Senior Contributing Editor Evan Lockridge questions the makeup of a key committee advising the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
May 24, 2013
This financial advisor walks into a meeting of people who advise the federal government when it comes to safety policy involving trucks and says he's in favor of speed limiters...
This may sound like the beginning of a joke, however, it's anything but funny.
Tags: FMCSA, MCSAC, Road Safe America
Author: Evan Lockridge | Posted @ Friday, May 24, 2013 12:00 AM | » Comments(2)
May 20, 2013
An old driver got to the pearly gates of heaven and was welcomed by St. Peter, who told him how much the big guy appreciated all his hard work over the years getting the freight there on time and watching out for all the motorists on the road. St. Peter showed the trucker over to the prettiest fleet of trucks he had ever seen.
Tags: TCA, Best Fleets To Drive For, CarriersEdge
Author: Deborah Lockridge | Posted @ Monday, May 20, 2013 12:00 AM | » Comments(0)
May 15, 2013
The American Trucking Associations used the National Transportation Safety Board's stricter impaired-driving regulations as an opportunity to again push for the DOT to move forward on a process to allow motor carriers to collect hair samples for DOT-required drug testing in lieu of the currently mandated urine testing process.
Tags: Drivers, Safety, Safety and Compliance
Author: Deborah Lockridge | Posted @ Wednesday, May 15, 2013 12:00 AM | » Comments(5)
May 8, 2013
Slaughtered. The dictionary on my computer defines it as "kill (people or animals) in a cruel or violent way, typically in large numbers : innocent civilians are being slaughtered." The use of this word by the "Truck Safety Coalition" in the context of truck accidents is irresponsible and reprehensible.
Tags: Safety, Truck Weights, CRASH
Author: Deborah Lockridge | Posted @ Wednesday, May 8, 2013 12:00 AM | » Comments(1)
April 30, 2013
When Sandra Ambrose-Clark, president of ESJ Carrier Corp., told her daughter's teacher she was up for the Influential Woman in Trucking Award from Women in Trucking and Navistar, the teacher was surprised. How could Ambrose-Clark, a vivacious and well-dressed woman with an impeccable manicure, be in trucking?
Tags: Women in Trucking
Author: Deborah Lockridge | Posted @ Tuesday, April 30, 2013 12:00 AM | » Comments(3)
April 15, 2013
Driver surveys done for the Truckload Carriers Association's Best Fleets to Drive For program seem to indicate that driver pay -- and some other issues -- may not matter to drivers as much as you might think.
Tags: Drivers, TCA, Recruiting, Retention
Author: Deborah Lockridge | Posted @ Monday, April 15, 2013 12:00 AM | » Comments(2)
April 10, 2013
April is Distracted Driving Month, and research by Erie Insurance shows that daydreaming, or being "lost in thought," is far worse than cell phone use when it comes to distracted-driving crashes, Deborah Lockridge reports in her "All That's Trucking Blog."
Tags: Safety, Insurance, Distracted driving
Author: Deborah Lockridge | Posted @ Wednesday, April 10, 2013 12:00 AM | » Comments(0)
April 5, 2013
I'm wondering, has Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood seen this video showing how the new Google Glass product is supposed to work? Because I'm pretty sure he might have something to say about Google Glass and distracted driving.
Tags: Regulations, Safety, Distracted driving, West Virginia
Author: Deborah Lockridge | Posted @ Friday, April 5, 2013 12:00 AM | » Comments(1)
Highway funding debate muddied by claims of improving infrastructure
April 3, 2013
In the debate over how to increase highway funding, the call is often made to raise fuel taxes or develop other funding mechanisms to fix our crumbling highways and bridges, a problem brought tragically to the forefront by the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis in August 2007 that killed 13 people. Now, clouding the debate in Washington is the claim that our infrastructure really isn't crumbling after all.
Tags: Infrastructure, Highway funding, Congestion, Highways
Author: Deborah Lockridge | Posted @ Wednesday, April 3, 2013 12:00 AM | » Comments(2)
April 2, 2013
Nitrogen tire inflation is not new -- it was even used in space shuttle tires! HDT Editor in Chief Deborah Lockridge takes a look in her "All That's Trucking" blog.
Tags: Maintenance, Tires, Tire Inflation, Nitrogen Tire Inflation
Author: Deborah Lockridge | Posted @ Tuesday, April 2, 2013 12:00 AM | » Comments(1)
March 4, 2013
So how bad is smoking marijuana for you, anyway? Well, if you're a truck driver, it's very dangerous to your license and livelihood, writes Deborah Lockridge in her "All That's Trucking" blog, no matter what various contradictory studies say about how safe it is to drive while under the influence of cannabis.
Tags: Drug Testing, Drivers, FMCSA
Author: Deborah Lockridge | Posted @ Monday, March 4, 2013 12:00 AM | » Comments(4)
February 26, 2013
In December, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration took the unusual action of declaring a driver, not a company, an “imminent hazard” and ordered him to cease operating.
Tags: FMCSA, DOT, CDL,
Author: Deborah Lockridge | Posted @ Tuesday, February 26, 2013 12:00 AM | » Comments(0)
February 6, 2013
Popular Mechanics magazine, which takes on topics ranging from "Ab Machines That Work" to "How to Make Beer," now adds sharing the road with trucks to its repertoire.
Tags: Safety, In the Media, Sharing the Road
Author: Deborah Lockridge | Posted @ Wednesday, February 6, 2013 12:00 AM | » Comments(2)
January 9, 2013
Today is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day, so it's a good time to highlight the trucking industry's efforts to fight the use of young women who are treated as sex slaves, often in the truckstops of rest areas and truckstops frequented by truckers
Tags: Heroes & Villains, Truckstops, trafficking
Author: Deborah Lockridge | Posted @ Wednesday, January 9, 2013 7:34 AM | » Comments(0)
January 9, 2013
Are you stronger than a Mack truck? Competitors for the World's Strongest Man competition recently took on the challenge
Tags: Equipment, Mack
Author: Deborah Lockridge | Posted @ Wednesday, January 9, 2013 12:00 AM | » Comments(0)
January 8, 2013
THe Chicago Tribune this week named Lewis Campbell, CEO of Navistar, as one of its "Ones to Watch" in 2013
Tags: In the Media, Navistar, Chicago
Author: Deborah Lockridge | Posted @ Tuesday, January 8, 2013 8:19 AM | » Comments(0)
January 3, 2013
As public officials look to public-private partnerships and toll roads as one way to address the issue of infrastructure funding, one question that comes up is whether fewer trucks will use the toll roads, thus leading to lower toll revenues than anticipate
Tags: Government, Infrastructure, Tolls, Pennsylvania
Author: Deborah Lockridge | Posted @ Thursday, January 3, 2013 8:49 AM | » Comments(0)
January 3, 2013
In our series on natural gas last fall, we included some information on determining payback. I got a letter from a reader telling me I left out a critical consideration: fuel surcharges
Tags: Going Green, Natural Gas, Alternative Fuels
Author: Deborah Lockridge | Posted @ Thursday, January 3, 2013 12:00 AM | » Comments(1)
December 27, 2012
The most-viewed stories on Truckinginfo.com for 2012 were heavy on news from Washington, D.C., whether from the FMCSA or the halls of Congress, as well as from Lisle, Ill., where Navistar International is headquartered
Tags: Trends
Author: Deborah Lockridge | Posted @ Thursday, December 27, 2012 9:34 AM | » Comments(0)
December 20, 2012
People might think of trucking, tires and service bays as a typical "manly" realm, but for a little girl in Arizona, a Speedco became a princess fantasy
Tags: Heroes & Villains, Speedco, Make-A-Wish
Author: Deborah Lockridge | Posted @ Thursday, December 20, 2012 8:21 AM | » Comments(0)
December 20, 2012
One thing I've learned in the past two-plus decades of covering this business is that most truckers have a big heart, and that goes for the entire industry, as well -- drivers, companies, dealers, manufacturers, you name it
Tags: Heroes & Villains, Getloaded, Peterbilt, Charity
Author: Deborah Lockridge | Posted @ Thursday, December 20, 2012 7:31 AM | » Comments(0)
December 12, 2012
The demand for truck drivers seems to be leading some unscrupulous companies to hire drivers who don't have a commercial driver's license
Tags: Safety & Compliance, CDL, Texas, FMCSA
Author: Deborah Lockridge | Posted @ Wednesday, December 12, 2012 10:01 AM | » Comments(0)
November 20, 2012
Increasing fuel taxes may be a near-taboo topic on Capitol Hill, but as state legislators and governors look to 2013 budgets and highway funding, a number are considering raising state fuel taxes to pay for needed infrastructure work
Tags: Government, Highways, diesel, Infrastructure
Author: Deborah Lockridge | Posted @ Tuesday, November 20, 2012 2:28 PM | » Comments(0)
November 14, 2012
When it comes to the potential to drive carriers out of the industry, equipment is becoming the new diesel fuel, says Bob Costello, the chief economist of the American Trucking Associations
Tags: Business
Author: Deborah Lockridge | Posted @ Wednesday, November 14, 2012 11:48 AM | » Comments(0)
November 13, 2012
It's a job once viewed as glamorous, but these days, not so much. It involves a lot of time away from home. And it takes a lot of time and money to get the needed training to get a license and a job -- but the pay's not all that great.
Tags: Trends, Training, Driver Shortage, Drivers
Author: Deborah Lockridge | Posted @ Tuesday, November 13, 2012 12:00 AM | » Comments(0)