Trucks at Work Blog

“Stir in 100 million extra people to the population of the U.S., each of whom requires 30 tons of freight per year. That’s the definition of opportunity.” –John Lanigan, executive vp and chief marketing officer, BNSF Railway Co., speaking at the recent State of Logistics report press event

There’s been a heavy spate of not-so-encouraging news from the economic and freight fronts of late. Indeed, Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, presented a rather gloomy outlook for the U.S. economy this week and verbally shrugged at why things are suddenly not going so well.

“We don’t have a precise read on why this slower rate of growth is persisting,” he said. And those aren’t exactly heartening words to hear uttered by, for all intents and purposes, the nation’s chief economist.

[If you have an hour or so to kill, you can watch Bernanke’s entire press conference below.]

For the freight market in particular, the annual State of Logistics report didn’t offer much to cheer about either. more

“If you don’t change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?” –Dr. Robert Anthony

Here’s a thought for you: the workday beliefs that guide all of us through the business side of our lives might have a much bigger impact than one might think on whether we’re ultimately successful or not – and that may be especially true for those pounding it out in the rough-and-tumble trucking industry.

We’re not talking religious beliefs here; that’s a whole ‘nother topic. We’re talking “business beliefs” that are “unconscious” in the sense that we may not be fully aware that they even exist at all, much less affect how we conduct ourselves in the office or in the truck cab.

This is a theme Jerry Osteryoung, professor emeritus of finance with the College of Business at Florida State University, has been hammering on of late. I’ll let him explain where he’s coming from on this subject:

“All of us have a set of beliefs that guides us through this life we live. These beliefs might be something like ‘theft is bad’ or ‘with hard work I can achieve anything.’ There are, unfortunately, a bunch of beliefs that we do not even realize we have, and these unconscious beliefs tend to shape our behavior. If we are responding to events around us without recognizing the forces that are driving us, it is a recipe for disaster. more

When it comes down to the bare essentials, only a couple of data points really matter when the talk turns to the future of alternatively powered vehicles – how many are built and sold every year.

I mean, let’s face it – you can talk until you’re blue in the face about how using alternative means of vehicle propulsion will reduce foreign oil imports, decrease harmful exhaust pollutants, and help fight global warming. But all of that is but so much wishful thinking unless alternatively powered vehicles are actually manufactured and then purchased in significant numbers by commercial fleets and consumers alike.

Now, however, Ford Motor Co. is taking a swing at the first part of that equation where electric power is concerned, saying it plans to triple production capacity of its electrified vehicle lineup by 2013 – in particular, focusing on its all-new seven-person C-MAX Hybrid and C-MAX Energi plug-in hybrid, which begin production next year. more

“All anyone asks for is a chance to work with pride.” –W. Edwards Deming

Anyone who visits a show truck festival like Shell’s annual “Super Rigs” competition at some point questions the reasoning of the contestants. [Want to seem some of the sights from this year’s event? Just click right here.]

I mean, take this year’s “Best of Show” winner, Jeremy Heiderscheit, who scored the $10,000 grand prize with his 2003 Peterbilt 379 and a 2009 East flatbed trailer. For many of the folks vying take home the big trophy, $10,000 barely covers the cost of the paint job on their trucks.

That’s before you get into paying for stuff like chrome, aluminum battery boxes, and interior work, much less the cost of getting everything “show ready.”

Yet when you talk to the contestants – those that win and those that don’t – you get a very clear idea of why most of the do all of this: pride in what they do for a living. And this, I stress, is a case where “pride” isn’t being served up as one of the seven deadly sins either. more

Heat is a tell-tale sign of bad things happening when it comes to trucks – particularly in the case of tires, exhaust systems, and brakes. (The term “smoking the brakes” didn’t get created by happenstance, after all.)

For those reasons, many motor carrier enforcement agencies are now using infrared inspection systems or “IRIS” for short to help them quickly identify trucks with under-inflated, flat, or over-inflated tires, leaky exhaust systems, and most importantly overheated brakes.

The biggest advantage of such technology is that it can quickly identify trucks with problems in all of these areas – usually in seconds – thereby helping law enforcement officers quickly determine who’s operating good, safe equipment … and who isn’t.

During Roadcheck 2011, the annual 72-hour safety inspection “blitz” conducted across North America under the auspices of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA), I got a chance to take a closer look at a mobile IRIS vehicle operated by the Virginia State Police – one of four such trucks in its fleet.

This one, piloted by IRIS Technician Dorothy “Dottie” Ritenour, sports the latest version of this technology, including a digital video recorder (DVR) system, which has replaced the videocassettes used with earlier models. more

“Intelligent vehicles are the next frontier of collision avoidance; [they] hold the potential of helping reduce many crashes.” –Sue Cischke, group vice president-sustainability, environment and safety engineering, Ford Motor Co.

It’s a concept that holds all sorts of promise: “intelligent vehicles” that can wirelessly “talk” with one another via Wi-Fi and using GPS to “tell” where they are located, helping reduce crashes and traffic congestion to boot.

Now, I’ve pondered this topic in a post before, concerning vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication capabilities. But now it’s starting to become a reality, many OEMs starting to deploy such technologies in test vehicles.

Ford Motor Co. recently showed off what it called “functional prototypes” to preview these intelligent vehicle technologies, conducting a series of events nationwide in recent weeks to explore the real-life benefits and near-term feasibility of such systems in: San Francisco, Washington, DC, New York city, and Los Angeles. more

“Working harder is not always the answer.” –Jerry Osteryoung, professor emeritus of finance with the College of Business at Florida State University

It’s been a while since Professor Osteryoung (below, right) has graced this post with his perspectives on entrepreneurial business strategies – and let me tell you, trucking is home to more entrepreneurs and small business owners than you can shake a stick at, making his thoughts all the more welcome.

He recently penned a column about the need to be “brutally realistic” in the business world – something that is particularly vital for those in the “small shop” category to remember. That goes double for the small trucking business because this is a “mature” industry, meaning there are lots of very large, well-established competitors than can, in many cases, haul freight faster and cheaper than the little guys.

Yet that doesn’t mean small truckers need to throw in the towel and leave the big rig business behind … but it also doesn’t mean they shouldn’t think they can just lower their head and shoulders like an outside linebacker and smash their way to success. Indeed, sometimes – in Professor Osteryoung’s experience – simply working harder isn’t always the right strategy. more

“All of the contestants put in a lot of work and time into preparing their awesome looking trucks for our event every year.” –Chris Guerrero, global brand manager, Shell Rotella

In a lot of ways there’s a real “country fair” aura that surrounds the annual “Super Rigs” competition sponsored by Shell Lubricants every year – and in the best possible sense of that term, I might add.

I mean, where else are you not only going to see some of the sharpest looking trucks to be found anywhere in the industry set next to displays of historical military vehicles and “mini mod” racing tractors?

The 29th annual Super Rigs event, held at the Kenly 95 Petro truck stop off I-95 in (where else?) Kenly, NC, offered all of that and more as you can see in the video below. more

“The key for automakers and suppliers regarding hands-free technology, as with most technologies, is to integrate it into the vehicle in a way that is easy to understand and operate, yet sophisticated enough to handle all of the tasks that drivers expect. The engineering is extremely complex, but the driver interface has to be simple.” –Mike VanNieuwkuyk, executive director of global vehicle research, J.D. Power and Associates

The big highway safety bugaboo consuming a hefty amount of time and effort within the Department of Transportation (DOT) over the last couple of years centers on ways to reduce – if not eliminate – what’s come to be called “distracted driving.”

While some may pooh-pooh the threat level distracted driving poses, government officials are taking a very hard line on the subject, with numbers to back up their position. For example, according to a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) report issued last year, distracted driving-related crashes caused nearly 5,500 deaths and 450,000 injuries during 2009.

“We believe that this data represents only the tip of the iceberg because police reports in many places do not routinely document whether distraction was a factor in vehicle crashes,” noted Ray LaHood, U.S. Transportation Secretary, during a speech on this topic last September.

As a result of NHTSA’s findings, DOT went on the warpath (so to speak), creating tougher laws forbidding distracted driving, as well as calling for more effective enforcement, public education, and personal responsibility. more