestyle

TIPS ON PUMPING GAS

I don’t know what you guys are paying for gasoline…. but here in California we are paying up to $3.75 to $4.10 per gallon. My line of work is in petroleum for about 31 years now, so here are some tricks to get more of your money’s worth for every gallon:

Here at the Kinder Morgan Pipeline where I work in San Jose , CA we deliver about 4 million gallons in a 24-hour period thru the pipeline.. One day is diesel the next day is jet fuel, and gasoline, regular and premium grades. We have 34-storage tanks here with a total capacity of 16,800,000 gallons.

Only buy or fill up your car or truck in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground. The colder the ground the more dense the gasoline, when it gets warmer gasoline expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening….your gallon is not exactly a gallon. In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and the temperature of the gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products plays an important role.

A 1-degree rise in temperature is a big deal for this business. But the service stations do not have temperature compensation at the pumps. When you’re filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to a fast mode If you look you will see that the trigger has three (3) stages: low, middle, and high. You should be pumping on low mode, thereby
minimizing the vapors that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the pump have a vapor return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some of the liquid that goes to your tank becomes vapor. Those vapors are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you’re getting less worth for your money.

One of the most important tips is to fill up when your gas tank is HALF FULL. The reason for this is the more gas you have in your tank the less air occupying its empty space. Gasoline evaporates faster than you can imagine. Gasoline storage tanks have an internal floating roof. This roof serves as zero clearance between the gas and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation. Unlike service stations, here where I work, every truck that we load is temperature compensated so that every gallon is actually the exact amount.

Another reminder, if there is a gasoline truck pumping into the storage tanks when you stop to buy gas, DO NOT fill up; most likely the gasoline is being stirred up as the gas is being delivered, and you might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles on the bottom.

To have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of gas buyers. It’s really simple to do.

I’m sending this note to about thirty people. If each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)… and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers !!!!!!! If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted!

If It goes one level further, you guessed it….. THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. How long would it take?

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Lifestyle Trucker News

Shippers’ lot improves

Shipping has multiple meanings. It can be a physical process of transporting goods and cargo, by land, air, and sea. It also can describe the movement of objects by ship.

FTR Associates on June 14 reported a significant reversal in its Shippers’ Condition Index from the prior month.

FTR says the healthier environment for shippers is due to a slowdown in freight demand growth thanks to the current lull in economic activity, as well as further delays in implementing new federal trucking regulations.

The SCI sums up all market influences that affect shippers. Larry Gross, FTR senior consultant, said the current “soft spot” in the recovery is providing some breathing room for shippers as the growth in freight has slowed.

“At the same time, we have moved back our forecasts for regulation-based tightening of the supply of trucks, as the federal government has delayed the implementation of new driver regulations,” Gross said. “This is a temporary respite in our view.”

Gross sees the SCI starting to deteriorate once again as the economy begins to re accelerate later this year. As the new trucking regulations begin to kick in, shipping costs will increase through 2012, with transport costs such as fuel, equipment and labor rising faster than the general rate of inflation, he forecasts.

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Business Lifestyle

Groups push for safer trucks

The American Trucking Associations and the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association on June 8 called on the federal government to begin researching how standards for crashworthiness for heavy trucks could benefit truck drivers.

“NHTSA has continuously developed crashworthiness standards for automobiles and light trucks, but to date has generally not applied crashworthiness standards to commercial trucks,” the two groups wrote in a June 6 letter to David Strickland, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. “We believe there may be opportunities to enhance the survivability of professional truck drivers if appropriate, research-based uniform standards are developed.”

Specifically, ATA and OOIDA highlighted the need for improving cab structure and occupant restraints such as safety belts and airbags, strengthening windshields and doors to prevent occupant ejections, and installing more forgiving interior surfaces. “Our organizations believe that improvements in truck occupant safety can be achieved,” the letter concluded.

“Making our highways safer, especially for our drivers, is one of ATA’s highest priorities,” said Bill Graves, ATA president and chief executive officer.

Todd Spencer, OOIDA executive vice president, said his group is “more than glad to join ATA in making this request to hold the safety of professional truck drivers to as high a standard as all other motor vehicle users.”