A New Frontier in Driver Health

The year 2032. A truck stop outside of Tucumcari, New Mexico. 2:00 a.m.

It's been one of those days that just go on forever. Still, Jake is unusually tired – has been since Amarillo, in fact. But now he's in Tucumcari and it's time for some much-needed rest. As he shuts his tractor down and signs out on the electronic log, the truck's driver information center pings and a soothing, familiar female voice says, “Jake, your body temperature is elevated to 101 degrees and your blood pressure has dropped a bit in the past hour. Your breathing is elevated as well. I suggest you see a doctor.”

Jake nods grimly to himself and climbs out of the driver's seat. The seat is a wonder in and of itself, a smart-ergonomic design that automatically changes its contours throughout the day to keep him feeling fresh and reduces joint and lower-back pain while constantly isolating and limiting vibration and road shocks. It's also a biometric design, lined with advanced “smart” fibers that track Jake's vital signs throughout the day – much like the Apollo astronauts on the moon missions almost a century earlier (although Jake doesn't have to attach sensors to his body or deal with wires running under his clothes to transmit data the way those brave men did).

Wearily, Jake clambers into the back of the cab and flops down on his bunk. Reaching up, he taps the sleeper wall beside his head and instantly, a video screen flares into view. “Doctor, please,” Jake tells the onboard computer. Within seconds his personal, online physician comes into view. The doctor isn't real, of course. Not at this hour. She's a virtual physician on an interactive website designed to help patients deal with health emergencies.

Jake describes his symptoms to the virtual doctor and taps the ...Read the rest of this story

Love’s Travel Stops Opens 14th Location in Illinois

Photo: Love's

Love's Travel Stops has opened a new facility in Knoxville, Ill., along Interstate 74. It is the company's 14th location in the state.

The Knoxville travel stop brings 94 truck-parking spots to the area and offers Love's Truck Tire Care center as well as other services and amenities for drivers. The company also features seven showers and a Subway and a Chester's Chicken restaurant.

Love's also operates other locations along Interstate 74, including stores in St. Paul, Ind., Pittsboro, Ind., and Le Roy, Ill.

“With the opening of the Knoxville store, Love's Travel Stops now has four locations spanning 300 miles along Interstate 74,” said Greg Love, co-CEO of Love's. “We remain committed to providing more locations for professional drivers to park and access services and opening another site along a well-traveled interstate is a welcome relief for our Customers that we're happy to provide.”

Related: Parking Searches Can Cost Drivers $4,600 Annually

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Goodyear Announces Highway Hero Award Finalists

Last year's Goodyear Highway Hero Award winner, Julian Kaczor. Photo: Deborah Lockridge

Goodyear Tire& Rubber has announced the finalists for its 34th Goodyear Highway Hero Award, honoring truck drivers who put themselves in harm's way to help others.

Finalists for this year's Goodyear Highway Hero Award include a driver who rescued an unconscious motorist from a minivan that had flipped over, a driver who pulled a mother and her three children from a car that was upside-down in a creek bed, and a driver who stopped an out-of-control dump truck and administered first aid to its incapacitated driver.

The overall winner will be announced during the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, Ky., on March 23.

Here are this year's Goodyear Highway Hero Award finalists:

Chris Baker, a driver from Chicopee, Mass. Baker was driving down a New Jersey highway when he spotted flickering lights ahead. Pulling closer to investigate, he found a minivan that had flipped over onto its side. Flames erupted from the vehicle's engine. Grabbing his fire extinguisher, he ran to the van and put out the fire.

By then, the van's passenger had escaped and crawled to safety, but its unconscious driver remained inside, hanging from a seat belt. Working with a bystander, Baker unfastened the driver's seat belt, grabbed him by the arm, and pulled him away from the van. Baker stayed by his side until rescue crews arrived. The man survived and did not suffer any significant injuries.

Tim Freiburger, a driver from Huntington, Ind. Freiburger was driving through Indiana when he saw a car lose control and drive into a creek, where it flipped and came to a stop, upside down in standing water. Freiburger raced to the car, which contained a mother and her three children. He broke a window and pulled the children out of the car.

After carrying ...Read the rest of this story

Mud Flap Retention System Can be Installed by Hand

BettsHD has introduced the Trailer Mud Flap Retention System designed for the retrofit or repair of trailer mud flap mounting on a variety of frames.

The system is designed for mounting on 48-inch wide slider boxes and frames where there are 2-inch or 2 7/8-inch mounting hole centers available.

It is an engineered mud flap mounting system that uses a proprietary spring steel mounting bracket. The bracket is capable of being installed using common hand tools, eliminating the need for welding during new mud flap installation or replacement. This allows for roadside and driver repair and is designed to increase vehicle uptime and keep trailers operating within legal requirements.

The mounting bracket is compatible with either the BettsHD Direct Flex mud flap hanger for severe-duty applications or the company's 27 ½-inch long, heavy duty spring-loaded mud flap hanger engineered specifically for wider trailer frames and full tire coverage.

The Trailer Mud Flap Retention System is available with either a left-hand or right-hand replacement/installation or as a complete system retrofit.

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Omnitracs Partners with Peloton on Truck Platooning Product

Photo: Peloton

Omnitracs and Peloton Technology announced a partnership that will bring Peloton's truck platooning technology to Omnitracs fleet management solutions customers. The partnership will also lead to joint solutions that combine each company's safety, efficiency, and fleet management capabilities.

Peloton will begin filling pre-orders of its platooning product for Class 8 trucks in 2017, offering a technology that synchronizes braking and acceleration between pairs of trucks, enabling the trucks to travel safely at aerodynamic following distances..

The trucks are synchronized through integrated vehicle-to-vehicle communications with radar-based collision avoidance systems.

“Peloton has developed technology that is on the cutting edge of advanced driver assistance systems and the automated vehicle movement,” said John Graham, CEO of Omnitracs. “Its emphasis on spatial awareness is a crucial and foundational component of improving truck safety and fuel efficiency.”

Peloton will help roll out its automated vehicle technology to Omnitracs customers, beginning with two-truck platooning. Omnitracs has a large customer base in the long-haul trucking segment, which stands to benefit significantly from platooning, according to Peloton.

Co-developed solutions from the partnership may include integrated cloud-based fleet management services and hardware.

Omnitracs is a fleet management software company offering solutions for fleet management, routing, and predictive analytics. Peloton is a connected and automated vehicle technology company that offers a driver-assistive platooning system.

“We are excited to be part of the first partnership of a commercial platooning system supplier with a leading fleet management provider,” said Joshua Switkes, founder and CEO of Peloton Technology. “We will offer expanded opportunities for platooning across the broad customer base that Omnitracs has attracted by focusing on cost advantages for fleets.”

Related: Self-Driving Trucks and the Platooning Stepping Stone: How Soon?

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Defending fleets against cyber threats

Every fleet today is connected, connected to its trucks, connected to its drivers, connected to its customers and even connected to its regulators. They have data that thieves want, and a password and firewall aren't enough anymore to keep them at bay.

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Old Sayings Apply While Driving Through Bad Weather

Jackknifes can occur fast and on snow and ice, and are very difficult to recover from. Photos: Tom Berg; from ABC and NBC newscasts. 

In my long-ago truck driving days, I always managed to “keep it between the fence posts,” to use an old saying. That means in dry or sloppy weather, I kept trucks on or near the roadway. It doesn't mean a truck never got away from me. That happened in the wee hours of a late winter morning, when light snow caused my truck to spin out, twice within a few minutes, on 90-degree curves.

The real cause was me driving too fast for conditions. Had I been driving a semi, it might not have ended well because pulling a trailer is far more tricky.

Newscasts within the last week, when blizzards hit the Northeast and elsewhere, showed a lot of scenes of jackknifed semis on various Interstates, and a few in ditches. While I didn't have to pull trailers through snow and ice in Wisconsin winters, I sometimes whined about traffic, idiot car drivers, and the weather.

My boss, a former driver, once lectured, “You're the one who's supposed to be in control of the truck. If you get into trouble, you're the one who's responsible.” Funny thing: Police tend to see it that way, too. My boss could've added that for every truck and driver that comes to grief along a certain stretch of road, there are many that don't. They must've done something right.

Slow way down in blinding conditions? Sure, but not so suddenly that you get rear-ended. Even better, park the truck in a safe place, like a truck stop, customer's yard (if they'll allow it), or rest area, and wait out the storm. Or seek a way around it. Watching weather forecasts, particularly those of a ...Read the rest of this story