Tag: truck driver

Commercial truck insurance covers a variety of commercial truck types, including tractor-trailers, dump trucks, straight trucks and pickup trucks. This type of insurance can be purchased by owner-operators for a single truck or for companies that need to insure an entire fleet of trucks.

Basic Coverages
Commercial truck insurance, like personal automobile coverage, provides standard protections such as comprehensive and collision, general liability, uninsured/under insured motorist protection and medical payments.

Specialized Coverages for Commercial Trucks
Commercial truck insurance also includes specialized business-related coverages that add further protection to the standard policy. Motor truck cargo coverage affords protection against lost, stolen or damaged cargo in transit. Trailer Interchange coverage protects the insured against losses to non-owned trailers being pulled by their insured trucks. Non-trucking (bobtail) liability offers protection to owner-operators who are permanently leased to an ICC-regulated carrier. This provides coverage for trucks when not being used directly for business purposes, such as when a truck is bobtailing and goes to a truck wash or to a shop for repairs.

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.

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.

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.