Well, we have a highway bill proposal. The House of Representative’s Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure is set to mark up a bill, said to be $260 billion over five years, today. But, like anything in Washington, the bill has little chance of passing. And once again, it will be because our lawmakers know not how to get American cruising down the highway, but rather only how to put up roadblocks.

In addition to differences that must be smoothed over with what the Senate will likely put forth, chief among those being that the current Senate proposal would provide $109 billion over two years, the House version will likely include a controversial oil pipeline project – the Canada to Texas Keystone XL oil pipeline - already rejected by President Barack Obama earlier this year. more

One of the concerns about electric vehicles is the range. That is certainly true of the most popular commercial vehicle to date – the Newton, from Smith Electric Vehicles, which has an effective range of 100 mi. on a single charge.

But what if range was not part of equation? Certainly electric vehicles provide many benefits over their gas and diesel counterparts – fewer emissions and quieter to name just two. But with a limited range, the market for such vehicles is restricted to routes such as pickup and delivery where the vehicle returns to a fixed charging station each night.

Federal Express and UPS have been deploying the vehicles in city environments with great success. Many other companies are as well. But the market for electric vehicles could mushroom if only there was a way to charge a vehicle en route. more

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has signed into law a reporting and education process designed to improve the safety of truck routing within the state.

The bill, House Bill 1377, requires the state as well as municipalities to report truck restrictions, preferred truck routes, and other pertinent information to the Illinois Dept. of Transportation. In turn, that information will be posted on IDOT’s website.

The bill is the result of a special task force that was charged with investigating GPS technology and compliance with the Designated Truck Route System. more

Despite the fact that I’ve been with Fleet Owner for more than three years now, I had one of those moments recently that reinforced to me that I don’t know everything. Not that I ever really thought I did, but it’s always nice to have those moments to remind us of that fact.

So it was with a bit of surprise that I opened my email that recent morning to find a press release issued jointly from the Owner-Operators Independent Drivers Assn. (OOIDA) and American Trucking Assns. (ATA) regarding tractor/truck cab safety. The release included a letter the organizations have written to David L. Strickland, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Why did this release surprise me so?

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UPDATE: Just hours after posting this blog criticizing the state of Connecticut for closing the state’s non-commercial rest areas along Interstates 84, 91, and 95, I received a call from Michael Riley, president of the Motor Transport Association of Connecticut, to say that a deal has just been reached today with the administration of Gov. Dannel Malloy to keep all seven of the rest areas open.

“The administration has made assurances to the transportation committee chairman that they will all remain open,” Riley told me. “The outrage that was expressed by this was phenomenal. People who hadn’t called their legislators in 50 years (were calling).”

So Connecticut has reversed course, despite a Malloy adminstration spokesman telling the Hartford Courant on Monday that the closings would not be reconsidered. The trucking industry has won this battle, but there is a still a war to be fought for safe truck parking in the U.S.

The state of Connecticut, in an effort to close a budget gap, will be closing all seven of its non-commercial rest areas in the state, and with those closures will come a significant decrease in the number of available parking spaces for truckers.

(UPDATE at 1:40 p.m.: A deal has been reached to keep the rest areas open.)

The first two areas, in Willington, CT, along Interstate 84 (the main highway crossing from New York to Massachusetts, will close on July 1. The remaining five – in Danbury and Southington along 84, Middletown and Wallingford along I-91 (which runs from the shoreline to Massachusetts), and North Stonington, on I-95 (the route from New York to Rhode Island toward Boston), will all close within a year, the state said.

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A bill working its way through the Indiana legislature opens the door to the possibility that truck-only lanes could be created along Interstate 70, potentially creating more efficiency and safety along the highway. That same bill, though, might give the Indiana governor dictator-like authority that could cost the industry billions in the end.

According to the Indiana Business Journal, Senate Bill 473 would grant the governor the sole authority to move quickly when a public infrastructure project presents itself, and that includes public-private partnerships, new road construction, and tolling opportunities.

While this would open the door to creating truck-only lanes that could decrease delivery times, shorten routes, lessen congestion, and improve overall road safety by separating trucks and automobiles along I-70, it also gives the governor, currently Mitch Daniels, the power to identify an opportunity and act upon it. This includes public-private partnerships that essentially amount to selling a section of road –either new or existing - to a private enterprise that would then recoup its investment through tolls.

“This thing has been designed to be under the radar,” Aaron Smith, founder of Watchdog Indiana, told the Business Journal of the bill. “It is not right for a single individual—the governor—to have complete power over toll road decisions. The impact of toll roads on working families is so significant that all 150 of our elected General Assembly public servants should continue to decide the fate of toll road projects.”

According to state Republican Sen. Tom Wyss, truck-only lanes are just one possibility. The governor’s press secretary Jane Jankowski said “there are no specific projects in mind.” In fact, Wyss said the only real purpose of this bill is to speed the decision-making process, and public hearings and a legislative review would still be part of the process. But in the end, the governor would have the final say.

So for any good that truck-only lanes could create, with only one person making the ultimate decision and removing the legislative process, the end result could be more tolls and that means higher costs. And as we’ve all learned through the history of this nation, when one person has the ultimate power, the end result is usually nothing good.

According to a story by Reuters, a bill that has been passed in the Texas House of Representatives would allow drivers to cruise along stretches of the state highway system at 85 mph. Really, 85?

In some states, people are complaining that traffic is already too fast at 65, and Texas wants to give everyone a license to travel along some of its roads at nearly breakneck speed. According to the article, 85 would likely be the second-fastest limit in the world, just behind an 86 mph limit in Poland.

The article quotes Gary Biller, executive director of the National Motorists Association as saying that higher speed limits are OK given the quality of modern highway construction. I guess he hasn’t driven much on our highway.

“The two things that contribute most to traffic accidents are speed and alcohol,” Jerry Johns, president of the Southwest Insurance Information Institute, told Reuters. “The higher the speed limit, the more accidents there are, the more injuries, and the more deaths.”

The bill, HBO1201, would require the Texas Dept. of Transportation to conduct engineering studies before raising the limit on any road. There are some roads in Texas that already have an 80 mph limit.

What this legislation apparently doesn’t address is the dangers driving 85 will create. Many people will never drive that fast. Many trucking companies have speed limiters on their trucks capped at 60, 62, or 65 mph. Allowing traffic on the same road with that much disparity in speeds seems like a recipe for death, even if the road is structurally capable of supporting it.

The bill states that the speed limit can only be set on roads whose “construction of that part of the highway system is completed on or after June 1, 2011. The provision was included in a bill that would repeal the plans for the Trans-Texas Corridor, a 4,000-mile highway system across the state.

The California Air Resources Board, or CARB, is offering a special deal of sorts that many fleets operating in the Golden State may want to seriously consider taking advantage of.

CARB is allowing fleets who retrofit a truck with a particulate filter by July 1, 2011 – or make the commitment to retrofit a truck by May 1, 2011 – with the chance to delay retrofitting an additional truck until Jan. 1, 2017. There is no limit on how many trucks in any particular fleet can earn the “early action credit.”

The credit applies to trucks with a gross vehicle weight rating of more than 26,000 lbs.

“California fleets need to act now in order to take advantage of this special offer to clean up their fleets so that they are further along in complying with ARB’s diesel reduction regulations,” said ARB Chairman Mary D. Nichols. “Acting now not only makes good business sense, it also means communities can breathe cleaner air sooner.”

Here’s why you may want to consider making the commitment. According to CARB, under the Truck and Bus Regulation, vehicles with pre-1994 engines must be replaced with 2010 engines by 2015; vehicles with 1994-95 engines replaced by 2016. For carriers operating 1996-1999 engines, they must have a particulate filter installed starting in 2012, and then the vehicle can operate until 2020. more

Part of the deal that President Barack Obama struck with Mexican President Calderon last week to allow Mexican trucks to cross the border and operate inside the U.S. was the requirement that those trucks install electronic onboard recorders (EOBRs).

What we now know about that deal is that FMCSA will pay for the installation of the EOBRs. Talk about a political football. Given how many feel about Mexican truck drivers on U.S. roads, I wonder if this provision was put in by the Administration to show Mexico that we were doing everything we could to comply with the requirements of NAFTA, while at the same time creating an out for the public and Congress.

For the record, I am in favor of opening the border and allowing Mexican trucks to haul into the U.S., just as American trucks should be allowed to haul into Mexico. As I’ve written before, though, those Mexican trucks should meet all U.S. rules and regulations, from safety to emissions to highway laws. There are many people, though, who disagree with this premise.

(Trucking leader says Mexican trucks can not meet EPA standards)

While I believe the specifics of the border trucking program should be debated. This revelation seems a lot like a poison pill designed to torpedo the program before it can be resurrected. According to reports, the reason the U.S. wants to pay for the EOBRs is so that the government “owns” the data the devices collect. Until someone can provide a valid reason as to why the government needs to own this data, I question why this is important. more