Security Boosts Trucking’s Expenses

(Michael James - Transport Topics) Sen. Byron Dorgan holds traffic cone like ones that had been used to seal remote crossings of the U.S.-Canada border.

Trucking company executives say delays related to security checks of trucks hauling hazardous materials in the United States and Canada are driving up costs and could jeopardize their businesses.

“We have trucks that are getting stopped on a daily basis, and one of ours got stopped one day on three separate occasions,” said Charles Whittington, president of Grammer Industries in Grammer, Ind. “It’s an expense that we hadn’t counted on, planned for and can’t put up with for very long.”

Grammer hauls the fertilizer ammonium nitrate. The chemical compound was converted into an explosive and used by Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and in terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993 and U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998.

For the full story, see the Oct. 8 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.

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