In just three years as director of safety at Keller Trucking, HDT Safety & Compliance Award Winner Sarah Cates has crafted a culture of safety and garnered driver buy-in on things like in-cab cameras.
You’re a small motor carrier, and you’ve been trying unsuccessfully to get payment from a freight broker for months. What can you do?
Mack's MD Electric offers flexible charging options for fleets of all sizes and applications. See what HDT’s Jim Park thinks of the Mack MD Electric after giving it a test spin at Sonoma Raceway.
Heavy- and medium-duty truck production improved in 2022 and OEMs were building at full capacity in 2023. The exit of some smaller fleets increased the availability of used Class 8 trucks as well during 2023.
Driver turnover, according to reports, has slowed over the past year. However, fleets’ pay focus has shifted away from newer, inexperienced drivers and toward drivers at the higher end of the experience scale. Also, the number of women drivers has increased.
As the trucking industry moves toward sustainability, fleets are exploring how to deploy alternative fuel options such as battery-electric, hydrogen fuel-cell, renewable natural gas, hydrogen internal combustion engines, and more. However, infrastructure continues to be a key challenge in rolling out widespread adoption of most of the new technologies. But, at the same time, diesel trucks are becoming more efficient than ever.
With a 49% increase in the number of truck-crash fatalities over the past decade, DOT-recordable accidents per million miles of travel is an important metric for fleets. In addition to that concern, fleet safety managers say their biggest challenges are staying up to date with regulatory changes and improving driver knowledge and skills.
Disruptions to the supply chain in recent years have forced shippers to adapt, try new things, build new partnerships, and moving forward many will be more resilient by having new options on the table. The e-commerce boom is anticipated to flatten, and both shippers and carriers now plan to better prepare for any unforeseen disruptions.
While 2022 was a challenging year for trucking, there was still growth in revenue, tonnage, employment, and other areas. In mid-2023, a number of data points appear to indicate that the current freight cycle is bottoming out. How fast it will head back up is another question.
More and more companies are embracing ESG and setting ambitious decarbonization goals. Guess where a lot of those corporations’ carbon footprint comes from? The supply chain. What does this mean to you?
Preventing distracted driving should be a priority from the top down in any fleet. Safety leaders must rely on building relationships and coaching drivers rather than just depending on technology and policy enforcement. In short, fleets must get buy-in from drivers.
Strict driver distraction policies, cellphone blockers, and zero-tolerance mandates will not solve the larger issues of distracted driving in commercial trucking. There are other steps fleets can take first.
Leadership means coaching, connections, and diversity for HDT Emerging Leader Caty Simandl.
"Safety is everybody's responsibility," says Joshua Moore, an HDT 2023 Emerging Leader.
Casey Driggers didn't plan to follow in his truck driver fathers' footsteps, but with 12 years of law enforcement, this 2023 HDT Emerging Leader is bringing a new focus on safety to Custom Commodities.
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