Bulk Freight News & Industry Updates - Stay Ahead in Trucking

By Associated Press Published: August 11, 2014, 10:14 AM Share on facebookShare on gmailShare on twitterShare on emailMore Sharing Services 0 PORTLAND — An Oregon trucker will get her job back after a federal regulator determined she was wrongly fired for refusing to drive an unsafe vehicle. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Monday it has ordered an independent trucking contractor in Gresham to reinstate the driver who was fired almost three years and to pay her back

Neil Irwin http://www.nytimes.com/ Swift Transportation’s 20,000 workers haul goods in almost 14,000 big-rig trucks that travel the interstates and back roads of the United States every day. The company’s performance is closely tied to the nation’s economy, which has been looking increasingly sunny lately. So it was surprising last month when Swift’s stock plummeted nearly 18 percent in a single day. The tumble came for an odd reason. It wasn’t because there was too little business — but

By Chris Bruce A lot of drivers hate seeing semis on the freeway because of their intimidating size and slow speed, but big rigs are absolutely vital to moving goods around the country. The US is on the road to a major trucking crisis, though. A recent analysis from Business Insider finds that we aren't producing nearly enough new drivers to fill all the needed seats. By 2022, the shortfall could reach 239,000 people. Even now, there's room for about 30,000 additional truckers to enter the

While Congress is out on vacation, one lobby group is reminding lawmakers while they are out talking with voters back home that a large majority of Americans favor requiring truck manufacturers to increase the fuel economy of large trucks, at least according to its poll. According to the most recent results of the Consumer Federation of America’s survey of consumer attitudes towards vehicle fuel efficiency, 74% of respondents support the standards with 25% opposing them. CFA, which represe

By Eric HaunThursday, August 07, 2014 Evergreen Shipping Agency (America) Corp. recently announced that its movements have been affected by “truck capacity issues,” which the shipper said have been brought on by a combination of contributing factors, including driver shortages, infrastructure problems, and stricter regulations. “Every ocean carrier is being impacted by the truck shortages," Evergreen said. "While we are working 24/7 to honor our service promises, it is possible that the tr

A new highly controversial 3-part news segment produced and aired by CNBC has been taking heat from the trucking industry due to claims it makes about truck safety, accidents, and who’s to blame for fatalities in truck crashes. The segment begins with a shocking statistic, “up to 4,000 people killed out there every single year.” The death toll is then compared to a commercial airliner crashing every Friday of every week of every year. According to the NHTSA, that number is accurate, but it wa

By James Jaillet Public comments so far are split various ways on the proposed federal rule that prohibits carriers, shippers, brokers and others from coercing drivers into operating their trucks beyond hours of service limits or against other regulations. Two key arguments have emerged: One contending the rule is past due and that the agency should do more to hold shippers and receivers accountable, and the other saying the rule is a good idea but places the burden of proof of coercion on

Earl Stanley Nunn, owner of Memphis-based Nu World Trucking LLC, has pled guilty in federal court to theft by way of “bobtailing,” per an InsuranceJournal.com post. Nunn had been accused of heading a theft ring that prowled truckstops and service stations on or near Interstates with a bobtailed NuWorld tractor. Once an unattended trailer was located, the thieves would simply hook up to it haul it away along with the goods it contained for “fencing” in Chicago or Detroit. The ring allege

By Jacob Bunge A second straight year of bumper U.S. crops will boost Archer Daniels Midland Co.'s grain-trading profits by driving greater volumes through the company's sprawling trade and transportation network, executives said Tuesday. The commodities-trading firm this summer has been tweaking its grain terminals and logistics operations ahead of an anticipated record U.S. soybean crop and a haul of corn that could surpass last year's record 13.93 billion-bushel harvest. "We have a ver

By Evamarie Socha The Daily Item — PAXINOS — An independent trucker from Northumberland County will hit the road again Wednesday after a rock thrown through his windshield two days ago in Schuylkill County sidelined his business and caused about $700 in damages to his rig. But Raymond Ebersol Jr., 48, of Paxinos, said he is “definitely not going that way to work” when he gets back behind the wheel, opting instead for a windier, bumpier, more time-consuming route. Ebersol wasn’t hurt bu

HENRICO, Va. (CN) - An unlicensed commercial truck driver carrying a load of refrigerated chickens at the tail end of a five-day methamphetamine binge lost control of his big rig and slammed into the car of a Sunday school teacher, killing her, the woman's family claims in court. The estate of Karen Ann Whitaker sued Clarence Risher Jr., Edward Risher Trucking, CER Trucking and House of Raeford Farms, for negligence and negligent hiring, in Henrico County Court. CER Trucking hired Ri

America is experiencing a shortage of truck drivers. The American Trucking Associations (ATA) estimates that the U.S. is short 30,000 truck drivers. Factors driving the shortfall include regulations, relatively low pay, and the fact that fewer young people are interested in getting into the profession. 90% of carriers said they couldn’t find enough drivers that met department of transportation (DOT) criteria, according to a study cited by the ATA. The turnover rate at large truckload ca

by Steve Banker August 4th, 2014 When Shakespeare used the phrase, “The worm has turned,” he knew his audience would understand that he meant a reversal of fortune. “Worm” was a term for ‘dragon.’ In fairy tales, the flying dragon spewing fire would ravage fields and villages. To be in the dragon’s path resulted in destruction. In shipper/carrier relationships, too many shippers have been the fire spewing dragon, engaging in scorched earth business practices. But the power has shifted to th

A Memphis, Tenn., business owner has pleaded guilty in federal court to his role in a cargo theft scheme that included a theft in West Plains, Mo. Tammy Dickinson, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that Earl Stanley Nunn pleaded guilty to theft of an interstate shipment. Nunn, the owner of Nu World Trucking LLC, led a theft ring that used Nu World resources to steal cargo in various states. They did so by “bob-tailing” – traveling in a road tractor truck withou

The Trucker News Services 8/4/2014 DENTON, Texas — Pick a color. Select a sleeper, or go with a day cab. Fine tune your PACCAR MX-13 Engine ratings. Make the Model 579 of your desire with a new configurator tool available at peterbilt.com recently introduced by Peterbilt Motors Co. “The new online configurator lets users build their own Model 579 in a fun, immersive way,” said Todd Acker, Peterbilt’s director of marketing. “Whether you’re a truck owner or an enthusiast, the configurator let

(Grain Valley, Mo.) – A national association that represents professional truckers has heard concerns from its members about recent news headlines that criticize the safety of the trucking industry. Truckers say the news stories leave out or misrepresent important facts and place unfounded blame on them for all truck-related crashes. "It's a short-sighted view that undermines efforts to bring meaningful improvements to highway safety," said Media Spokesperson Norita Taylor, Owner-Operator Ind

Police have arrested two people for a July 22 kidnapping incident that started in Lincoln County and ended in Lyon County, Iowa. Craig Allen Olson, 55, of Canton and Oriana Ti Groppetti, 32, of Visalia, Calif., are charged with kidnapping in the 3rd degree, a class C felony, according to a news release from the Lyon County sheriff’s office. The two are accused of taking their male victim locking him in a grain bin on an abandoned acreage in western Lyon County. The victim escaped the gr

By Mark B. Solomon http://www.dcvelocity.com The message was as blunt and direct as the nation's largest truckload carrier by sales could deliver it: We need drivers, we need them now, and we will pay dearly to recruit, hire, and retain them. The one variable is whose hide the higher costs will come out of. Executives at other carriers have spoken at length about the growing shortage of commercial drivers. Up to now, though, their for-the-record written comments have been confined to a fe

http://www.forbes.com/ A few years ago ARC studied the ROI associated with buying and implementing a transportation management system (TMS). The main reason companies implement a TMS is to reduce freight spend. A TMS does this in several ways. But one freight savings bucket is based upon better procurement negotiations. Most commonly, shippers can mine their TMS data to achieve savings of 2 to 4 percent, but in some cases shippers were reporting savings of 8 to 10 percent. Shippers can also

Todd Dills http://www.overdriveonline.com/ Reactions were swift in coming to the announcement of the Wednesday airing of a four-part special on the CNBC cable business-news network titled “Collision course,” which in part wonders at the lack of regulation of the “unsafe” trucking industry. As in other such mainstream industry coverage of late, statistics are presented in a manner that suggests every crash a truck is involved in is the fault of the truck driver. And worse, as Owner-Operator

http://www.npr.org/ For a while there, China was the American farmer's best friend. The world's most populous nation had so many pigs and chickens to feed, it became one of the top importers of U.S. corn and soybeans almost overnight. China also developed a big appetite for another corn-derived animal feed called "dried distillers grains with solubles," or DDGS, a byproduct of ethanol production. China's appetites for the stuff drove up global grain prices and filled Midwestern pockets wit

American Trucking Associations said a leading transportation researcher has debunked a recent report claiming trucks carrying heavier loads cause more accidents and fatalities. The report, by the Multimodal Transportation & Infrastructure Consortium for the Railway Supply Institute, says national crash-rate data show “disturbingly higher crash rates for trucks that are longer or heavier than the current standard 80,000-pound, five-axle truck.” Daniel Blower, an associate research scientist

Mark Szakonyi, Senior Editor More shippers contracting with C.H. Robinson Worldwide shifted loads from railroad to highway in the second quarter after seeing intermodal rail service deteriorate. The Minneapolis-based company said intermodal rail service incrementally improved in the second quarter compared with the first three months of the year, but it expects rail service to remain a challenge for the rest of the year, according to a second-quarter presentation. Poor rail service kept in

Jennifer Schlesinger | Eamon Javers http://www.cnbc.com/ Kelly Linhart, a professional truck driver, stopped on the side of the road to do a routine truck inspection in September 2008. Moments later, the father of four lay dead on the asphalt, struck and killed by another trucker, Daniel Clarey, who veered out of his lane, according to the police report. "[Daniel Clarey] fell asleep by his own admission, ran off the road, and ran over Kelly Linhart dragging him to a horrible death," sai

http://www.truckinginfo.com/ I wasn't surprised to hear of Anne Ferro's decision to step down as administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, nor was I heartbroken over the announcement. I am, however, very uneasy about who may become her successor. Almost from the day she took office, Ferro became a lightning rod for all the ill will on both sides of trucking's fence. Industry welcomed her nomination, assuming that her experience as president of the Maryland Motor Tru

http://trib.com/opinion/letters/cuin-tax-loophole-for-some-trucks-a-concern/article_9c6d198b-28a4-52e6-8f8c-37cfe9f6d952.html View Original Article

WHITMAN COUNTY - A tractor-trailer filled with grain left the roadway Monday, spilling some of its cargo onto State Route 194. According to the Washington State Patrol, the noninjury accident was reported to Whitcom at 3:56 p.m. Colfax Ambulance, Whitman County Fire District No. 13 and the state patrol responded to the accident. View Original Article

By KSAT Anchor/Reporter Myra Arthur SAN ANTONIO - The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is currently reviewing public comment on the proposed implementation of a nationwide clearinghouse to track drug and alcohol offenses among commercial driver’s license holders. John Esparza, president and CEO of the Texas Trucking Association, says the federal program is modeled after the system operated by the Texas Department of Public Safety for several years now. DPS tracks drug and al

It's a David and Goliath story, only in this case there are 120 Davids taking on a hidden Goliath of an industry that every day touches everyone who is reading this in hundreds of ways. The port trucking industry is built on an illegal fiction, designed to rip off the 120 drivers who went on strike at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach this week. They are not alone; 49,000 port truck drivers around the country work long hours at low pay with no benefits or basic worker protections like u

As you have read in recent weeks, technological changes — and big ones — are coming to trucking. And as reported last week, the outlook for freight, trucking revenues and the industry in general is very positive for the next decade, according to a recent report by the American Trucking Associations, who expects trucking’s share of freight to grow, freight itself to grow and revenues to nearly double by 2025. Combine that expected growth with rapidly changing technology and you have a time

By Colin Barrett http://www.joc.com Q: I’ve been hearing a lot about the requirement that motor carrier brokers carry a bond for $75,000. Most of the commentary I’ve encountered has been from the broker industry, and most of it, of course, has been negative. The common idea seems to be that the new requirement is unfair to smaller brokers, and will tend to price them out of the industry. I’m not sure I agree with this. I acknowledge that a $75,000 bond will be something of a hardship on th

By Michael Gray and Post Wire Swift Transportation, the largest trucker in North America, saw its shares crater 16 percent on Friday after it said it could not find enough truck drivers and that it would hurt future earnings. The firm, which has a large facility near the Port of Elizabeth in New Jersey, said it was “constrained” by a challenging driver market, which led to higher turnover than was anticipated. “There has been a driver shortage that has been getting incrementally worse as t

A La Palma, California truck driver was sentenced in Lincoln Thursday for hauling hundreds of pounds of marijuana into the state. Forty-nine-year-old Julio Sanchez was given two to four years and credited for 261 days already served. He'd pleaded no contest to attempted possession of a controlled substances for sale. Prosecutors had lowered the original charge and dropped another in exchange for Sanchez's plea. The Nebraska State Patrol says 730 pounds of pot was found hidden in boxes of p

Larry Gross When rail service tanked last winter, a key culprit was easily visible. In the center of the polar vortex, the intermodal hub of Chicago was besieged by a never-ending series of bruising winter storms and frigid temperatures that hampered operations and drove the local railroads into the ground. But now it’s the middle of summer. The snow melted long ago, but service continues to sputter, showing little improvement from levels seen during the depths of winter. Why? Average tra

William B. Cassidy, Senior Editor Swift Transportation, the largest U.S. truckload operator, got even bigger in the second quarter, but potential growth was restrained, the company said, by a “challenging driver market.” “Our driver turnover and unseated truck count were higher than anticipated,” Swift said in a letter to shareholders. In reaction, the company sold trucks to offset the impact of idle equipment. “We believe the best investment we can make at this time, for all our stakeh

Following the fatal crash on I-55, a listener sent WJOL a letter detailing her experience with truckers and trucking companies. Below is her opinion unedited. I spend a lot of time on the road as our jobs are onsite. I work with many truckers who are working at the Intermodals. This is what I have learned and I am passing it on as it concerns me. Many of the truck companies own only 1-2 trucks. The owner will accept a job, at say, $1500. It is local and it is picking

It has been a dramatic year for grain farmers. A massive bumper crop followed by a hard time moving it across the prairies inspired the federal government to get involved and force rail companies to move more grain. Grain production was at record high levels in 2013 – so high, in fact, that many farmers had no better options but to store rather than sell excesses over winter. Grain glut hard on farmers The 2013 grain glut really affected farmers like Curtis McRae. “It gets stress

Grimsby Lincoln News Re. Trucks among safest vehicles, Letter, July 17 Trucks are very safe vehicles indeed when operated in a safe manner and in a proper location. The initial letter sent in seemed to address the lack of respect for speed limits and school zones along West Street in Smithville, particularly by trucks but also by cars. It suggests that driving straight through a town’s downtown region is not ideal. It does not question that trucks aren’t safe vehicles or that they are

BY KAREN LEVY THE RECORD Karen Levy is a doctoral candidate in sociology at Princeton University and a fellow at the Data & Society Research Institute. This appeared in the Los Angeles Times. LAST MONTH, after a tractor-trailer collided with a vehicle carrying actor Tracy Morgan and others, national attention focused — briefly — on the serious issue of fatigued truck drivers. The truck’s driver, Kevin Roper, was charged with vehicular manslaughter in the death of comedian James McNair,

Trucking will see continued growth both in freight and revenue in the next 10 years, according to the American Trucking Associations’ U.S. Freight Transportation Forecast to 2025. Between now and 2025, tonnage will grow 23.5 percent, ATA predicts, while freight revenues are predicted to grow a whopping 72 percent. However, adaptation by carriers will be key to enjoying the boom, says ATA, as regional growth patterns, technological changes and the evolution of manufacturing and distribution will