Arkansas Trucking Association

The Arkansas Trucking Association is pleased to announce the first recipients of the Carl Tapp Memorial Scholarship Fund. High school seniors Konner Hodges of Gentry High School Conversion Charter and Colt Dickard of Har-Ber High School will both receive $7,500 to pursue training for a career in medium/heavy duty truck technology.

Little Rock, Ark., April 2, 2018 – The Arkansas Trucking Association launches today a statewide initiative to educate the public about the dangers of driving while distracted.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson joined Arkansas Trucking Association officials, along with officers from the Arkansas State Police and the Arkansas Highway Police, to announce “Focus. Drive. Stay Alive.” at the Arkansas State Capitol in Little Rock.

“One of our goals is to make Arkansas’s roads and highways safer for all drivers,” said Arkansas Trucking Association President, Shannon Newton. “’Focus. Drive. Stay Alive.’ will help educate Arkansans about the dangers of driving while distracted and safely sharing the road.”

The Arkansas Trucking Association (ATA) applauds the introduction of the DRIVE-Safe Act, a critical piece of legislation introduced yesterday that aims to address the massive driver shortage affecting the delivery of commerce in our country, while also promoting enhanced safety training for new members of the workforce.

The trucking industry is hindered by federal law which prohibits the movement of goods across state lines by individuals under the age of 21. This arbitrary restriction on interstate deliveries is particularly problematic in attracting young people to the opportunities available in the trucking industry.  Most states, including Arkansas, allow individuals to obtain a commercial driver’s license (CDL) at age 18.  An 18 year-old driver may then legally deliver a load from Fort Smith to West Memphis, but is prohibited from delivering just nine miles further in Memphis, Tenn.

The proposed legislation would create a graduated two-step program for 18–21 year-old CDL holders to train with experienced drivers before earning credentials that would allow them to legally make interstate deliveries.

Date/Time:     Tuesday, March 6, 2018

10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.

 Location:        The Victory Building

1401 West Capitol Avenue
Suite 445
Little Rock, AR 72201
 

LITTLE ROCK, ARK. - Arkansas Trucking Association’s Accounting & Finance Council is hosting a Blockchain Primer next week, on Tuesday, March 6, in Little Rock, Ark for its first quarterly meeting.

The meeting will be held from 10 am to 2 pm, and lunch will be sponsored by McLeod Software and served while attendees network with other accounting and finance professionals in the industry and learn from experts in a workshop-style setting.

Arkansas Trucking Association is pleased to announce it is accepting applications for a new scholarship opportunity for students interested in pursuing a career as a medium and heavy duty truck technician. ATA has established the Carl Tapp Memorial Scholarship Fund to encourage growth in the state’s technician workforce and to help assure that the safest, most knowledgeable and skilled technicians are working on the trucks and trailers on our nation’s roads.

Applicants must be graduating seniors from accredited high schools. Two scholarships for up to $7,500 will be awarded for students attending a two-semester (30-hour minimum) medium and heavy duty truck technician program at an Arkansas institution.

Plans for flexible sleeper berth pilot program are behind schedule after another public comment period closed on Nov. 27. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration website said the pilot was supposed to begin in July 2017. According to Sean Garney, director of safety policy for American Trucking Associations , the pilot program is now expected sometime next spring or summer.

During a congressional roundtable on emerging technologies in the trucking industry, American Trucking Associations reiterated trucking’s strong record of investing in and implementing innovative technologies to improve safety on the nation’s highways.

Last year’s Clear Air Act gave former President Obama the authority to write emissions rules. However, two key provisions that would limit greenhouse gas emissions from big trucks have been halted.

In the original Environmental Protection Agency emissions proposals, glider kits—incomplete truck bodies that users can build out with older and less expensive engines, transmissions and axles—were subject to standards of aerodynamic efficiency. However, American Trucking Associations and other opponents argue that glider kits are not motor vehicles or engines, only pieces used to assemble a full vehicle, and therefore not eligible to be regulated.

Alan Riels of Dedicated Logistics, Inc. is the newest member of the Arkansas Trucking Association Board of Directors.

Riels is the president and CEO of Dedicated Logistic, LLC, a Crossett-based freight carrier with over 60 trucks.  At the Nov. 3 ATA Board of Directors meeting, Riels was nominated and affirmed to fill the vacant position, previously held by the late Wayne Smith of Wayne Smith Trucking, who passed in May 2017 after serving on the board for over 20 years.

Within hours of its first route in downtown Las Vegas, an autonomous electric shuttle bus was struck by a delivery truck (with a human driver).

The Metropolitan Police Department determined that the shuttle came to a stop when it sensed the truck was trying to back up. However, the human truck driver was found to be at fault when he continued to back up the truck until its tires touched the front of the shuttle. Damage was minor, and no one was hurt.

According to the Department of Transportation, a new drug testing standard will go into effect on Jan.1 to add four commonly abused prescription opioids to the drug testing panel used for truck drivers and all safety-sensitive transportation workers.

In the October 2017 issue of Arkansas Trucking Report, we reported that the Department of Transportation published in the federal register a request for public comment on existing rules and agency actions that should be repealed, replaced, suspended or modified. DOT collected many responses, but it turns out many of them were submitted by ‘bots.’

A ‘bot’ is an app that performs an automated task. In this case, 477 comments, about one-third of the 1,483 comments DOT received, were automated and not submitted by an individual human.

The issue was realized when the same word-for-word response was submitted over and over:

The ELD rule should proceed as planned this December. The rule is not a change to hours of service, it's simply a change in how professional drivers record hours of service. Delaying the ELD rule will endorse drivers to operate outside of their current hours of service, and that is simply not safe to the motoring public. The industry needs to embrace legal and safe operations with ELD use. This issue has been legislated, promulgated, and litigated. The time to move forward is now.

DOT does not yet know who launched the boilerplate responses, but the culprit did plagiarize parts of a speech by American Trucking Associations President and CEO Chris Spear when he said to Management Conference & Exhibition attendees “This issue has been legislated, promulgated, and litigated. The time to move forward is now."