News
FOR THE RECORD
TRUCKING NEWS
Hours rule delayed again
BY MAX HEINE
DOT bans handheld
cell use while driving
BY JILL DUNN
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has released a final
rule that will allow commercial drivers to continue hands-free
cell phone use, but will bar operating handheld cell phones
while driving.
The new rule still will permit truck and bus drivers to use
handheld cells after they have moved their vehicles to the side
of or off a highway or have stopped where the vehicle can safely remain stationary.
Violators will face a maximum civil penalty of $2,750 for
each offense. CDL holders will be disqualified from operating a
commercial motor vehicle for multiple offenses and states will
At press time, the White House Office of Management and Budget was still reviewing the final rule for truck drivers’ hours of service after receiving the rule from the U.S. Department of Transportation on Nov. 1. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
on Oct. 28 announced that it would not be able to publish the
rule by that day’s court-imposed extended deadline and that the
petitioners had agreed to extend the deadline for publication.
The parties to the settlement agreed to file their next status report with the court on Monday, Nov. 28. They requested another extension and to file their next status report in 45 days pending
the issuing of a final rule. FMCSA said in a Nov. 28 filing that it
expects to issue the final rule within the next 30 days.
Under the current proposal, FMCSA is, among other changes, considering whether to reduce the daily driving limit from
11 hours to 10 hours and has proposed to limit the 34-hour restart provision by requiring that it include two periods from
midnight to 6 a.m. and limiting its use to once per week. ATA
and the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association have
said the proposal is costly and unnecessary since studies indicate safety improvements under the 2008 rule.
Trucking safety record improves
FROM STAFF REPORTS
American Trucking Associations President and CEO Bill Graves
recognized the continued progress in the trucking industry’s
safety record.
“Based on the latest report from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, fatal crashes involving a large truck have fallen
31 percent from 2007 to 2009, and crashes resulting in injury have
fallen 30 percent,” Graves said following a review of FMCSA’s 2009
Large Truck and Bus Crash Facts.
The fatal crash rate has fallen each year since 2005, according
to the FMCSA statistics.
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FYI
Teamsters
re-elect Hoffa
The Teamsters union has reelected General President Jim
Hoffa against two challengers by a
60 percent margin. Hoffa received
137,172 votes, which was 83,024
more votes than contender Fred
Gegare, a Teamsters vice president.
Hoffa has been president for nearly
13 years and will begin his next
five-year term in March.
McCrimmon
wins Freightliner
challenge
Tom “Thumper” McCrimmon,
NEWS BRIEFS
driver of the No. 20 hauler for Joe
Gibbs Racing, won the Freightliner
Trucks Run Smart Hauler Challenge and received the $30,000
grand prize. Freightliner Trucks,
the official hauler of NASCAR,
holds the competition every year
to test driving abilities of NASCAR
team hauler drivers. McCrimmon,
who drives a Freightliner Coronado
equipped with a Detroit Diesel
DD16 engine, has participated in
the challenge for five years.
Goodyear opens
Wingfoot locations
Wingfoot Commercial Tire
10 TRUCKERS NEWS JANUARY 2012
Systems has opened Wingfoot
Truck Care Center locations in
Joplin, Mo., and Greenwood, La.
The Joplin Wingfoot Truck Care
Center is located on Interstate
44 at exit 11A, while the Greenwood Wingfoot Truck Care Center is located on Interstate 20 at
exit 3. Both outlets are located
on Pilot Flying J properties.
Tonnage index
rises in October
The American Trucking Associations Nov. 22 announced its
advance seasonally adjusted
For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index
increased 0.5 percent in October
after a 1.5 percent increase in
September. The nonseasonally
adjusted index, which represents
the change in tonnage actually
hauled by the fleets before any
seasonal adjustment, in October
was 0.8 percent below the previous month.
Love’s ranks
7th on Forbes list
Forbes ranked Love’s Travel
Stops in seventh place on its
list of America’s largest private
companies. The Oklahoma City,
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