Perspective

There’s no real mystery as to why otherwise intelligent fleet operators so often negotiate full-service leases using only big, round numbers. Reason No. 1 is that they simply don’t know their actual, detailed maintenance costs.

As transportation and logistics businesses expand their services and customer bases in the rapidly evolving third-party logistics environment, many firms unknowingly expose themselves to legal risks by using a single, standard form of terms and conditions for all customer arrangements.

Lawsuits, class-action suits and civil penalties” are not the words carriers want to read at the beginning of an op-ed in this newspaper.

The case for going paperless is compelling, but how to get there is not evident. If you’re ready to eliminate the mounds of overwhelming paperwork in your office, you need to select a document-management solution.

As we close the book on 2012, I think most economists and trucking executives would agree that while growth is preferable to the alternative, the relatively anemic growth we saw last year is certainly nothing to get excited about.

Given today’s growing equipment demand and ongoing economic uncertainty, many businesses are finding noncash equipment financing to be a key acquisition strategy.

America’s natural-gas boom has the potential to be another big win — if we work together to do it the right way. But if we don’t get it right, substituting natural gas for diesel in our longhaul trucking fleet could just as easily become a losing proposition for everyone concerned.

Over the past several years, government regulation that should be directed at every link of the supply chain has become increasingly focused on the trucking industry’s portion. If this continues, it quickly will become toxic to our industry and the economy as a whole.

Before adding one, two — or several hundred — trailers, a fleet manager needs to determine what equipment’s right for the application and to do it by knowing what’s out there, what’s right for an operation, and the most basic choice of all, whether to buy new or used.

With the dust settling from last month’s elections — and the voters returning to Washington a still-divided government — it is going to be incumbent upon our leaders to find areas of broad agreement to build upon if we are going to move forward as a nation.