Posted on Mon, Feb 21, 2011
From TruckstopUSA.com
All truckers subject to the hours-of-service regulations are targeted by a proposal by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to mandate electronic on-board recorders in all trucks.
The agency is proposing a 100 percent mandate of EOBRs in a notice of proposed rulemaking released by the agency Monday, Jan. 31. The notice officially published in the Federal Register today. Truckers have 60 days to file comments with the agency.
In addition to mandating the use of EOBRs in all trucks, the agency also is proposing to reduce the amount of supporting documents motor carriers are required to validate hours-of-service compliance.
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association continues to challenge the agency’s insistence that EOBRs will improve highway safety.
“EOBRs are nothing more than over-priced record keepers,” said Todd Spencer, executive vice president of OOIDA.
According to the Association, EOBRs cannot accurately and automatically record a driver’s hours of service and duty status. They can only track the movement and location of a truck and require human interaction to record any change of duty status.
Therefore, such as in the case of loading and unloading time, the device is incapable of determining the actual duty status of drivers without interaction from drivers indicating to the device that they are on-duty. Loading and unloading time should typically be logged as “on-duty, not driving” in order to accurately reflect the hours a driver has worked.
“This proposal is actually another example of the administration’s determination to wipe out small businesses by continuing to crank out overly burdensome regulations that simply run up costs.”
In the proposal, the agency estimates the cost of an EOBR for trucking companies without fleet management systems to be between $525 and $785 per truck. However, the agency estimates it will cost only $92 per truck for companies with existing fleet management systems.
OOIDA is currently involved in litigation against FMCSA over its previous EOBR mandate.
The Association and three members filed a petition for review with the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on June 3, 2010. In addition to OOIDA, the plaintiffs include OOIDA Members William J. Culligan, Adam D. Burnett and Douglas A. Oldham.
The case is set for oral arguments next week.
Spencer said that lawsuit is designed to get FMCSA to answer key questions such as does the mandated use of electronic on-board recorders make any sense in terms of cost, regulatory burden and their real effectiveness on highway safety.
Click here to read OOIDA’s most recent court filing.
Courtesy of LandLine Magazine
Posted on Fri, Aug 27, 2010
By CCJ Staff
Published August, 26 2010
American Trucking Associations Chairman Tommy Hodges on Thursday, Aug. 26, offered a guarded assessment of the trucking industry during the Commercial Vehicle Outlook Conference in Dallas.
About 5,500 carrier failures have led to nearly 200,000 fewer trucks in the marketplace. This tightening of capacity and stronger consumer confidence has Hodges more optimistic for the short-term outlook.
Read full aricle here
Posted on Tue, Aug 17, 2010
Despite Some Recent Bumps, Signs Point to Recovery Continuing
Ceridian-UCLA | August 16, 2010
All signs continue to point to an economy in recovery with the latest release of the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce Index™ (PCI) by UCLA Anderson School of Management. The July PCI climbed 1.7 percent after dropping 1.9 percent in June.
Though the PCI fell significantly in June, a careful examination of the daily data revealed that June was not as bad as the headline number suggested because of a late Memorial Day and due to the second half of June being stronger than the first. This more positive interpretation of the June data has now been confirmed with a strong July PCI.
Year-over-year growth for July of 8 percent represented the eighth straight month of mid to high single-digit year-over-year percentage growth after approximately two years of decline. The sustained growth is welcome news; however, the PCI needs to reach year-over-year growth of 10 to 15 percent in the near term to drive a meaningful increase in employment.
Read More Here
Posted on Fri, Aug 06, 2010
Addressing concerns raised by the American Trucking Associations and other industry groups earlier this summer about the design of Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010 (CSA 2010), the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration announced updates to the Safety Management System methodology to better identify carriers deemed “high risk” or otherwise have safety compliance problems.
Most notably, the measure of exposure will be changed from Power Units only to a combination of Power Units and Vehicle Miles Travelled (VMT) in the Unsafe Driving BASIC and Crash Indicator. In addition, these two BASICs will change from using Power Units as a safety event grouping (formerly referred to as peer grouping) to using the number of crashes for the Crash Indicator and the number of inspections with a violation for the Unsafe Driving BASIC.
Read More Here
Posted on Mon, Jun 07, 2010
By Avery Vise
Published June, 07 2010
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has decided not to require any motor carriers to retain certain documents related to drivers’ hours of service. The agency also will relieve carriers that use electronic mobile communications and tracking technology of the burden of maintaining numerous other supporting documents in order to verify driver logs.
The new regulatory guidance and policy, which will take effect 30 days after publication in the Federal Register, will benefit those carriers who have faced additional scrutiny since December 2008 when the agency adopted a policy…………Read more
Posted on Wed, Jun 02, 2010
By CCJ Staff
Published June, 02 2010
ALK Technologies Inc. announced the release of PC Miler 24, its updated routing, mileage and mapping software solution. Users now have access to a least-cost routing feature to generate optimal routes based on custom fuel efficiency settings, operating cost settings and other corporate priorities. Also included is a greenhouse gas emissions estimator to factor in carbon footprint calculations.
PC Miler 24, which optionally calculates precise toll cost modules, now displays entry and exit toll plaza names in route calculations to help reconcile discount program toll charges. PC Miler 24 also can READ MORE…..
Posted on Tue, May 18, 2010
Nashville, IN (May 10, 2010) Intermodal transport’s share of U.S. long-haul truck traffic reached record highs in the first quarter of 2010 a recent analysis by FTR Associates shows. Both total intermodal movements and movements of domestic intermodal equipment reached new market share highs.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Nashville, IN (May 10, 2010) Intermodal transport’s share of U.S. long-haul truck traffic reached record highs in the first quarter of 2010 a recent analysis by FTR Associates shows. Both total intermodal movements and movements of domestic intermodal equipment reached new market share highs. Intermodal’s share of U.S. long-haul (550+ miles) movements of international and domestic containerized …….Read More
Posted on Mon, Apr 26, 2010
The American Trucking Associations | April 23, 2010
Current federal Hours of Service (HOS) rules, which govern the duration that a commercial driver can be on duty and behind the wheel, have played a role in improving highway safety. However, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) should modify the sleeper berth provision to allow for additional flexibility to further improve driver………Read More
Posted on Tue, Mar 09, 2010
Our free training webinars are a hit! If you haven’t been to one, check it out. We continue the series with another valuable topic – Horizon Dispatch
Webinar topic: Horizon Dispatch – Overview of extra features
Date: Wednesday, 3/17/10 @ 2:00PM EST
Moderator: Susan Johnson
Who should attend:
Users of dispatch or operations personnel who are not familiar with all of the services listed and would like to learn more about them.
Dispatch Services included:
Custom booking, Make Bill, Transfer to history, Quick Dispatch, Quick Checkcall, Checkcall History, Refuse Shipments, Stops, Manifest Planner, Load Finder, Load Planner, PO’s, Truckload Rate Inquiry, Customer Financial History, Tracer, and Auto Filter.
When: Wednesday, March 17 @ 2:00 PM
Where: Online
How: Call or email us to register for the session, so we can send you the details on how to attend the webinar.