Arkansas Trucking Association

New timelines have been announced for three Tesla Inc. products, including an electric semi.

“We’ll be in production with Cybertruck next year, we’ll be in production with the Roadster, and with Semi,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on stage at the company’s “Cyber Rodeo” on April 7 in Austin, Texas.

The Trucking Cares Foundation, the trucking industry’s charitable arm, announced it was donating more than $40,000 to a trio of organizations involved in Ukrainian humanitarian relief efforts.

“The war unfolding in Ukraine is a terrible tragedy,” said TCF Chairman Phil Byrd, president and CEO of Bulldog Hiway Express. “The trucking industry stands with the Ukrainian people and we’re proud to do even a little bit to ease their suffering.”

Jeff Holmes has been named chief of Arkansas Highway Police after the retirement of former chief Jay Thompson.

Holmes has worked with the Arkansas Department of Transportation since 1993 when he was a highway patrol officer in West Memphis. In 1998, He has held roles of patrol officer first class, AHP sergeant, first lieutenant in special services, captain and district commander.

The family of one of the oldest trucking companies in the state is investing in the workforce of the industry. On Jan. 19, NorthWest Arkansas Community College in Bentonville announced the creation of the Willis Shaw Family Endowed Scholarship for the college’s commercial driver’s license training program.

Two bills in the Washington State Legislature could address the availability of parking and restroom facilities for
truck drivers. Washington Trucking Association and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association are
supporting the pending legislation that would provide a tax incentive to the private sector to construct new truck parking spaces (HB 1657) and give truck drivers more access to restrooms at retail establishments and port facilities throughout the state (HB 1706).

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration announced that fees for Unified Carrier Registration Plan will be
reduced 27% next year.

The 2023 UCR fees will be reduced for companies with up to two power units from the current $59 to $43. For companies with 1,001 or more units, fees will drop from the current $56,977 to $41,627.

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson approved a $1.45 million grant for a second “Be Pro Be Proud” mobile workshop
to share with high school students the opportunities available through technical careers in the state.

Since the pandemic began, many employees stopped commuting to an office and began logging on from home
to earn their paycheck. Some analysts predict that 25% of professional jobs in North America will be remote by the
end of the year. But less expected is that non-office jobs have remote-potential.

Two companies are exploring technology that allows workers to operate forklifts remotely, a challenge that could address labor shortages in warehouses.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, early estimates of motor vehicle traffic crashes for the first nine months of 2021, fatalities have increased 12%, the highest in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System’s history. NHTSA projects that an estimated 31,720 people died in motor vehicle traffic crashes from January through September 2021, up from the 28,325 fatalities projected for the first nine months of 2020. The projection is the highest number of fatalities during the first nine months of any year since 2006.

Last week, the American Transportation Research Institute released its annual list highlighting the most congested bottlenecks for trucks in America, and the interchange at I-55 and I-40 made its first appearance in the top 100.

For the fifth year, the Arkansas Trucking Association plans to award scholarships of up to $7,500 to students interested in pursuing careers as medium and heavy duty truck technicians. Scholarship applications are being accepted now through April 1, 2022, and are available at arkansastrucking.com/tech-scholarship.