Arkansas Trucking Association

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.