TRUCKERS' COMPLAIN * Canada - Trucking firms, drivers debate flying rock dangers

Trucking companies:  Rocks flying off the backs of trucks and striking car windshields don't add up

Ottawa,CAN -CBC News -Mar 24, 2011: ...   Nearly a week after an Ottawa woman's terrifying near-miss on a west-end road, in which a rock smashed her windshield and showered her with shards of glass, truckers are saying their loads can rarely be faulted in such incidents...  The more likely scenario, companies said, is that a chunk of asphalt or roadside rubble can get lodged between a truck's dual tires and later get flung backwards...  But dozens of motorists who have had their windows struck by rocks beg to differ...  Kyla Helpin was driving north on Carp Road near McGee Side Road last Friday when she said a "baseball-sized" rock fell from a passing dump truck and shattered the windshield in front of her face...  Jason Birch, a father of two, was killed in an eerily similar incident last October...  Tracy Braun was unequivocal about what happened to her when she was working as a first-aid attendant for a construction company...   "It literally came straight at me," she said. "Definitely, it came off the truck. There was no doubt about it. I saw it coming right at me" ...    (Photo by Kyla Helpin - A rock shattered the top of the windshield of Kyla Helpin's car last Friday)

TRUCKERS' COMPLAIN * USA - CARB Dumps On Dump Truck Industry

"It’s hard to read or write anything about CARB without becoming angry"

Sacramento,CAL,USA -Calwatchdog -Feb 23, 2011: -- For Lee Brown, who’s run a dump truck company in Upland for the last 20 years, business is as bad as it has ever been. The construction industry in California is half of what it was three years ago, and credit is tight for those small companies still hanging on... The $650 million agency (CARB) is a behemoth, responsible for all the state’s pollution and global warming regulations, which it enforces with all the subtlety and kindness of a barroom brawler. Even the revelation that one of its own pollution researchers had falsified his credentials didn’t phase the agency, which received no official sanction... In any case, the new CARB regulation in question imposes tough new pollution standards on all diesel vehicles in the state. It also levies the same steep fines on anyone found out of compliance that CARB observers have come to know and love... According to Brown, who is also executive director the 70-year-old California Dump Truck Owners Association (CDTOA), membership three years ago stood at 1,700 companies. Today it’s about 900, 60 percent of which are small, independent owner-operators. If the rule goes into effect, Brown said it could destroy virtually all of the small business operators... Brown says a truck manufacturer recently told him that the price of a new truck has already gone up $18,000 to take into account the mandatory new pollution equipment. And that’s a year before the rule actually goes into effect. All of this adds up to considerably higher prices charged by dump truck operators. It’s a grim picture of an already grim industry... (Photo from inetgiant.com: A Peterbilt dump truck)

TRUCKING COSTS * USA - LA Harbor Commission Closes Clean-Truck Loopholes

Port bans tricks by some motor carriers that circumvent regulations

Los Angeles,CAL,USA -The Journal of Commerce Online, by Bill Mongelluzzo -Dec 16, 2010: -- The Los Angeles Harbor Commission Thursday voted to prohibit two practices some motor carriers deploy to circumvent the port's clean-truck regulations... Class 7 trucks will now be governed by the same clean-air rules that apply to the larger Class 8 trucks... Also, the commission modified its tariff so that switching containers from compliant trucks to banned trucks is banned anywhere in the harbor district. This practice is known as dray-off... The California Air Resources Board, whose regulations apply throughout the state, is scheduled on Dec. 16 to consider amending its Drayage Truck Rule to include regulation of Class 7 trucks and to address the dray-off issue... (Photo from wantai.net: Class 7 Fuso truck)


* California - Truckers say L.A.'s 'green' port costs them money. The dispute over who should pay for leasing and maintaining 'clean' rigs could go to the Supreme Court

Los Angeles,CAL,USA - The Los Angeles Times, by Patrick J. McDonnell -December 7, 2010: -- Alex Mejia said he often sleeps in his truck, grabbing some fitful rest before a new dawn breaks and he is once again hauling cargo at the Port of Los Angeles. The routine marks another working day that, he says, could last 18 hours, much of it spent waiting — for a job order, a load, an operational trailer chassis — before getting back on the road... He is among about 10,000 drivers who provide a lifeline at the nation's busiest port complex, hauling containers from the seaport to far-flung warehouses and distribution centers for clients ranging from small firms to giants such as Wal-Mart, Costco and Rite Aid. Many say they have long endured extended hours, high stress and relatively low pay, even in the days when business boomed with galloping multibillion-dollar commerce with Asia... Life was supposed to get better for them with the coming of the city's much-ballyhooed Clean Truck Program, which is widely credited with helping to upgrade air quality... The concept — to replace smog-spawning clunkers with newer and cleaner rigs — promised to slash emissions and offer a new deal for beleaguered port truckers, many of them immigrants from Mexico and Central America... "Things were ba enough when we owned our trucks, but I would say the situation is desperate now," said Mejia, who ditched his 1995 Freightliner and now leases a "clean" 2008 International. "We're all happy that the air is cleaner. We live here too. But it is our sweat, our work, that is helping to improve the environment" ... "This program has been a great deception to us," said Jose Mauricio Guzman, 54, who has more than 20 years of port trucking experience. "We no longer have hope to be in the middle class. We are all poor now"...

TRUCKER CLAIMS * USA - He was fired for refusing to break downtime laws

Gaston man says he lost his job when he refused to break those rules

Gaston,SC,USA -10WISTV, by Jack Kuenzie -Nov 18, 2010: -- The trucking industry is a critical component of the American economy.  But drivers of the big rigs have to follow rules set by the government, and a Gaston man says he lost his job when he refused to break those rules... Victor Harris took a few minutes Thursday afternoon to play with a new addition to his family, but he has more time on his hands than he'd prefer. Until he lost his job this summer, Harris had spent seven years developing the considerable skills of a long haul trucker... Harris says it's not easy to make a living driving big rigs.  It was even harder for him pressure from his employer to deliver cargo long distances on schedule and still comply with federal regulations that require all drivers to rest after being on the road for a certain number of hours... Harris says a few months ago, the Columbia-based company he was driving for gave him an assignment that was impossible without violating the law. When he insisted on taking the legally required downtime, he was in effect laid off... Harris is planning a lawsuit against his former employer. His attorney said some of the practices her client describes are "rampant" in the trucking industry...

* Welcome worn out for obscure fatigue ‘statistic’

Grain Valley,MO,USA -Land Line Magazine, by Joe Rajkovacz (OOIDA director of regulatory affairs) -24 Nov 2010: ...   The notion that “31 percent of all heavy truck accidents [are] caused by driver fatigue” has any validity is a form of urban myth or, more suitably, a road rumor that took on a life of its own as it has been continually repeated... The 31 percent number comes from an obscure NTSB Safety Study conducted back in 1988... Suffice it to say that study was not a scientifically based, statistically valid examination of general fatigue among truckers, but it’s been artfully elevated to that level. The bogus 31 percent number from that study is repeated by many who want to mandate expensive on-board safety technologies (or worse) under the guise that fatigued driving is an epidemic... Just how significant is fatigue amongst truck drivers? There are reliable statistics that accurately report on the prevalence of fatigue in fatal crashes among truck drivers. They come from the Fatality Analysis Reporting System. Those numbers were publicly communicated on Sept. 30, 2010, in a webinar hosted by FMCSA titled: 2009 – Historic Truck Crash Declines. The number is 1.4 percent... There is a big difference between 1.4 percent and 31 percent. Excuse my cynicism, but why do supposedly responsible organizations like to rely on false or bad statistics to support hammering away at truckers?... Follow the money. Beating up unfairly on truckers is big business. Perpetuating the “big bad trucker” stereotype is being used to justify more onerous and costly mandates and regulations, more roadside enforcement and – of course – grabbing more taxpayer money...

* DC - HOS remains under review at Office of Management and Budget

Washington,DC,USA -Land Line Magazine, by Jami Jones -29 Nov 2010: -- The proposed hours-of-service regulations remain at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, but it should not affect the agency’s ability to have a final rule completed by mid-2011... The plan was for the White House to finish review of the regulation on Friday, Nov. 26. However, that was just the plan, and it’s not uncommon for reviews to miss their targeted completion date. The continuing review does not mean the journey toward new HOS regs has been derailed...