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We look at the whole picture. We look at where the load is going, whether that area is a good area for freight out or would we have to deadhead further after we deliver the load," say 12-year expedite veterans Bernie & Allen Hall.
This husband/wife duo are straight truck drivers for a fleet owner leased to Panther Expedited Services and they tell us that they consider a number of factors when deciding whether to accept a run offer - factors that include: What percentage will the truck have to make to show a marginal profit after expenses? What about the deadhead to the pickup and the deadhead after the load to another layover area.
If your driving history goes back to the days when you were advised to "pump your brakes" in an emergency stop on slick pavement, then the first time you used a vehicle equipped with an anti-lock braking system (ABS), it probably came as a shock to discover the brakes seemingly had a mind of their own. It required a bit of adjustment on your part to simply apply steady pressure to the pedal and let the system do its thing.
The Mid America Trucking Show in Louisville has traditionally been a popular venue for trucking-related manufacturers and equipment providers to debut their latest offerings to the trucking public.
The most recent show in March was no exception and the Expediter Experience was proud to number among its exhibitors a company that is brand new to expedited freight and the trucking world in general, but is sure to garner a great deal of interest from both.
CP Handheld Technologies has entered the trucking industry full throttle and its Tracker GPS asset-tracking and management system is leading the charge.
The trucking world is very familiar with the tracking technologies of CP Handheld's competition, but John Cobb, CP Handheld's CEO and co-founder, believes that his company has constructed a "better mousetrap."
It was shortly after the 2006 Expedite Expo that Lawrence McCord, General Manager of Expediters Online.com began work on a concept he had been nurturing for months. Inspired by the work of the Chrome Shop Mafia of TV's "Trick My Truck", McCord presented his concept of a customized expediter truck to a select group of sponsors that included Speedco Tire and Lube Services, Alumi-Bunk Corporation and Indiana Truck Sales. The Chrome Shop Mafia was commissioned to construct the vehicle and today we have the result: the wildest expediter truck ever - the Speedco Supertruck!
Roadside inspections are part of life for professional drivers. The main purpose of roadside inspections is to give the commercial motor vehicle and its driver an on-the-spot safety check. If you've never undergone a D.O.T. inspection, relax. It's not the end of the world.
If you know your truck and you're sure it's ready for inspection, it will make the stop little more than a slight delay. With some two million inspections performed annually, you can figure that most survive and you will, too.
The most important thing a driver can do to be ready for inspections say drivers who know, is to have a clean truck.
The goal is to simply not get noticed and it's unlikely that a relatively clean vehicle with shiny chrome will attract the same kind of safety-related scrutiny that a filthy, grime-covered truck will
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says the average big truck engine consumes 0.8 gallons of fuel an hour to idle - more if it's running accessories like air conditioning.
Spread over a working year, your annual idling cost can total into thousands of dollars, and that's just for the price of fuel. The wear and tear on the idling engine has its cost as well.
Ray Lawrence of Espar of Michigan says that auxiliary power units and generators - referred to as APUs and gen sets - are a cost-effective alternative to idling. Mounted on the truck, these efficient truck-mounted diesel engines burn less than a quart of fuel per hour.
The Mid-America Trucking Show (MATS) will be held this week on March 22-24, 2007 and the event's organizers are predicting that this 36th edition of the show will be the largest Mid-America ever, even larger than the record-breaking show in 2006. Last year's event featured over 1,000 exhibitors with an attendance of over 75,000 visitors, so look for a great Mid-America for this year.
The dedicated run.
The term conjures up a variety of images to the expedited owner-operator/driver: stability, consistency of revenue, a schedule that allows a driver to know where he/she will be next week.
For the expedited driver, who typically never knows where he might be tomorrow or how much revenue he might generate in the next month, the dedicated run represents steady employment with a guaranteed income. That is, at least for the life of the customer's contract with the driver's carrier.
"The Expediter Experience was a smash hit! It was THE place for expediters to convene, to catch up with one another and to see all of the new expediter trucks on display. New trucks were sold, owner-operators were signed with carriers and the Expediter Workshops were a success. It was a great time!"
However, the trucking industry has discovered these chemicals are far more damaging than old-fashioned road salt when it comes to rust and corrosion on vehicles.
The colored film on the windows is just the latest development. Roy Gambrell, who is heading up a new Corrosion Action Committee for the Technology and Maintenance Council of the American Trucking Associations, explained that these de-icers can apparently be a bit slippery when applied to the roads before the precipitation starts coming down. After a resulting fatal crash last winter, a number of states started adding dye to the de-icers to alert motorists that it had been applied to the roads.
It's not easy to get off; regular windshield wiper fluid won't do it. Gambrell says some drivers have found that a water repellant product such as Rain-X helps keep the stuff from sticking as bad. Phosphoric acid, he says, is the cleaner of choice of many drivers - shake it up so it sprays out of the container, douse the windshield with it, and wipe off (don't forget to then use plain water to clean off the soda syrup afterwards). It's probably the phosphoric acid Coke uses.
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