The American Trucking Associations (ATA) applauds the leaders of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and its Highways and Transit Subcommittee for its draft of a comprehensive transportation and infrastructure plan for the future.

“This proposal sends a strong signal that reform and expansion of the federal transportation program is essential. Timely authorization of the bill is critical to ensure continuity of funding for important highway infrastructure projects,” said ATA President and CEO Bill Graves.

The Surface Transportation Authorization Act (STAA) embraces many of ATA’s priorities. It requires recipients of federal funds to meet performance standards related to safety, infrastructure condition, congestion reduction and emissions, and recognizes the economic role of freight transportation by establishing a Freight Improvement Program that dedicates money to the National Highway System (NHS). The bill includes new programs which could address highway freight bottlenecks identified by ATA as significant barriers to freight mobility and emphasizes maintenance of NHS highways and bridges.

ATA commends the Committee for recognizing that tolling and public-private partnerships should be utilized responsibly. ATA is concerned about the proposal to expand congestion pricing and cautions against redirecting money from highways to fund non-highway projects. The nation depends on highways for mobility, and 80 percent of communities rely exclusively on highways for their freight needs. Further diversion of Highway Trust Fund revenue to non-highway projects cannot be justified.

ATA looks forward to working with the Committee to identify tools necessary for states to meet emissions and carbon reduction targets. “We believe that significant environmental progress can be made by enacting a national 65 mph speed limit for all vehicles and governing the speed of all heavy-duty trucks at 65 mph,” said Graves. “Also, allowing the safe operation of more productive, environmentally friendly trucks will go a long way to reduce carbon emissions.”

ATA strongly supports many improvements to federal motor carrier safety program, including a national clearinghouse for drug and alcohol test results; funding for state employer notification systems that meet federal standards; creation of a safety proficiency exam for new carriers entering the industry; the creation of a national registry of certified medical examiners; new penalties for States without primary safety belt and ignition interlock laws; and streamlining of several safety grant programs. ATA looks forward to working with the Committee to ensure that electronic logging proposals will promote real safety gains and be operationally sound and economically viable.

ATA appreciates the Committee’s efforts to establish a Uniform Permitting Program for hazardous materials transporters. Unfortunately, other hazmat transportation proposals are unlikely to improve safety. In particular, ATA opposes banning the transportation of flammable liquids in piping under a tank truck. ATA looks forward to discussing with the Committee a number of hazmat transportation program reforms that will improve safety and productivity.

SOURCE American Trucking Associations

© 2009, Truck Drivers News. All rights reserved.

Inspired by the success of OOIDA member Rachele Champagne’s all-female “Convoy for a Cure” in Ontario last fall, trucker Vanessa Ferguson of Prince Edward Island decided to organize one where she lives to raise money for cancer research.

The only problem with her plan was that there are currently only about five female truck drivers in all of PEI, which would have made for a rather “short convoy,” Ferguson said.

The decision was then made to open up the event to anyone who was committed to raising money for cancer research. The Convoy for Cancer is set to roll at 10ᛆ a.m. on Saturday, June 20, in Charlottetown, PEI.

Ferguson said she organized the event in memory of her dad, Jack, who died of thyroid cancer in 1995. He was a heavy-duty mechanic for 37 years and taught her everything she knows about trucking.

“Everybody knew my dad. People respected his ability to fix anything and would come from all over to have him work on their equipment,” she said. “This is a great way to honor him.”

She has enlisted the help of the PEI Trucking Sector Council, which is helping to coordinate the event. Heather MacLean, the executive director there, said so far 30 commercial vehicles – including tractor-trailers, buses and some dump trucks and cement trucks – have signed up to convoy on Saturday. Their goal is to raise about $5,000 for the PEI Chapter of the Canadian Cancer Society.
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© 2009, Truck Drivers News. All rights reserved.

NEW YORK — Trucking company YRC Worldwide Inc. on Thursday said it will pledge as collateral some real estate to a multi-employer pension plan in lieu of a planned $83 million second-quarter payment, as part of an ongoing effort to preserve cash.

The Overland Park, Kan.-based company finalized the deal with Central States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund amid growing chatter on Wall Street that the company might file for bankruptcy. YRC has laid off thousands of workers, asked existing workers to take pay cuts and made deals with creditors to stave off debt payments it couldn’t make. YRC has struggled to remain competitive as the trucking industry suffers from the worst demand in decades.

The agreement calls for the company to make the deferred payments to the pensions over three years beginning in January 2010.

Central States is the largest of the company’s multi-employer defined benefit pension, making up 58 percent of its monthly pension obligations. YRC said it’s also looking for other pension funds to make similar deals. It has deferred about $50 million in payments from these other funds so far.

YRC also said Thursday it has inked a deal to amend its credit agreement with lenders, which allows the company to direct $73 million in funds from previous real estate deals to repay some of the debt under its revolving credit facility.
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© 2009, Truck Drivers News. All rights reserved.

Tuscaloosa, Ala. —- Manuel Castillo was driving a truck through Alabama hauling onions from Georgia and left with a $500 ticket for something he didn’t think he was doing: speaking English poorly.

Castillo, who was stopped on his way back to California, said he knows federal law requires him to be able to converse in English with an officer, but he thought his language skills were good enough to avoid a ticket.

Still, Castillo said he plans to pay the maximum fine of $500 rather than return to Alabama to fight the ticket.

“It just doesn’t seem fair to be ticketed if I wasn’t doing anything dangerous on the road,” he said.

Federal law requires that anyone with a commercial driver’s license speak English well enough to talk with police. Authorities last year issued 25,230 tickets nationwide for violations. Now the federal government is trying to tighten the English requirement, saying the change is needed for safety reasons.

Most states, including Georgia, let truckers and bus drivers take at least part of their license tests in languages other than English. But the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has proposed rules requiring anyone applying for a commercial driver’s license to speak English during their road test and vehicle inspection.

The agency wants to change its rules to eliminate the use of interpreters, and congressional approval isn’t required.

Drivers could still take written tests in other languages in states where that is allowed, and they wouldn’t have to be completely fluent during the road test, said Bill Quade, an associate administrator with the agency.

“Our requirement is that drivers understand English well enough to respond to a roadside officer and to be able to converse,” said Quade, who heads enforcement. Drivers need to be able to communicate with authorities about their loads and their vehicles, he said.

A handful of states and organizations are supporting the change, and no one opposed the new rule in comments submitted to the agency.

The rule change, which Quade said would likely take effect next year, could particularly affect the nation’s fast-growing Spanish-speaking population.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated last year that more than 17 percent of the nation’s 3.4 million truck drivers were Hispanic, as were more than 11 percent of its 578,000 bus drivers. It’s unknown how many speak both Spanish and English.

The issue of English-speaking drivers also could become larger if the Bush administration succeeds with efforts to make it easier for trucks to enter the United States from Mexico. Trucks already are allowed to enter border areas under a pilot program.

An Alabama state trooper thought Castillo, 50, couldn’t speak English well enough to drive an 18-wheeler when he was headed back to California. A driver for 20 years, Castillo was stopped in west Alabama for a routine inspection.

Castillo, who says he speaks English at roughly a third-grade level, said he understood when the trooper asked him where he was heading and to see his commercial driver’s license and registration. He said he responded in English, though he speaks with an accent.

Castillo wasn’t speeding, and the inspection and computer check turned up no offenses, so he was surprised to get a ticket for being a “non-English speaking driver.”

“I had heard that Congress had passed that law, so I knew people were getting tickets,” he said in an interview in Spanish. “But it didn’t seem fair to me because I was communicating fine with him. I don’t know a lot of things, but when it comes to my work I understand everything people say to me.”

Castillo, a permanent U.S. resident who lives in a farming community near Fresno, said he took his California license test in Spanish because it’s the language he’s most comfortable speaking.

Jan Mendoza of the California Department of Motor Vehicles said the state gives the written test in both English and Spanish, but the roadside portion of the exam is in English only because of the federal rule.

Limiting the road portion of the test for the commercial driver’s license, or CDL, to English-only would help eliminate drivers who don’t speak English well enough to talk to an officer, Quade said. He sees no conflict in continuing to let applicants take the written test in languages other than English.
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© 2009, Truck Drivers News. All rights reserved.

Vanderburgh County – Tuesday morning, June 16, at approximately 11:00 a.m., Trooper John Puskas stopped the driver of a 2000 Peterbilt tractor-trailer on I-64 at the 23 mile-marker for making an unsafe lane movement. The driver identified himself as Gary Gurley,ಟ, of Paducah.

While talking to Gurley, Trooper Puskas became suspicious and asked for assistance from Gibson County Sheriff’s Deputy Tim Coomer and his KNj, Justice. When Deputy Commer arrived his K-9 alerted to the presence of narcotics in the cab of the truck. A search of the cab revealed a small amount of marijuana behind the passenger’s seat. Gurley was arrested and taken to St. Mary’s Hospital in Evansville where further investigation revealed he was under the influence of marijuana. Gurley was taken to the Vanderburgh County Jail where he is currently being held on bond.

© 2009, Truck Drivers News. All rights reserved.

Norfolk Southern is scouting sites in the Birmingham area to build a terminal as part of a rail corridor stretching from the Northeast to New Orleans. The project could mean thousands of new jobs and millions of dollars in investment for the area.

Norfolk Southern is seeking incentives and is talking with state and local officials about the facility, seen as a key element in the company’s $2 billion Crescent Corridor expansion. The company believes as many as 8,000 jobs could be created in the area as a distribution hub develops around the project.

“We are certainly looking in the Birmingham area for constructing a new terminal that will hopefully be part of a larger logistics hub,” said Rudy Husband, spokesman for Norfolk Southern. “Intermodal terminals in and of themselves have some jobs, but the real job growth is the surrounding companies that are involved in logistics and distribution.”

Ted vonCannon, president of the Metropolitan Development Board, said his organization has been working for nearly three years to land the intermodal terminal, where trucking containers would be loaded onto train cars.

“If we’re fortunate enough to get the project, it could mean Birmingham will be a key point for moving goods in and out,” vonCannon said. “It could be a great boon for our area.”

Norfolk Southern said the Crescent Corridor aims to use a network of terminals and railway improvements along a 2,500-mile rail line from New Jersey to New Orleans to take as many as 1 million trucks off interstates by transporting their cargo via train. In Alabama alone, an estimated 300,000 trucks could be taken off the interstates each year, the company says. That would help alleviate congestion on the roadways and reduce emissions, saving an estimated 100 million gallons of fuel each year, it adds.

“Right now, more than 90 percent of the freight moving from the Southeast and the Gulf Coast up into the Northeast is moving by truck,” said Rudy Husband, spokesman for Norfolk Southern. “If you look at the line segment between the New York metropolitan area and Chicago, it’s about a 50-50 split. We believe there is an enormous opportunity to shift freight that’s moving via the interstates over to rail.”

The project also will be a boost to economic development efforts in Birmingham area, according to the company and local officials. Norfolk Southern rail lines have played a role in Alabama’s recruitment of key projects, including Mercedes-Benz, Honda and ThyssenKrupp.

“We think once the Crescent Corridor is fully developed and operating in the next 10 years or so, there will be somewhere between 500 and 600 railroad jobs created in the Birmingham area,” he said. “Then, if you look at surrounding development what we think will evolve when that intermodal terminal is built, we’re looking at somewhere between 7,ዀ and 8,000 jobs that will be positively impacted.”

That would be on top of Norfolk Southern’s existing operations in the state. The railroad company’s Alabama operations are based in the Birmingham area. It operates 1,370 miles of track in the state, has 1,800 employees with a $102 million annual payroll, and makes $134 million in annual purchases and payments.

VonCannon said Norfolk Southern has evaluated six or seven sites in the greater Birmingham area.

Husband said terminals can cost between $60 million and $90 million, depending on size and fluctuations in construction costs. The intermodal facility would have multiple lines of railroad tracks and transfer points allowing containers to be moved from rail cars to truck beds, and vice versa.

Because of the promised benefits, Norfolk Southern has been asking states for financial support to expand the Crescent Corridor and develop new terminals. In February, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell proposed a $30 million boost to rail infrastructure in his state, while Virginia has given $45 million to aid the Crescent Corridor expansion.
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© 2009, Truck Drivers News. All rights reserved.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For more information, contact:
Adri Cowan
Public Relations Manager
+1 347.830.6271

Mark Batty Publisher’s “Truckers” Reveals the Diesel-Fueled Lives of America’s True Road Warriors
Photography, Essays and Interviews Pay
Homage to Our Dedicated Transporters

New York, NY – June 10, 2009 – The hard-working, perpetually-mobile truck drivers of America ferry the objects of our consumer cultures across the paved arteries of America: roads. These men and women are the realized human machines of the industrial age, the transporters of our everyday material needs and desires; and as integral parts of the global economy, they are too often taken for granted. Now in her new book, Truckers, seasoned truck-industry trade writer Mary Richardson and her ensemble of photographers pay proper respect to these perennial providers, pairing interviews and narratives with color and black and white photographs.

With gritty, candid photography and true tales of the road from the truck drivers themselves, this high-design casebound book examines the physical, emotional, technological and environmental consequences of this industry by humanizing the men, women and families that keep the engines running.

From the married drivers who leave their families behind for months at a time, to the truck-stop working women who put their hearts and their bodies on the line, Truckers provides an in-depth, first-hand perspective of the people behind the wheel and those around them.

Brooklyn-based trucker Charles, sixty years old with close to four decades of miles logged, explains his unwelcome shift in self-perception from “’hero” to “just a driver” over time. Ellie and Mark are a married couple on the road, forfeiting homes and children to save money and explore the country on wheels. Kitty Kitty lives in a tent behind the parking lot at a truck stop and shines wheels for a living. It’s stories like these that give Truckers its layers – the drivers are veterans and exiles, fathers and mothers, husbands and wives and wanderers.

As Richardson writes: “Truck drivers are realized human machines of the industrial age. If there were such a thing as a human machine molded of human hands, every moment shaped by heads spinning on bodies, spinning in a series of related tornadoes. And below their certain shyness something still radiates because they want to be heard.”

About Mark Batty Publisher
Mark Batty Publisher (http://www.markbattypublisher.com ) is an independent publisher dedicated to making distinctive books on the visual art of communicating, showcasing the visual power and innovation of contemporary culture in all of its varied poses. Today, the visual comes at us from more places than ever, and its dissemination is faster and more advanced every year. Books from Mark Batty Publisher capture this acceleration on the pages of every book. Affordable, well designed, thoughtfully created, and produced to last, MBP books are artful products that readers want to hold onto forever.
# # #
Truckers
Mark Batty Publisher
Page Count: 128
Size: 7 1/2 x 9 1/2
Format: Casebound
Publication Date: June 2009
Price: $32.95
ISBN: 978-0-9799666-8-2

For a review copy, more information, or to schedule an interview with Mary Richardson, contact Adri Cowan, +1 347.830.6271,

© 2009, Truck Drivers News. All rights reserved.

American Trucking Associations (ATA) unveiled its bold new highway safety agenda at a press conference on Capitol Hill.

“While the trucking industry is now the safest it has been since the U.S. Department of Transportation began keeping crash statistics in 1975, we must continue to further the trend,” said ATA President and CEO Bill Graves. “Our 18 progressive safety policies will advance highway safety for all highway users by improving driver performance, creating safer vehicles and improving motor carrier performance.”

Road Safe America Executive Director Tom Hodgson said, “We admire the fact that many members of the ATA are among the most safety-conscious corporate citizens in America. Road Safe America is proud to throw its support behind these commonsense, cost-effective, straightforward safety rules as proposed by the ATA.”

John Hill, former Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administrator, also applauded ATA’s leadership on highway safety. “I appreciate all the work that’s been done and I believe (the new safety agenda) is a good platform as we move into the next highway authorization process,” said Hill. The cause of “Eighty-eight percent of all crashes involve a driver, whether they be a passenger vehicle or commercial driver. The strategies today specifically address driver deficiency areas and give drivers the tools they need to improve highway safety.”

“We support many of the key recommendations in the ATA safety agenda, including graduated licensing for young drivers, primary safety belt enforcement laws, speed enforcement, red light running cameras, tough anti-drunk driving laws, safer vehicle designs and effective driver licensing and supervision. If enacted, ATA’s measures will reduce fatalities, injuries and economic costs for everyone sharing our highways,” said American Insurance Association Vice President and Associate General Counsel of Public Policy David Snyder.

ATA Vice Chair and Safety Task Force Chair Barbara Windsor explained how committed the trucking industry is to improving highway safety. “Our job is to deliver the goods that America needs safely and on time,” said Windsor, who is also President and CEO of Hahn Transportation Inc. “We believe this progressive safety agenda will help make our highways even safer.” Hahn Transportation, founded by Windsor’s grandfather in 1933, is a specialized regional trucking firm that hauls throughout the Mid-Atlantic corridor.

“This agenda is proven and will improve safety results on our highways,” said Doug Duncan, President and CEO of FedEx Freight. “Many of us in ATA are a testament to that and this broader application will make highways safer for all who share them.” FedEx Freight provides regional and national less-than-truckload (LTL) freight services.

“Over the past 20 years the involvement rate of large trucks in fatal crashes has been cut in half,” said Arkansas Best President and CEO Bob Davidson. “Our professional drivers are safe and the trends are encouraging. With the important safety initiatives the ATA is announcing, we all can continue to raise the bar.” Arkansas Best’s largest subsidiary, ABF Freight System Inc., is one of North America’s largest and most experienced motor carriers and has operated since 1923.

“As a professional driver, nothing is more important than getting home safe to my family every day,” said David May, a driver at Con-Way Freight and an ATA America’s Road Team Captain. Con-way Freight provides LTL service across North America.

For ATA’s entire safety report with detailed explanations of the 18 initiatives, click here.

The 18 initiatives on ATA’s safety agenda are:

Improving Driver Performance:
1. Policy on the use of non-integrated technologies while the vehicle is
in motion
2. Policy supporting uniform commercial drivers license (CDL) testing
standards
3. Policy supporting a CDL graduated licensing study
4. Policy supporting additional parking facilities for trucks
Ņ. Policy supporting a national maximum 65 mph speed limit for all
vehicles
6. Policy supporting strategies to increase the use of seat belts
7. Policy supporting a national car-truck driver behavior improvement
program
8. Policy supporting increased use of red light cameras and automated
enforcement
9. Policy supporting graduated licensing standards in all states for
non-commercial teen drivers
10. Policy supporting more stringent laws to reduce drinking and driving

Safer Vehicles:
11. Policy supporting targeted electronic speed governing of certain
non-commercial vehicles
12. Policy supporting electronic speed governing of all large trucks
manufactured since 1992
13. Policy supporting new large truck crash worthiness standards

Safer Motor Carriers:
14. Policy supporting a national employer notification system
15. Policy supporting a national clearinghouse for positive drug and
alcohol test results of CDL holders
16. Policy supporting a national registry of certified medical examiners
17. Policy supporting access to the national Driver Information Resource
18. Policy supporting required safety training by new entrant motor
carriers

Website: http://www.truckline.com/

© 2009, Truck Drivers News. All rights reserved.