Arkansas Trucking Association

Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed a new speed limit bill into law on April 1. The bill, sponsored by Rep. DeAnn Vaught (R-4th District), allows for increased speed limits — 75 miles per hour on freeways and 65 on other highways for cars. The maximum speed limit would remain 30 mph on highways in urban districts.

After traffic and engineering studies are conducted by the highway department, the Highway Commission will be able to make the changes to the current speed limits.

Just over a year after issuing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in March withdrew its controversial plan for a “Safety Fitness Determination” program. The rulemaking was intended to further the Agency’s Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) platform by using roadside inspection data and other on-road safety indicators – as well as investigation findings – to rate a carrier’s “fitness” to operate.

The American Transportation Research Institute launched online data collection to solicit commercial driver perspectives on a number of top industry issues. The driver feedback will be utilized in several ATRI studies focused on transportation infrastructure funding, the driver shortage and improving highway safety.

ATRI initially collected driver input on these topics through a survey during the Mid-America Trucking Show (MATS)in March where ATRI staff collected over 500 driver surveys.  The online version of the same survey will allow larger numbers of professional drivers to weigh in on these important topics. 

Wayne Smith, founder of Wayne Smith Trucking in Morrillton, Ark., passed away Friday after a long battle with cancer. Smith served on the board of directors for over two decades and was a founding trustee of ATA's Self-Insurers' Fund, which provides workers compensation to dozens of small trucking companies across the state. 

"The world has lost a great man, and many of us have lost a good friend," said Arkansas Trucking Association President Shannon Newton. "Wayne has had a reputation for being honest, hard working and truly passionate about trucking for as long as I've known him. He was the kind of man who gave trucking a good name."

Smith drove his first truck at 14 years old on an orchard in Bakersfield, Calif. Smith's family moved West from Arkansas during the Dust Bowl, and he hauled produce through the produce camps in 1960. Sixteen years later, he began his own trucking company. The venture began in 1976 with two trucks, and today the company has grown to over 100 trucks, not to mention over 500 trailers. The company celebrated its 40th anniversary last year after moving headquarters to Morrilton's growing industrial park.

The American Transportation Research Institute, the trucking industry's not-for-profit research organization, released the results of its Truck Parking Diary research, where commercial drivers provided detailed documentation of their challenges in looking for safe, available truck parking.  Participating drivers recorded their parking experiences and issues over 14 days of driving, representing over 4,700 unique parking stops documented in the diaries.

Arkansas Trucking Association is celebrating its 85th anniversary in 2017. In the new year, the association announced its bi-monthly magazine, Arkansas Trucking Report, would be transitioning publishing operations in-house and naming Amanda Lamb to the business development role to take over the advertising and publishing of the trade periodical. Lamb will also be educating members about ATA's newest opportunity to support the association and its goals.

Lamb comes to ATA with over 10 years of retail and office management experience. As the new business development coordinator, she will manage advertising and sponsorship sales for the association's publications and events as well as inviting members to join The Founders Club, a new program that allows loyal supporters to bundle advertising and sponsorships with exclusive perks.

Daimler is helping fund Starship Technologies, a startup created by Skype founders Ahti Heinla and Janus Friis, the WSJ reports to help U.K.-based Starship bring rolling drone deliveries to city sidewalks around the world.

Starship’s six-wheeled autonomous drones protect deliveries while regulating temperature during the last mile of their journey to a customer’s doorstep. Designed to stick to the ground as a way to simplify the regulatory process, the devices will face stricter safety vetting when airborne.

Commercial truck drivers with three or more medical conditions carry at least double the crash risk for compared to healthier drivers, reports a study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine and led by investigators at the University of Utah School of Medicine.

This study’s examination of medical records from 49,464 commercial truck drivers finds evidence that the more health problems a driver has, the more crash risk he or she may carry.

In a string of executive orders during his first two weeks in office, President Donald Trump signed an order to reduce federal regulations by requiring agencies to cut two existing regulations for every new rule introduced.

"This will be the biggest such act that our country has ever seen. There will be regulation, there will be control, but it will be normalized control," Trump said as he signed the order.

The executive order is designed to control regulation costs by instating a cap that requires the cost of any new regulations to be offset by voiding older rules, a senior White House official told reporters.

Amazon is considering delivering goods via a network of subterranean tunnels.

The Seattle-based company filed a 33-page patent for a system of conveyor belts and vacuum tubes that move parcels and containers underground achieving increased efficiency, more reliable deliveries and less traffic on the roads as less delivery vehicles would be needed.

On January 23, DOT published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to amend its drug-testing program regulation, despite an order from President Trump barring federal agencies from publishing regulations in the Federal Register.

Trump's order prohibits regulations from being published unless a Trump-picked agency chief signs off. It also directed agencies to immediately withdraw any submitted regulations before they can be published.

As the U.S.’s trade negotiations are under the microscope, a cross-border trucking provision that allows Mexican trucks to carry freight across the U.S.-Mexican border is vulnerable to repeal.

In January 2015, the Department of Transportation announced that Mexican motor carriers could apply for authority to conduct long-haul, cross-border trucking services in the United States, increasing economic and export opportunities between the two countries, and marking a significant milestone in implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. It took more than 20 years after NAFTA went into effect in 1994 for the US to finally allow trucks to move across the border due after a successful pilot program.