Arkansas Trucking Association

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published in the federal register a request for public comment on existing rules and agency actions that should be repealed, replaced, suspended or modified.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."

A recent Planet Money episode reported Walmart’s newest venture—inventing food. The popular NPR program and podcast visited Walmart’s Culinary & Innovation Center to try the “Tropickle,” a bright red pickle infused with tropical fruit punch.

With increased competition from Amazon in the grocery sector after the Seattle-based ecommerce site acquired Whole Foods in August, Walmart is getting creative to protect its place in the grocery space, Planet Money reports.

Dr. Panda, the world's #2 paid kids' app developer, launched a new app, Dr. Panda Trucks, for kids to control up to 7 different trucks to customize a construction project.