Florida Truck Driver Helps Save Unresponsive Man

David Miller has been named a Highway Angel by the Truckload Carriers Association (TCA) for his help in saving a man's life. Photo courtesy of TCA.

David Miller, of Palatka, Florida, a professional truck driver for Celadon Trucking of Indianapolis, has been named a Highway Angel by the Truckload Carriers Association. He is being recognized for performing CPR on an unresponsive driver.

On Jan. 25, Miller was at a Pilot Travel Center in Kingston Springs, Tennessee, when he saw a man fall to the floor, unresponsive. He quickly raced over and performed a sternum rub to see if the man would respond. After receiving no response, Miller began performing CPR until emergency medical services arrived, helping to save the man's life.

For his willingness to assist his fellow driver, TCA presented Miller with a certificate, patches, a lapel pin, and truck decals. Celadon Trucking also received a certificate acknowledging Miller as a Highway Angel.

EpicVue sponsors TCA's Highway Angel program. Since the program's inception in Aug. 1997, hundreds of drivers have been recognized as Highway Angels for the exemplary kindness, courtesy, and courage they have displayed while on the job.

Related: Highway Angel of the Year Rescued Driver Stranded in Flood

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2017 HDT Fact Book: Highways

HDT's Fourth Annual Fact Book is an overview of the trucking industry by the numbers. Each of the graphs, charts, tables, and infographics are designed to offer a snapshot of the current industry and serve as a reference guide Check out the full Fact Book in the digital edition.

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Lytx Moves Production of Video Recorders to U.S. From China

Lytx will begin producing its video event recorders in Logansport, Indiana, in March in a shift from the company's prior operations on mainland China, the company announced.

The move brings 70 jobs and a $50 million investment to the area.

Lytx will begin full production in the spring, but will start work at the facility in October, when it will commence validation manufacturing and fine-tune processes. Lytx is contracting manufacturing to Cal-Comp USA, whose Indiana plant produces products for the aerospace, defense, and medical device industries.

"Bringing these jobs to the U.S. makes business sense for Lytx in a number of ways," said Jim McDaniel, Lytx's senior director of operations and supply chain. "With this move, we're actually able to reduce our costs by limiting import tariffs and avoiding overseas transport costs, while still paying above market wages to Logansport factory workers. Indiana is also home to many of our clients and lies within the heart of commercial transportation."

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NTEA’s Fleet Technical Congress to Debut with Work Truck Show

NTEA announced the addition of the Fleet Technical Congress to its "Work Truck Week."

This inaugural event will be held in conjunction with The Work Truck Show 2018 and Green Truck Summit in Indianapolis, taking place March 6, 2018.

At Fleet Technical Congress, fleet managers can explore the latest technology solutions while gaining management insights from leaders of some of the country's biggest fleets and suppliers.

"We see two significant trends acting as change agents in the fleet management world," said George Survant, NTEA senior director of fleet relations. "First, there's a whole new range of technology and tools associated with commercial vehicles that are changing the face of the industry in a substantial way. At the same time, we're seeing a significant refreshing of leadership in professional fleet management nationwide. As a result, we believe this is an opportune time to capture the lessons learned by some of our industry's top fleet professionals who will share their experience and vision as a foundation for the next generation of leaders."

Learn more at worktruckshow.com/fleettechnicalcongress.

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ATA Celebrates National Truck Driver Appreciation Week

Screenshot via Trucking Moves America Forward

American Trucking Associations kicked off National Truck Driver Appreciation Week, a week-long celebration of the trucking industry's 3.5 million professional truck drivers.

Running Sept. 10-16, National Truck Driver Appreciation Week highlights the efforts of professional truck drivers to remind the industry of the important role that truck driver's play in transporting goods across the nation. More than 80% of U.S. communities rely exclusively on truck drivers to deliver goods and commodities, and some remote towns and territories are unreachable by other modes of transportation.

“This week was created to commemorate and support the industry professionals who work daily to deliver America's goods,” said Chris Spear, ATA president and CEO. “Truck drivers are hard-working men and women who practice safety on the roads and serve as the faces of our industry. These drivers improve our collective quality of life by making personal commitments to safety and delivering our critical goods like medicine, food, building supplies and clothing.”

ATA is asking the trucking industry to engage their communities in this week's celebration of truck drivers. Public officials, community leaders, members of the media and local businesses can all play a role in helping to better understand the important work that truck drivers do in safely moving the economy each day. Highway safety is dramatically improved when the motoring public acknowledges the difficulties of driving a truck and the limitations of large commercial vehicles.

In support of this effort, Trucking Moves America Forward, the trucking industry's image movement, is partnering with state trucking associations to run billboard advertisements along key highways to thank truck drivers for their service to the industry.

This year, special attention is being paid to the 1.6 million trucking industry employees who live and work in the direct paths of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. During National Truck Driver Appreciation ...Read the rest of this story

International Announces LoneStar Upgrades Ahead of NACV Show

The newly upgraded International LoneStar is now available with the Cummins X15 engine as an option. Photo: International

International Trucks will be rolling into the inaugural North American Commercial Vehicle Show later this month with a seriously-overhauled LoneStar. In a teleconference Monday morning to outline the various enhancements and new features on retro-styled Class 8 tractor, Dave Majors, vice president, product development, Navistar, said the new LoneStar is yet another signal to the industry that International Truck is focused on uptime and delivering the best trucks in the industry that drivers want to drive.

According to Majors, the Lonestar's “striking” aerodynamic appearance and “breakthrough” functional innovations inside and out are the results of International DriverFirst and Advanced Classics design philosophies, in which technology and innovative styling converge with next-generation aerodynamic design to deliver superior fuel efficiency. Majors said the new LoneStar also sets a higher standard for comfort through improved driver ergonomics and a quieter cab.

"Over the past decade drivers have come to love the iconic status of the LoneStar tractor's exterior styling and appearance with the distinctive grille and sloped hood that were inspired by International's D-Series trucks," said Majors. "Based on this feedback, we wanted to incorporate much of what we've recently learned from drivers and focus our engineering on an all new driver-centric interior while maintaining the iconic exterior look of the truck. As a result, we've made major improvements to the LoneStar in vehicle uptime performance and multiple new and improved features that enhance driver appeal."

Among the new features that International has added to the LoneStar are:

Navistar makes enhancements to LoneStar tractor

The International Truck division of Navistar is rolling out what it calls “major enhancements” to its LoneStar highway tractor; deliberately dovetailing the announcement with the start of National Truck Driver Appreciation Week to highlight the “driver-focused” upgrades to its LoneStar family of trucks, originally introduced back in 2008.

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