Letters to the Editor: Fuel-Cost Crisis, Drug & Alcohol Testing, Trucker Pride

These letters appear in the June 9 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

Fuel-Cost Crisis

I joined the company where I work about three months ago, and one of my top-priority jobs has been fuel usage. We had to look at our idling time because all our trucks are sleepers and the drivers run in 48 states. After the idling review, we saw it was necessary to outfit the fleet at once with auxiliary power units, a process going on now. We cut the idling time down from 50% of the time or higher to 2% to 3%.

We also had to look at the speeds in high gear and change them to obtain best fuel economy.

One thing I found very important — lowering our idling times in most cases by half — was driver training. When I showed the drivers the reports we run from Tripmaster during preventive maintenance, they became aware of the money they were wasting.

I also trained them to use cruise control whenever possible, and they also have started doing that. I now have drivers coming to the shop between PMs so we can download the reports to see how they are doing.

Our latest step was reducing our road speed from 68 mph to 65 mph.

With all the above items, we are seeing a reduction in fuel consumption.

Joseph Egan
Director of Maintenance
ABCO Transportation
Dade City, Fla.

Drug, Alcohol Testing

The proposed national database for drug and alcohol test results would be a valuable asset to trucking companies serious about hiring safe and qualified drivers (6-2, p. 9).

The way the system works now, it is too easy to bypass or omit a former employer who would report a drug or alcohol test failure to a prospective employer. The proposed database would simplify the verification process by allowing a company to have a complete history of a driver’s drug and alcohol test results with one phone call or fax.

Considering the resources the federal government has committed to the U.S. Department of Transportation in the past several years in an effort to reduce truck accidents and fatalities — and the importance they place on our industry’s drug and alcohol testing requirements — it seems this type of database should have been created years ago.

The DOT has known for years that loopholes exist — allowing abusive drivers to continue to drive for years after failing a drug or alcohol test — with no repercussions for that driver. All the driver has to do is change jobs and not list the company he or she was working for when the test was failed. The new company has no knowledge of the previous employer and would have no reason to suspect there was a failed drug or alcohol test in that driver’s work history.

Most repeat offenders of this regulation are drivers who don’t stay at one job very long, making it easier to explain an employment record gap. They can skip from job to job, working until they fail another drug or alcohol test and then just move on to a new company.

If the driver fails a pre-employment test, he or she can just apply at another company, knowing that a pre-employment test will never be reported because they never actually worked for that company and don’t have to list it on the job application.

American Trucking Associations is correct in urging the federal government to enhance the drug and alcohol testing process. It is an embarrassment to the trucking industry every time there is a major accident, when the trucker involved tests positive for an illegal substance and an investigation reveals the driver has failed tests before and has been allowed to continue driving a commercial motor vehicle.

Every driver knows from the first day as a professional driver what is required of them. If they cannot operate under the regulations created for the safety of all drivers, they should consider another career.

Larry Lile
Safety/Security Director
Louisville Cartage Company Inc.
Louisville, Ky.

Trucker Pride

“More Truckers Selling Their Rigs, Times Says.” Is this May 27 headline from Transport Topics Online any surprise?

Motor truck transportation has always been a business of pennies. Deregulation removed many barriers to efficient trucking, but it also removed any restraints on rates. What has ensued since is a Wild West mentality that favors the cheapest rate over absolutely everything else.

I have seen loads valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars lost because of a $100 difference in rates. This makes no sense to me; it would seem the primary criteria should be the integrity and strength of the carrier.

When I was in my 20s, it was a given that an owner-operator was generally someone of limited fiscal experience who didn’t know enough to charge properly for freight. But in the present, I see time after time larger fleets proposing rates that are break-even only if the truck has a really strong tail wind.

We’ve all read stories about this organization or that committee trying to restrict our routes and limit our hours of service even more. Yes, some truckers abuse the rules, and some companies don’t enforce safety. But the fact remains that we are the most important industry in the United States. After 9/11, we kept rolling — even with all the civilian aircraft grounded — and the country survived.

We need to improve rates, maybe with some sort of floor mechanism to pay a minimum rate per mile (adjusted regularly) and we need, as an industry, to rebuild some pride in ourselves.

George Imperatore
Operations Manager
Old River Services
River Vale, N.J.