Safety

Truck tonnage dropped 2.8% in February year-over-year, reversing January’s positive momentum, but American Trucking Associations’ chief economist maintains that freight activity remained strong considering February 2016 was a record-setting month.

A proposed rule that would allow trucking companies to conduct government-certified pre-employment drug testing using hair samples likely will not be publicly released until the end of 2017 or early 2018, according to a top official with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Readers discuss the regulatory side of entry-level driver training and the best way to maximize profit is containing costs.

Last week, we cheered the apparent demise of a federal regulatory provision regarding hours of service. Now we’d like to salute a positive development: a recent discussion on truck safety before a Senate subcommittee.

The electronic logging device mandate for tracking hours of service has brought a lot of attention to truck telematics, and many experts are providing advice on how to prepare for that transition. But one aspect of telematics that few are addressing is how underutilized most existing systems are. In my estimate, only three in 10 fleets are utilizing their telematics system to the max.

The freight-hauling capacity of at least 4,510 heavy-duty U.S. trucks evaporated during the last three months of 2016 as 160 fleets shuttered their doors and quit the industry, according to a study by investment firm Avondale Partners.

Salaries for truckload drivers rose at the low rate of 0.04 point in the fourth quarter year-over-year, according to the latest National Transportation Institute index (or 0.03% on a preliminary basis), the slowest in 2016.