Letters to the Editor: NAFTA Highway, 2010 EPA Mandates, California’s Filters, Training Film, FMCSA Policy
These Letters to the Editor appear in the Dec. 22 & 29 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
NAFTA Highway
With fuel prices going down, including diesel, truckers are still shutting down and still saying they aren’t making money — proving my own view that the problem is other than fuel prices.
The editors of Transport Topics need to readdress their support of the North American Free Trade Agreement superhighway.
The new administration will not renew the Mexican driver experiment, and I am sure the companies that sold the idea of NAFTA to TT are the less-than-truckload common carriers, the only companies in the trucking industry that would not be hurt by a NAFTA superhighway. That’s because they would end up dominating LTL lanes in all three NAFTA countries — Canada, the United States and Mexico. The independents will end up as extinct as dinosaurs.
I feel there was never any intention of a superhighway but rather a railroad, which would destroy not only trucking but our ports, as well.
Les Rosen
Owner
Freight for Les
New York
2010 EPA Mandates
Navistar is right to seek flexibility in the 2010 emission mandates. Selective catalytic reduction is an onerous solution, particularly in light of emerging in-cylinder combustion strategies that are far less complicated.
Consider these facts about SCR:
• The diesel exhaust fluid SCR uses is a derivative of natural gas, and its principle constituent — urea — also is a nitrogen-source fertilizer used in crop production.
• NOx sensors critical to the function of SCR are still in development.
• DEF begins losing shelf life at 85 degrees Fahrenheit and begins emitting ammonia gas at 130 degrees F.
Transportation should not be dependent on SCR and all it brings to the table. This period of low demand is exactly the time to consider the technology path that clean diesel takes.
David Coffee
Senior Sales Person
International Trucks of Houston
Houston
California’s Filters
I think now is the time to consider an intrastate embargo by dropping off any loaded California-bound trailers at the state lines that border California and have them pay extra for a California emissions-approved truck to take it further down the road.
On Dec. 15, TTNews.com carried a story with the headline “Calif. Sets Strict Diesel Emissions Rule,” that said, “Beginning Jan. 1, 2011, the rule will require truck owners to install diesel exhaust filters on their rigs, with nearly all vehicles upgraded by 2014 . . .”
Let’s just isolate and treat California like an adversarial nation and not drive there. I, for one, will assess a “California handling fee” on every load I have to haul into that state beginning next month.
Cost prohibitive? You bet! It would be more expensive to retrofit my Pete than to have the engine overhauled. It’s cheaper to stay out of California.
David Ritter
Owner-Operator
Semper Fi Transport
Klamath Falls, Ore.
Training Film
Perhaps the ProTraining Safety Series 1 film has merit and will serve to reduce accidents and save lives. But I’m not sure professional truck drivers are the target at which such education should be aimed (TTNews.com, 12-9, “ATA, Codega Produce Safety Video Program for Drivers”).
We all know the study presented some years ago by AAA stating that 70% of accidents involving automobiles and large trucks were the fault of the automobile driver. Many years ago, I conceived a similar idea of this animated video that would be directed to each driver in the United States to view and comprehend before receiving a new driver license or license renewal. The video would depict each of the “No Zone” areas around a truck traveling down the highway, which have been the standard for the Department of Transportation for many years.
My contention always has been that I know what the “No Zones” are because I am familiar with the goings-on of trucks. I am not sure that a decal on the back door of a passing trailer or a billboard depicting the “No Zones” is understandable to the average motorist.
I believe that to really prevent accidents and save lives, we must teach motorists their responsibilities with respect to their daily interactions with large trucks in city and highway conditions.
So, if anyone out there has the time and money to produce such a video, can translate it into the major languages spoken by many of the non-English speaking drivers in the United States today and, most important, has the ear of state and federal DOTs, here is a ball you can run with and see substantial results.
John Head
Owner-Operator
R&W Transportation Services
Colorado Springs, Colo.
FMCSA Policy
On page 21 in the Dec. 1 issue, there was an article about a small policy change over at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that is going to have a huge effect. It was overlooked by most carriers, who are concerned with other topics — like survival.
What a carrier has to provide now are little pieces of paper to support its drivers’ hours-of-service records, for example, fuel receipts, toll tickets, bills of ladings, etc. Those are easily “misfiled” when need be.
But now, electronic records — read that as satellite/wireless communications, including Global Positioning System data — are officially on the table. For carriers that have been avoiding technology because of its enforcement hazards, I am sure FMCSA is going to ask for and get driver cell-phone records, so now every carrier is fair game.
Can electronic onboard recorders for every truck be far behind? I think not.
The trucking world is divided into two camps:
• Group One embraces the HOS rules completely, requires its drivers to do the same and uses the most modern technology available as a management tool, making sure its drivers are working according to the rules and company policies, controls fleet movements and utilization. Group One’s fleets enforce safety policies and monitor service performance. They are frequently, but not always, large carriers and companies with a reasonably predictable operating environment, with excess capacity built in. Coincidently, they are sometimes the carriers with the highest turnover rates.
• Group Two’s carriers view HOS as an obstacle to efficient operations. Since a large portion of its business addresses the unpredictable movements rejected by Group One’s carriers and shippers, a significant number of freight movements are completed by Group Two companies. Coincidently, they are usually the carriers that depend on owner-operators and small fleets most heavily. These are the carriers, and the shippers who use them, who will have to change — in some cases dramatically — the way business is done.
Gone will be the pattern of making changes in volumes, destinations, etc., on short (less than 48 hours) notice. Shippers that persist will be left one option — using high-priced expeditors. If those carriers and shippers don’t change, I fear for the driver caught in the middle.
As an individual who has worked in both environments, my concern is the total inflexibility of the current HOS rules — e.g., the inability to stop the 14-hour clock — combined with the total inflexibility of assured enforcement of HOS rules with EOBRs. The human needs of the driver will be overridden by “the clock,” something like the early industrial world’s discovery that when assembly lines were run too fast, injury and accidents resulted.
I’ve been an owner-operator, dispatcher or supervisor in the trucking industry for more than 30 years and was a finalist for American Trucking Associations’ 1999 Road Team. I am all for the total, universal enforcement that EOBRs provide, leveling the playing field for all carriers. If we build a little flexibility into the HOS rules, that driver in the middle will be allowed to address the fatigue issues at the root of all these rules and their enforcement.
If we don’t, the unintended negative consequences will be many and varied.
Jeff Beyer
Owner-Operator
New Tripoli, Pa.
