Welcome to “Reading Between the Lines,” or to be brief, “Between the Lines” or, briefer still, “BTL” works for me. What you’ll find here are my observations on how actions taken by trucking’s supplier base, government agencies and the myriad of industry stakeholders impact truck fleet owners. I get to shoot off my mouth first, tis true, but I welcome your comments on each and every entry henceforth. Really, fire away

“Who’s this guy?” you might well ask first. I’m executive editor of FleetOwner Magazine and fleetowner.com, which together comprise an independent, erstwhile and respected information source for truck fleet managers. I’ve been with FO for over 18 years and thanks to my early years with another trucking magazine, I’ve rolled up over 25 consecutive years covering trucking so far. But let me add I’ll never lay claim to being an expert on trucking– trucking’s too broad and fast-paced for anyone to claim that. I’ll admit to being a writer and hope to be regarded a journalist.

Enough said.. till next time.

Amid all the insanity surrounding this year’s early switch-over to Daylight Savings Time, we heard about the direct impact of another sort of time shifting.

Offering an explanation as to why there was a “robust” 3.9% gain in freight shipments this past December, Bob Costello, ATA’s chief economist, theorized this was the “result of more shipments later in the fall freight season than what we typically saw in the not-too-distant past. As retailers sell more merchandise in January due to the proliferation of gift card giving, this trend is likely to continue in the years ahead.”

Who could have imagined all those little credit-cardish gift cards hanging in racks by the cash registers of most (if not all) major retailers could so influence what gets hauled when in the nation’s truck fleet?

Yet another example of how our economy is changing– and how every ripple that gets stirred up washes up against trucking in some way.

Just in case you hadn’t noticed, International Truck and Engine Corp. has been doing quite a bit of product re-branding lately. Back when they decided (or had to) jettison the “Harvester” from their name, they tried renaming the company (but not the trucks and engines themselves) Navistar International.

That did not fly too well in trucking circles although few can argue “Navistar” is not a good name for a truck company whereas, let’s face it, “International” is pretty darn generic.

So they moved onto calling the truck- and engine-making operation International. The truck and engine models got that name as well while Navistar was reserved for the holding company.

The latest move on the branding chessboard is to keep that all in place but to start ditching the aged numeric series designations in favor of such snappy and descriptive monikers as ProStar, TranStar, CityStar, DuraStar, PayStar and WorkStar.

I say keep it up! I could never keep the numbers straight (whether International’s, Peterbilt’s, Kenworth’s or whoever else’s) that tell you which truck model series is meant to do what. Plus what’s wrong with trucks, work tools that they may be, coming with a bit of built-in (badged-on?) personality right off the factory floor?

By the way, it’s only been recently I’ve stopped hearing fleet owners call the trucks “Harvesters” and that may be due more to a changing of the generational guard than any hotshot marketing.

Now if only someone could bring back the Brockway Husky…now that was a truck name!