Mike Ahart, VP of Regulatory Affairs at Omnitracs, and John Seidl, a former commercial vehicle enforcement official-turned transportation-consultant and VP of Risk Services at Reliance Partners, weigh in on what the trucking industry looks like now post-ELD Mandate. It turns out, Dec. 18, 2019 wasn’t the end of the ELD story, and that plenty of issues remain unresolved.
Just days before the Entry-Level Driver Training (ELDT) requirements were to go into effect, the FMCSA announced a two-year delay. In this episode, we talk to three guests with stake in the ELDT program, and explore why they are unhappy with the delay and what they believe the consequences of this decision will be.
Get a sneak peek of HDT Talks Trucking Season Two! This season, we talk employee misclassification, autonomous trucks, maintenance—and we introduce the next generation of trucking leadership – HDT’s Emerging Leaders.
This episode addresses the potential impact of AB-5 and other efforts to end employee misclassification. Guests include Julie Gutman Dickinson, California local counsel to the Teamsters Union Port Division, Fred Potter, President of Teamsters Union Local No. 469 in Hazlet, New Jersey, and Joe Rakavatz, director of government affairs and communications for the Western States Trucking Association.
HDT editor-in-chief, Deborah Lockridge, discusses the annual Emerging Leaders awards and talks to three of the past honorees about their views on trends and issues facing trucking, including what fleets and the industry can do to recruit and encourage young leaders like themselves.
Richard Bishop of Bishop Consulting joins HDT Talks Trucking as an automated vehicles industry analyst to discuss topics, including how will regulators make rules regarding self-driving trucks? Are they a solution to the driver shortage?
HDT speaks with Rick Mihelic, the director of future technologies at the North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE), about the necessary resources to power electric trucks, and how they create sweeping change to what we currently know about buying, selling, operating, and maintaining trucks.
Jeff Kauffman, an HDT columnist and managing director for Loop Capital Markets and head of Tahoe Ventures joins the podcast to discuss aspects of the economy that affect trucking directly and attempt to make sense of the latest economic forecasts.
Learn vehicle maintenance best practices from Jim Buell, executive vice president of sales and marketing at FleetNet America, and Tony Morthland, director of equipment and facilities at Nussbaum Transportation.
In this two-part HDT Talks Trucking Special Report, we introduce you to seven drivers who live on the front line of the battle with COVID-19. Part I looks at how COVID-19 affects drivers' daily activities and how they are adjusting to this new reality.
Part II continues the discussion with seven truck drivers who are out in the wild working during the pandemic. In this episode, they discuss the emotional impact of COVID-19.
Kansas City-based team lease-operators Chanté and Chris Drew caught COVID-19 while on the road in March. They were laid up at home for almost a month, plagued by uncertainty, financial pressure, and of course the disease itself.
In Season Three of HDT Talks Trucking, we discuss the possible future of autonomous trucks, dig into advanced fuel-saving technology, and hear from the National Transportation Safety Board on why it wants to see drivers tested for obstructive sleep apnea. In addition, we'll meet the HDT 2020 Truck Fleet Innovators and talk to industry experts about reducing driver turnover and improving company culture.
Stefan Seltz-Axmacher created and ran Starsky Robotics, billed as the first venture to operate a truly driverless truck on a public highway. The company started in 2015 but closed its doors five years later, when, as he put it, the downpour of investor interest became a drizzle. He says investors were not prepared to fund the “last mile” of the project. Will other AI-driven autonomous truck ventures run into similar problems perfecting their technology?
Jim Park speaks with Mike Roeth of the North American Council for Freight Efficiency to discuss how truck and engine makers will meet the 2024 and 2027 GHG reduction targets. Robb Janak of Jacobs Engine Brakes and Joel Morrow, moderator of the 9+ MPG Facebook page share their thoughts on engine cylinder deactivation and advanced engine down speeding.
Doug Lloyd of Averitt Express, Chris Woody of M&W Logistics, and Mike Palmer of Estes Express Lines sit down with Jim Park to discuss being recipients of the HDT 2020 Fleet Innovators awards and the tactics that led them there.
Jim Park and Deborah Lockridge sit down with three of the six HDT 2020 Fleet Innovator recipients - Darrel Wilson of Wilson Logistics, Danny Lilley of Werner Enterprices, and Roy Markham of Ben E. Keith Foods.
NTSB board members Thomas Chapman and Michale Graham speak with Jim Park about why the agency wants to see certain changes implemented, and how the number of crash fatalities could be reduced substantially if the recommendations were followed by various regulatory agencies.
Jim Park speaks with Brad Fulton and Allyson Smith of Stay Metrics to understand why drivers leave, the top 3 things carriers can do to address turnover, and communicating expectations to recruits.
Staying healthy while living in a truck is tough at the best of times. Add the stress of living under a pandemic, and staying healthy and positive becomes doubly difficult. Nutrition and wellness expert Sergio Rojas shares his thoughts on how diet, fitness, proper sleep and even meditation can help improve health and wellness and reduce stress.
If you buy the hype, you might think driverless trucks are just around the corner. Dr. Mary "Missy" Cummings is a professor at Duke University and the Director of Duke's Humans and Autonomy lab. She says she's 100% behind robotic trucks in the long term, but warns that significant work remains to develop safe, robust and reliable self-driving cars and trucks.
Waymo Via, the Google-car spinoff that operates tractor trailers, is inching closer to full deployment of its driverless long-haul trucks. Founder and head of the self-driving trucks business, Vijaysai (Vijay) Patnaik, joins Jim Park to discuss the current state of the technology and how Waymo's decade of experience positions it well for public and industry acceptance.
Special Report: While there are currently only few dozen robotic or autonomous trucks on America's highways, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance is already thinking about the logistics of enforcement. Our guest, CVSA's Will Schaefer, muses on how to keep robotic trucks on the straight and narrow.
Season 4 rounds out our first year of podcasts. This season we look at the future of fuel, including battery electric and renewable natural gas, and our tried-and-true diesel engines. We also have one special episode that's bound to put you to sleep. And HDT Editor in Chief Deborah Lockridge joins host Jim Park for a rousing discussion on alternative fuels, the cover story from our October issue.
The National Transportation Safety Board doesn't investigate every truck crash but digs deep into some for insight that could help prevent future crashes of a similar nature. Robert Molloy, the director of NTSB's Office of Highway Safety explains why it investigates certain crashes and shares some of the conclusions drawn from two specific truck accidents.
Renewable natural gas is methane gas produced by decomposing organic matter from sources like landfills, dairy farms, and wastewater treatment plants. It can be economically collected and used to power trucks. Hugh Donnell of natural-gas engine maker, Cummins Westport, describes the challenges and benefits of wider RNG adoption as a truck fuel.
If you think diesel is dead, or even on its last legs, you may come away with a completely different point of view after listing to this episode. Allen Schaeffer is the head of the Diesel Technology Forum, and one of diesel's greatest proponents. He explains why diesel engines aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
Penske Truck Leasing has had an electric truck trial and evaluation project underway in southern California since 2017. They are trying to understand everything that would go right and everything that could go wrong with integrating several classes of electric trucks into a traditional fleet environment. Penske's head of fleet procurement and planning, Paul Rosa, shares his experience, so far.
As trucking moves to wide-scale adoption of alternative fuels, it's becoming clear that we will need a little bit of everything to keep our wheels turning as greenly as possible. Deborah Lockridge and Jim Park explore the pros and cons of today's most promising alternatives to diesel: battery electric, fuel-cell electric and renewable natural gas.
Forget hours of service for the moment; this episode is about the importance of sleep. Jim Park talks with sleep specialist, Dr. Chris Winter, about why we need sleep, what happens physically and mentally when we don't get enough, and the steps you can take to ensure you get the sleep you need.
Hydrogen fuel cells are still a bit mysterious. Are they a solution to trucking's range anxiety? Can they compete with diesel? Are they safe? Loop Energy president and CEO, Ben Nyland, pulls back curtain on fuel cells. He tells us how they work, where they'll work, and what they do best.
Smart Trailers are upending how truck fleets do business. These formerly brainless boxes are now providing insights and intelligence to fleets that help improve efficiency and productivity while making fleets proactive rather than reactive. Paul Menig of Business Accelerants discusses where this technology can take us, and what we'll need to do to get there.
Season 5 of HDT Talks Trucking dives into a couple of current industry concerns truck insurance and cybersecurity. HDT's editorial team looks back at the year we'd all like to forget and we look forward to what we can expect from 2021. We meet Heavy Duty Trucking Magazine's Safety & Compliance Award winner for 2020, and HDT's 2020 Emerging Leaders. Also, two former competitors who became close friends share a few tales from the pioneering days of fuel economy testing.
Adam Lang is Halvor Lines' chief risk officer. He came to this industry just eight years ago. In that short time, he established himself as a leader and collaborator at Halvor Lines. In recognition of his efforts and enthusiasm, Adam was named HDT's Safety & Compliance Award winner for 2020.
What some are calling an insurance crisis is driving up operating costs and forcing fleets to change driver hiring and training practices. Andrew Ladebauche and Brian Runnels, both of Reliance Partners, unpack the challenge and explain how fleets can minimize the financial hit at renewal time.
If you're a typical small fleet in North America, you may think you're not big enough to attract a hacker's attention. You may think cyber-attacks happen only to big fleets because they have more of what interests the hackers. But according to our guest, Kevin Linardic of Carrier Logistics Incorporated, you'd be dead wrong.
Bob Wessels and Chuck Blake, despite their competitive positions, understood the need for "real world" fuel economy testing that fleets could believe. The pair worked side by side for a couple of decades pioneering reliable and repeatable test methods. Bob and Chuck accumulated more than a few stories over the years, and they share some of them on this episode of HDT Talks Trucking.
Last year, 2020, was a train wreck and 2021 got off to a pretty interesting start. What's ahead in 2021, or in the four years to come of the Biden administration? HDT's editorial team of Deborah Lockridge, David Cullen, Jack Roberts and Jim Park cast a relieved eye back at 2020 and wary eye ahead at 2021.