Tag: Truck Driver Jobs

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Trucker News

Vehicle Maintenance – A Necessity for Truck Drivers

As per the new safety program introduced under CSA 2010 by FMCSA, the vehicle maintenance is a must and the most important risk factor associated with the fleets. In this line Rair, a carrier risk safety management company has issued a report to compare the safety measures introduced by CSA and the older SafeStat reports. As per the information released by CSA the larger fleets that are under the maintenance violation risk are 10-15%. The smaller fleet sizes are comparatively very high in ratio for the violation of maintenance regulations. Now with the open CSA reports, the fleet owners can simply see the scores to find out where they are lacking. Despite of all the sources and information available there is BASIC’s violation.

What steps should be taken to get the bare minimum maintenance level for the fleets:
Driver Vehicle Inspection Report (DVIR): According to the Rair president, DVIR should performed everyday and recorded on the form by the truck drivers, may it be a hotshot, reefer or flatbed drivers. To carry out the task effectively and to tackle the issue in case any problem is identified the driver should be trained to do so. In present day scenario DVIR reporting is thought of as another paper work on which the driver and trucking company manages simply put their signature. In such cases, when the vehicle is inspected on the road many maintenance problems come into picture which then become the maintenance violation and are penalized .
The maintenance does not only mean the repair of any non-performing part but it should be done before and after every shipment is done by the fleet. The details of the regulations are specified in CFR title no 49 under the parts 393 and 396. The DWS Fleet Services president Darry Stuart lays emphasis on the importance of CSA 2010 maintenance BASIC.
Check our load board blog posts for more articles on CSA2010 regulations.
Before the driver starts for the shipment of loads available the driver vehicle inspection report (DVIR) and the vehicle condition report (VCR) should be carefully made. The report should cover the crucial aspects of the fleet maintenance such as the checking of steering, parking brake, lights and reflectors, service brakes, trailer brakes, horn, mirrors, windshield wipers, tires, rims, wheels and emergency tool kit.
If the truck driver job regarding the correct reporting of DVIR is performed well then their CSA rating will improve and the regular maintenance will not pose them any big maintenance issue. However if they do not follow the regulations then their business is likely to get affected both due to the bad rating as well as the delay in delivery as the under maintained truck will be first sent back to cover up all the maintenance required. The best solution to this situation is to perform a detailed post trip evaluation and make the truck ready for next dispatch then to do a pre-trip evaluation and postpone the dispatch in case of any fault.

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Carriers

How to Get the Best of your Reefer Truck

Driving a refrigerated truck is a work of its own kind. This work, though seeming similar, has a lot of technical differentiation from other work.  It takes a very experienced trucker to drive a reefer truck. This fact makes this work very unique. In this article I will discuss about the ways to get the best from your reefer truck. Driving reefer truck is the most hectic among truck driving jobs. Reefer drivers have to go through a lot of tough conditions then a normal truck driver.

The loads available of different kind must be transported in the containers of different size. For the fruits and vegetables any size is good to go but if you want to opt for some other stuff to transport like some scientific and research material then the reefer driver must understand the responsibilities related to this and the proper procedure must be opted.

Reefer trucking

For reefer drivers, it is very important to stabilize the temperature during the trucking. A swing more than 5 or 10 degree can waste the purpose of the transportation.  One have to cope with all the facts including the insulation cost and the maintaining the swing value very low. Ambient value with proper aging and condition is very important in the transportation. If you fail to manipulate all the factors involved the operation will not be economical and you will not earn enough money as desired.

Maintaining all the mentioned factor during a constant and continuous run is also an important factor. There are several other issues too which must be properly addressed in a reefer trucking job too. These factors include the temperature and the capacity of the shipment.  The capacity varies with the initial investment made. An optimum relation must be maintained between the initial investment and the capacity so that the maximum possible profit is obtained during the operation without financial load on the driver.

Check our loadboard for more interesting articles like this.

The driver must consider every factor related to the particular run. The client might ask different type of service in different projects. The reefer driver must ask the question from himself that what is the possible benefit of this operation are and whether he will be able to successfully handle the job or not. In this scenario another factor of the trailer size also comes into the play. The type of job is highly dependent over the trailer size.

Here I am discussing few bullet points to suggest the optimum use of reefer truck for any trucking company:

1.       Perform all the operation in the proper way to save yourself from the wastage of time and make the maximum use of your resources

2.       You must not run the units if the doors are open because it is simply the waste of power and the effort.

3.       Use the max value of possible insulation to reduce losses because it may make the initial cost high but later it will be very useful for saving the cost of maintaining temperature.

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Business

Insurance and Trucking Industry

Insurance is the thing which is necessary in every field, whatever the case; it may be your personal insurance, car insurance, family insurance and house insurance. Insurance may be look burden in the initial time when you are paying its installments but at the time you have some problem in insurance thing then in that case you will feel that how important role insurance can play. Suppose you are paying installments for your truck from last one year than in that case you will feel burden of insurance over you but let your car is stolen by someone or accident then you can claim your whole loss and in that case you will feel importance of insurance.
Importance of the insurance increases if you are in the industry of something which involve high risk and one of the common examples of this type is trucking industry with high truck loads available. As generally covers large distance or loaded by tones of goods so it may have problem anytime and if you have its right type of insurance then you can claim whole money every time you have problem. As truck travels in the night time generally so chances of the accidents increases, in that case also if you have third party insurance then you will have full claim.

Legal issues related to trucking insurance:
Now a day insurance of the truck and other vehicle is must just after you purchase your new vehicle or truck otherwise you can be thttp://findfreightloads.com/blog/wp-admin/post-new.phphe victim of laws. You can take help of any insurance company for your insurance but before that always check the background of that company. Does it pay a full claim to its customers or not, how much time it takes to pay your claim, otherwise once you have insurance then you can do nothing. Use an advice of the industry expert to be safe. Many load boards feature different insurance companies and their covers.

Primary Liability Insurance:
This type of insurance is must for the owner operator job; this insurance covers all types of accidents and takes care of the claims related to the injuries of your driver or other related person on the truck at the time of accident. The insurance cost varies and depends on the type of the truck means size and initial cost of the truck. It should be in the range of $70000 to $80000. Always keep in mind that your insurance should always be legal otherwise the other party lawyer may file sue against you. It is really going to affect drivers’ employment.

General Liability Insurance:
This type of insurance take care of the trucking companies, whatever loss you will have to your truck in the accidents, you can claim for that. It care about all types of accidents whether it is on the road, parking lots, some halt during the journey and such type of accidents. The cost of this type of insurance is generally higher than the previous one as the money involved in the claim may be very large and sometimes it may be equal to the cost of the truck.

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Owner Operators Trucker News

Owner Operator Jobs Affected by Fuel Price Rise

The rate of diesel fuel is rising constantly and they are at their highest with almost dollar 3.25 per gallon. But according to the department of energy the situation is not that bad yet. The prices could be as high as almost 5 dollars per gallon as they were in summer of 08. But still the price is highest of last one year.
The lowermost price for diesel oil charges in 10 was Jan, 4 at $2.7, thus there was almost 18% increase in consumption. In my point of assessment, we’re beholding for equal mechanism to take place in diesel oil rates in 11. That will provide all of us rate of $3.9. I do not see whether it would become that much problem, but still let us stare what’s fronting all of us in diesel oil rates in 11.

* China’s boom continues
* Account ranks goes down continuously
* Economy lingers to improve mist, which would upsurge trucking claim
* Congress is about to make increase in tax over the fuel prices
* Increase in the consumption of oil all over the world

Let us yield a stare at every of such problems, and you will soon realize the base of the problem which empowers everything. Considering all these issues it is sure that the prices will go high in 11. The only thing to look is this that wills the prices go as high as summer of 08 or not. The only thing that can save us from that is the strong govt. policies and that are already going against the prices, which makes sure that the prices will go high, making it difficult to truck diving jobs.

Reasons of high diesel oil price
China and India are such a topic which is going to affect this issue very much. All the people in these countries are going to ride in motorizes bikes and cars leaving the bullock carts and pulling carts behind. The high population of almost 2.5 billion is certain to take a huge amount of oil which makes the consumption high making the demand high and thus making the prices in here very much high. Check our load board for more articles affecting the available loads and owner operator jobs.
Apart from this the fuel needs of the army are also increasing and a lot of oil is going into reserves making the demand even high which makes the prices more up surging. So you must be sure about the increase in price of the oil in America.
The only thing which can stop this from happening is the govt. policies and that too are going against the common people. Certainly the govt. is going to raise the taxes and this will increase the already high prices of the diesel fuel. The only thing that can save this from happening is tax cut and that is not going to happen.

Planning for fuel management
Now a fuel management plan is a very good idea. This can save the waste of a lot of fuel. Making us enable with more availability of fuel. This can positively affect drivers’ employment.

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Business

Debate over the Working Time of Truck Drivers

In spite of a period of struggle by the organization, there is no indisputable situation that single version of law is superior to a new in positions of security and realism. Neither is probable to stay: Trucking is extremely varied and multifaceted occupation, it’s tough to count special effects of protection guidelines. Possibly by way of results, the laws are intensely debated.
In the meantime, trucking companies and execution community endure to mien occupation in operating limitation that is matter to modification by years by means of lawsuit developments and law implementation progress.
Below the expressions of the contract with Citizens and further assemblies tangled in frequent proceedings against present rulings, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has till twenty six July 2011, to present fresh regulation. The petitioner have the backup of permission to come back to the law court if even fresh ruling does not suit them, their original declaration clearly specifies that they do not liable to be reassuring.
They admit the organization’s inclination of modifying the eleven hour day-to-day reefer drivers perimeter to only ten hours, but strictly oppose their readiness to reflect possession of eleven hour limitation. They understand the obligation that drivers grow 2 nights of the break in their thirty four hour resume as the development but yet will favor the forty eight hour resume.
On another sideways, American trucking association speaks the suggestion is “excessively difficult, block occupied of pointless limitations on expert truck motorists and on its central, would considerably decrease trucking output.”
For more American trucking associations articles check our load board.
The organization told that it’s suggesting variations in present time of facility instructions to provide motorists litheness to receive a breakdown through daytime and decrease fitness and care dangers of lengthy times of labor. Here is a fact on variations and organization’s foundation.
Everyday motoring Time
Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is bearing in mind the option of preventive everyday heavy motoring hours to ten hours in spite of the present eleven hours in spite of heavy loads available. The organization told that it favors ten hour duty time but still is observing for remarks and statistics on the present subject.
The essence of the organization’s explanation on present opinion is this that it doesn’t have sufficient dependable info to create the appeal any method.
“Assumed the vague but established association amid exhaustion, time about action, hour’s sleeplessness, and hour’s labor, here is sensible dispute for preventive motoring time to ten hours’ time,” the assistance speaks. It’s watching the statistics to compute several alterations in danger amid ten and eleven hours’ time. “A reply will crack on deliberating whole amount of smashes in every period and proportion of the heavy driving which receive residence in every sixty minutes.”
The organization confesses American trucking associations spat that preventing driving period to ten hours’ time will need transporters to employ additional inexpert drivers to cover available loads that will upsurge danger over the highway, nonetheless speaks the problem is not by way of grave as American Trucking Association proposes.
Most cargo are little heaved, and such truck loads available heavy motorists aren’t probable to drive ten hours period, not talking about eleven, the organization stated. In lengthy tow processes, twenty seven percentage of heavy motoring time lengthy into eleventh period, but it will be definitely increase exercise and administration of fresh drivers, the organization stated.

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Carriers Newbies

LTL Freight Performance

Frozen Food specific Industries (primarily Dallas based frozen food transporter with truck load and lesser than truckload freight services) released its fiscal results for the 2nd quarter of 2010. The first emphasis of the transporter is to drag temperature controlled and iced up perishables for the fitness care, sweet, and foodstuff industries. The transporter conjointly comprises a third party logistics (3pl) division to surpass requirements of transporters and other cargo brokerage clients.
The Firm’s CEO specified the transporter as an improved stress on facility quality and asset application. Mr. Stubbs trusts the main objective on lucrative client holding can upsurge limitations in trucking companies and rise in tonnage and cargo count on the LTL unit similarly. A mixture of any departure of opponents and shrink in existing capability has enhanced the merchandise shipping and logistics bazaar. These economic issues allowed Cold Foodstuff specific reduction in their pre-tax damage by quite a forty one.
In spite of income exclusively indicating up September 11, the occupation of current machine, upsurge in prizing, and absence of participants permitted for these enhanced results. For the previous 6 months but, the functioning income had reduced fairly third-dimensional. Truck efficiency (sedated by revenue per truck / week) was conjointly up by reasonably four-dimensional all over the quarter because the marketplace has appeared to offhand contain by the favor of the available loads. In 2009 Frozen Food unambiguously said they’d dogged to park a slight of their present tractors till the marketplace came. Presently the commercial market seems to be setting them into facility because the marketplace continues to reinforce.
Transporters are conjointly ready to retort to the cargo marketplace. Shipper managers say they require a willingness on a portion of the transporters and logistics firms to normalize valuing to reflect the constriction of the market. Truck Drivers approaching to figure out will certainly simplify the conveyance occupation yield to effectiveness as merchandise expenses escalate off of conventionally low ranks. Numerous transporters have accepted cost-saving methods as harms through the latest assortment of years. Through the 2nd quarter of the 2010, most haulers have seen improved results from a mix of a good freight pricing atmosphere and fall outs of those transporter values saving methods.
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Frozen Food definite senses a massive portion of its achievement through these stormy financial periods are the supervise obligation to the commercial and slyness to pursuit new productivity in all stages of the maneuver. The shipper remains to possess a potent money situation while not mortgages outer of its credit contract. Frozen Food specific has nearly 7 million greenbacks in cash, 83 million in shareholder equity and no unresolved debt.
It seems transporters have recovered an authority within the transpiration skill. Many Transporters and third party logistics corporations have stated advanced than predictable wages and tapering losses due to constriction ability and dense overhead. A monetary release inside truck driver job certainly seems to be happening. Let’s anticipate a thrust permits for a continued financial retrieval not just for merchandise and transport, though conjointly for the wider economy.

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Business

Find a Loadboard for Trucking Jobs

When an owner operator is running his truck to carry the load from one location to another he is more often worried about the returning of an empty truck. The area covered by the truck without any load is termed as dead head miles. Since the trucker or the owner operator might not know the area he is heading to dispatch the load, it is hard for him to personally find any loads that he would carry in his return journey on the empty truck. To combat this situation load boards are becoming very popular these days.
Now with the use of the online load boards the drivers can search for the loads available for their return journey too. All they need is to place the availability of their truck on the particular date with the start and end destination. Load boards are also highly effective for independent truck drivers for example hotshot drivers looking for loads when there truck is not on the road.
Similarly the load board is acting fruitful for the freight brokers and shippers who are looking for the truck drivers to carry their available loads. The shippers can specify the need of the type of trailers and the journey details. Load boards act as a meeting place for the truck drivers and shippers.
Now the question is How to find an efficient load board which works as best load board for you?
Do online research about any load boards and read the testimonials to know about its services. Review the terms and conditions of the load board so that you are in a profitable situation at the end of it all. An efficient load board should be easy to use so that the searches are made quickly and you can go back to the roads in no time. The requirements placed on the load

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Business Trucker News

Trucking Job Search Made Easy – JobsButler

JobsButler focuses on connecting trucking
professionals with trucking companies. Providing drivers, mechanics,
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Looking for a trucking job shouldn’t be a chore! That’s why we built the easiest forum to get job information on the web. We help you find good companies to work for. We eat, sleep and breathe job search so you don’t have to. We enjoy helping you find that local, regional, or over-the-road trucking job.

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Business

Trucking and Logistics Outsourcing

Logistics is a branch of engineering which design, create and maintain a machine of people whose goals are to efficiently provide flow of goods and/or services with respect to a time frame. The term logistics is taken as transportation management, and not just the scope for truck driving jobs. Logistics also covers other aspects such as provision of services at right time and place and optimizing human resource cost by employing incentives like outsourcing.

Originally logistics was developed by Romans. The Roman and later Byzantine Armies had officers named “Logistikas”, their purpose was to manage supply chain of the army which involved transportation of arms, ammunition and most importantly rations for the army. Their duties also involved distribution of finance in the army according to their needs.
Logistics functions are; human resource management in their organization and its different stations, management of space available for storage and optimizing its utility, management of transportation resources, equipment and load boards (trucks, mini-trucks, forklifts etc.), Material handling and proper packaging arrangement for goods and available loads to be transferred. Human resource management in logistic is not also akin to the usual HRM, its function is to locate and transport the required skilled personnel where he is needed. Job of a logistician is to carry out these functions, monitor and control these activities.
Recently the principals and concepts from logistics theory are being implemented to civilian trucking industry in the country. Need of a logistics transport model was needed in the sector due to increasing complexity of supply chains and life cycles of different organizations. As a result large businesses entirely focused on trucking logistics emerged.
For larger organizations which require frequent transportation of feedstock and products, it might not be possible to maintain an efficient in house transportation network. They are looking towards outsourcing for answers. Outsourcing means hiring a third party to perform in-house operations more effectively. The concepts of out sourcing are relatively new in management sciences. Third party logistics (shortly called 3PL) is an example of outsourcing.
A third party logistics company provides transportation facilities for both inbound and outbound transportation. Just like owner operator jobs, trucking and logistics outsourcing is an emerging business all over the globe and in United States particularly. A slightly different concept has been arising in trucking logistics outsourcing recently. A fourth party logistics outsourcing is a type of external logistical support from and organization which finds assembles and provides all the resources needed to erect a comprehensive supply chain. The service provider may take help from other more specialized and narrowed service providers. In short 4PL outsourcing service provider is the one which gathers 3PL providers to face bigger problems and offers comprehensive solutions.
Running a successful trucking logistic business requires knowledge of transportation rules and regulation by national authorities and also by the different state authorities, load management of the available loads, ware house management and inventory management. Logistic businesses are focusing on global markets. It might not be far away that there be global transportation and supply channel providers under one roof. Logistics then would not be limited to land transportation and trucks of course. Bigger problems will demand for greater solutions.

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Carriers

Aerodynamics: A Trucking Innovation

Transportation and Economy
Transportation and truck driver jobs are the back bone of economy in the United States. Raw materials need to be transferred from market to production facilities. Products need to be transferred to either to further fabrication plants, or consumer markets. Daily fresh food products are moved from their production facilities to super markets around the country. Products from eastern half of the land are moved to western half and vice versa. Movement is a symbol of life and growth.
Trucks in Transportation
Trucking is the most vital part of transportation over land in the United States. Trucking has been serving the nation since the invention of diesel engines. The ease and flexibility of transportation by trucks made them primary mean of goods transportation over land.
Trucking companies have proven to be the most efficient and cost effective way of transportation. It has left train freight carriage far behind in the competition. Major reason for this is the limited range of freight carrier trains. Although trains are much faster and carry more loads than trucking loads, truckers have used the wide spread network of roads and freeways to their advantage.
Apart from the importance of the trucking industry in the country’s economy, in past few years the trucking industry is facing a lot of problems. Market share is shifting to train carriage and uncertain fuel costs are resulting in a higher transportation cost. Authorities are implementing tighter rules to avoid truck accident on freeways. It is tougher than ever for truck transporters to find available loads.
Innovations in Trucks
Recently, however the trucking industry has realized it downward trend and have taken some measures to make a comeback at their position. Truckers now make new innovations to be ahead in the game. Latest technology is implemented in the load carrying vehicles (trucks and semi-trucks). Latest GPS tracking technology offers clients and company officials to locate the truck anywhere in the country. With help of this link new load orders are displayed at the driver’s screen instantly; this optimizes performance of a vehicle in a trip.
Loads carrying jobs are now available online on the truck load boards. This offers customers to choose from a number of transporters and leaves them with more options in cost and time. Transporters also can locate the nearest loads to their position and plan their route to optimize the output.
Trucks are also being overhauled to reduce fuel costs. Turbo charged truck engines have more load carrying capacity and thus they yield more in a trip. Body of a truck can be modified to make it more aerodynamic.
An aerodynamic truck can save up to 23% of the fuel cost as compared to an equivalent truck without aerodynamic design. An aerodynamic truck body moves more swiftly through air. Due to less air resistance in its way there is less energy consumed by the truck to move forward. A truck can be made aerodynamic by adding side skirts to minimize formation of air cortices under the vehicle and avoid “bad” air currents. Back tails design is also very important, as the truck passes through the air rushes in to fill the space this can provide extra push to the truck if tail design is aerodynamic.