Press Releases
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is taking the next step in making hours of service (HOS) limits more flexible, awarding a $2.5 million contract for researchers to study a safety provision that will allow truck drivers to split their required 10-hour sleeper berth time into shorter periods. Virginia Tech will conduct the study.
Federal regulations had allowed drivers to split their rest in sleeper berths until 2005. Then, FMCSA’s rule change eliminated split rest for solo drivers and allowed team drivers to split rest only in very limited circumstances.
“For some time now, sleeper berth drivers have called for flexibility with the hours-of-service requirements, and this study will provide the scientific foundation for FMCSA to understand what the safety benefits and impacts may be in allowing such flexibility,” said Rich Hanowski, director of the Center for Truck and Bus Safety at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute and principal investigator for the study. “This pilot project will produce scientific data necessary to further inform FMCSA about this important safety issue that potentially affects the well-being of everyone traveling on our nation’s roads.”
The study will measure roadside violations, crashes and driver sleepiness.
“This study will examine the safety impact of providing participating drivers the opportunity to use a ‘sleep when you are sleepy’ strategy to manage their individual fatigue,” said Kimberly Honn, a post-doctoral researcher from Washington State University. “They will still be required to comply with the overall federal hours-of-service safety requirements, but during the study they will be allowed to exercise a degree of flexibility in logging sleeper berth time.”
The Center for Truck and Bus Safety has conducted approximately $50 million in safety-related research since the center was founded in 2005.
The Commercial Vehicle Training Association relayed the following bulletin April 21: A scammer posing as a recruiter from Knight Transportation is getting names and numbers from driving schools and then is contacting drivers to offer them a trainer if they wire him $200.
The scammer has been using the name Larry Davis.
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This is now the hottest cargo theft scam. Experts say bogus pickups will become the dominant type of cargo theft. CVTA says this is a scam, and there is no Larry Davis that recruits for Knight and the carrier does not charge recruits, CVTA says. Several people have fallen victim to the scammer, CVTA says, and a police report has been filed in Florida. CVTA says it received the information from the American Trucking Associations.
A New Jersey based trucking company owner who cheated workers at the World Trade Center construction site for over $1 million was sentenced to prison on Tuesday.
Gerardo Fusella, 37, of East Hanover, was given a 46-month sentence for evading contributions to the worker's pension plan so he could pocket the difference, the report said. His brother Vincent Fusella was dealt a much lesser two-month sentence for the scam.
A report from The Post in early March after Gerardo Fusella was arrested said the owner, who allegedly has ties to organized crime, has a long history of arrests and a documented violent streak.
The two brothers also ran up $425,780 in tolls and penalties.
A bill under review at the Ohio statehouse would ban trucks from using the far left lane on certain highways.
Current Ohio law requires any vehicle moving at less than the normal speed of traffic to stay to the right. Exceptions to the lane rule are made for preparing to turn or to overtake and pass another vehicle.
The House Transportation, Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee is scheduled to consider a bill on Tuesday, Oct. 15. It would mandate that large vehicles weighing more than 10,000 pounds stay in the two right-hand lanes on stretches of highway with three or more lanes in the same direction.
According to News West 9, Andrews, Texas police handed out 70 tickets to truck drivers who violated the town’s new trucking reliever route.
On October 8, 2013, the city of Andrews officially opened the truck reliever route, know as “Loop 1910.” The loop is a 13-mile detour around the city.
The city put up signs warning drivers to avoid Highway 385, the road that cuts directly though the town.
“We are trying to be reasonable but on the other hand our position and our responsibility is to enforce the use of the reliever route,” Andrews Police Chief, Bud Jones, told News West 9.
Jones told the news station that the Andrews Police Department will continue to enforce the new truck reliever route.
“We’re very supportive of it and our responsibility is to make sure that it is utilized properly and that’s what we intend to do,” Jones said.
Truckers, riders and drivers take to the highways to support kids in the fourth annual “Truckers for Kids Poker Run” sponsored by the California Trucking Association-San Bernardino/Riverside Unit on Saturday, Oct. 12.
Registration begins at 8 a.m. and the ride starts at 10 a.m.
The event starts at Los Angeles Freightliner, 13750 Valley Blvd., Fontana, and ends at Foundation for Kids, 2970 Myers St., Riverside.
Every day truckers hit the road to move California’s economy forward, but on Oct, 12 those truckers are taking to the roads and highway in and around the Inland Empire to raise funds for the Foundation for Kids. It supports the children’s homes and agencies that help abused and at-risk children throughout Southern California.
The event is sponsored by the California Trucking Association’s Kern Unit. The public is welcome to join these “heroes of the highway” as they ride for a good cause.
“The men and women who drive on our roads and highways every day also live in our communities and want to do their part to serve,” said CTA San Bernardino/Riverside Unit chairwoman Lynette Brown of KKW Trucking, based in Pomona. “This ride is a fun event to bring our community together in support of the Foundation for Kids and the great work that this organization does.”
The ride concludes at the Foundation for Kids facility where participants will turn in their poker hands, enjoy a great BBQ lunch and share memories with fellow riders.
Trucking company FST Express is the latest to file a lawsuit against Pilot Flying J, saying it lost more than $75,000 in a fuel-rebate scheme, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported.
The suit says the Columbus, Ohio-based carrier was misled by Pilot Flying J, and when FST found a discrepancy, it was given false excuses, the newspaper reported.
By filing the lawsuit, FST has opted out of a class-action settlement that calls for Pilot Flying J to pay back the companies that were shortchanged fuel rebates. The settlement is expected to cost Pilot more than $40 million, according to the paper.
The lawsuit is the latest in a string of more than 20 that have been filed against Pilot in state and federal courts nationwide since the company’s Knoxville, Tenn., headquarters was raided by the FBI in April.
Pilot Flying J CEO Jimmy Haslam said Sept. 30 that his company has instituted practices to prevent fuel-rebate discrepancies in response to revelations that the truck-stop chain shortchanged some trucking company customers.
“Since April 15, we have done our best to investigate the allegations made against some members of our diesel-fuel sales team, to identify any wrongdoing and to assure our customers that we will not tolerate that kind of behavior anywhere in our company, and we will make right 100% of any errors we discover,” Haslam said in his statement.
Not only is the government (partially) shut down, but now a caravan of truck drivers is looking to shut down traffic around Washington, D.C. -- as part of a bizarre protest against things that are "destroying America."
The group, Truckers Ride for the Constitution, is trying to attract participants for a demonstration on the Capital Beltway starting this Friday.
"Truck drivers will not haul freight! ... Truckers will lead the path to saving our country if every American rides with them!" the group's Facebook page, which had more than 57,000 "likes" as of Tuesday morning, declares.
The truckers reportedly plan to clog the Beltway by driving "three lanes deep" for three days.
So just what do they want?
Their list of grievances is apparently quite long.
According to a report in The Hill, the drivers are complaining about wages, gas prices and federal regulations on their industry. They're also not too chuffed about the debt or the National Security Agency's surveillance practices.
Earl Conlon, who claimed to speak for the group despite other truckers later challenging him, also told U.S. News & World Report that they seek the arrest of members of Congress who have "violated their oath of office."
"We want these people arrested, and we're coming in with the grand jury to do it," he said.
Conlon, though, said the drivers' beef has to do with support for arming Al Qaeda-tied members of the Syrian opposition.
And good luck to anyone trying to pass the protesting truck drivers. Conlon said commuters who want to pass must have a sticker on their window supporting the group.
"It's going to be real fun for anyone who is not a supporter," Conlon told U.S. News & World Report. "If cops decide to give us a hard time, we're going to lock the brakes up, we're going to stop right there, we're going to be a three lane roadblock."
But trucker Greg Ellis, a supporter of the campaign, said Conlon does not speak for them and disputed the claim that anybody would try to arrest officials.
"Nobody is going to try to effect an arrest on congressmen or anything like that," he told FoxNews.com, describing the plans as "peaceful."
The Facebook page for the group, after the article was published, said Conlon "has no authority" to speak on behalf of RideForTheConstitution.org. Without specifying, the statement said the organization did not want to be associated "with anything that is unlawful."
Asked to clarify the purpose of the event, spokesman Peter Santilli told FoxNews.com on Tuesday: "One of our demands is NON-NEGOTIABLE: President Obama must be removed from office for crimes against the United States and all unconstitutional executive orders nullified. How that is accomplished legally is for the legal and constitutional experts to determine."