Q&A: PeopleNet addresses FMSCA’s ELD waiver
Dozens of Congressmen Go to Bat for OOIDA ELD Exemption Request
Twenty-five Congressmen have wriiten to FMCSA in support of OOIDA's request for a five-year ELD exemption for certain motor carriers.
">The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association has garnered the support of over two dozen Congressmen in the form of a letter from them to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that encourages the agency to grant OOIDA's pending application for a 5-year exemption from the electronic logging device mandate for small trucking businesses with exemplary safety records.
Specifically, OOIDA has requested at least a 5-year exemption for motor carriers classified as small businesses, according to the Small Business Administration, and that have a proven safety history with no attributable at-fault crashes, and that do not have a Carrier Safety Rating of “Unsatisfactory.”
Click here for our story on oppositon to the OOIDA exemption request
The Feb 1 letter to FMCSA by Reps. Brian Babin (R-TX) and Steve King (R-IA) and co-signed by another 23 Representatives, calls OOIDA's request “responsibly constructed” as it focuses “only on carriers defined by the Small Business Administration as a small-trucking business” and that have “a record of no at-fault crashes would be exempted.
“By sustaining impeccable safety records, the motor carriers that would qualify have already demonstrated the use of an ELD will do nothing to improve their operations,” continue Babin and King. “Futhermore, OOIDA's request would prevent small trucking businesses, who operate on the slimmest of margins, from maintaining costly fleet management devices that provide them no economic or productivity benefits.”
The Congressmen also make something of an all-for-one and one-for-all argument, pointing out that “FMCSA has already granted several requests for exemption from the ELD mandate. Clearly, the agency is capable and willing to provide relief for industries who have demonstrated that exemptions will not decrease safety. In this regard, OOIDA's application for exemption is ...Read the rest of this story
Economic Watch: Employment, Factory Orders Continue Growing
A sizeable gain in trucking employment helped the total number of job additions move higher in January, according to a new Labor Department report.
The trucking industry added 2,200 jobs in the first month of 2018 as the overall economy added a total of 200,000 non-farm jobs, the 88th straight month of job growth and the longest streak on record.
While trucking employment expanded, the wider transportation and warehousing sector added even more jobs for the month, slightly more than 11,000. More than 5,000 of these jobs were in the warehousing and storage sector with nearly as many coming from the couriers and messengers category.
Despite this continued strength in overall employment, the nation's unemployment rate remained at 4.1%, the lowest its been since 2000, while wage growth during was the strongest since in nearly nine years.
Average hourly earnings rose 0.3% in January following December's 0.4% gain. This boosted the year-on-year increase in average hourly earnings to 2.9% the largest rise since June 2009 and up from 2.7% in December.
According to Wells Fargo Securities, the job gains are consistent with 2.5% to 3% economic growth in the first half of 2018. Economic growth in the final quarter of 2017 was at an annual rate of 2.6% following performances of slightly better than 3% in the second and third quarters of last year.
“Quarterly annualized gross domestic product growth rates of 3% are not out of the question, however, sustained growth of 3% should largely be written off if the labor force participation rate does not improve,” said John E. Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo Securities.
He said structural issues continue to hold back growth in this metric.
“While the labor force participation rate for men is higher than for women, growth in the prime age participation rate during this expansion has been led by women,” ...Read the rest of this story
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Details Emerge on Tesla’s Planned Electric Truck Charging Network
According to a Reuters report, Tesla is working with several leading North American fleets to install a network of electric truck charging stations. Photo: Jack Roberts
">At the Tesla Semi truck launch in Hawthorne, CA, last fall, company CEO Elon Musk made passing reference to planned a network of high-capacity charging stations that would eventually be put in place to recharge his electric trucks and extend their daily range. Details on that network were sparse, however.
Now, Reuters has learned that Musk and Tesla are collaborating with several logistics leaders in North America to put the beginnings of that charging network in place. According to a report from Reuters today, Anheuser-Busch, PepsiCo and United Parcel Service (UPS) are working with the electric truck builder to construct on-site charging terminals at their facilities as Tesla ramps up production of its new truck next year. These firms are among nine major logistics providers in North America that have placed pre-orders for the new electric truck.
According to the report, details of the deal are still under negotiation, but will include design and engineering input from Tesla. Reuters notes that the agreement bolsters Musk's claims that Tesla can put a charging network in place in time to support the new truck, and is, in fact, working to overcome one of the most widely cited shortcomings in his publically stated plans for the Semi truck. The agreement is also a strong indication that Tesla truck customers are taking both the vehicle and its deployment seriously, and working with the company it insure as smooth a launch as possible once the trucks enter production.
Reuters reports the companies it spoke to indicated their initial effort will be to install charging equipment on their own premises, with the first Tesla Semis deployed on routes that will return them to ...Read the rest of this story