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New Rules * USA - To take many truckers off the road
Federal effort called likely to improve safety, raise costs
Milwaukee,WI,USA - The Journal Sentinel, by Rick Romell -Sept. 18, 2010: -- A new federal effort to increase trucking safety could push as many as 180,000 drivers off the road as carriers shun truckers with poor records... About 6% of the country's pool of heavy-truck drivers are at risk of becoming unemployable under the new safety-rating system, one data-analysis firm estimates. Other projections - higher and lower - are being advanced, but there is broad agreement that the impact will be significant, squeezing the driver supply, tightening capacity and pushing up freight rates... "Commercial drivers will be driven out of the industry," said Don Osterberg, senior vice president of safety, security and driver training at Green Bay's Schneider National Inc., one of the nation's biggest trucking companies... The new federal approach comes at a time when many drivers are nearing retirement and the recession already has prompted carriers to trim jobs... And some observers expect the government in the near future to reduce the hours truckers are allowed to drive, further tightening industry capacity... (Photo from wikipedia: Interior of a modern truck cab.)* USA - Freight rates to rise
Milwaukee,WI,USA - The Journal Sentinel, by Rick Romell -Sept. 18, 2010: ... Others will be reacting, too... Shippers, fearing liability if they contract with a poorly rated trucking firm that subsequently is involved in a fatal crash, will consider the ratings in selecting carriers, said Rosalyn Wilson, an analyst with transportation consultant Delcan Corp... Insurers, meanwhile, will raise rates for companies with low ratings, she said... Those factors, along with the challenges of attracting drivers with good records, will force marginal carriers out of business, Wilson said... But the top firms will be in good position. With industry capacity already tight coming out of the recession and tightening further as problem drivers are weeded out, carriers will enjoy "a significant shift of pricing power," Klemp said... Trucking companies face tougher scrutiny, too. Brookfield-based RAIR, a risk management consultant to the transportation industry, says 20% of all carriers and 42% of the largest firms fail to meet the safety standards and may face federal directives to improve... With trucking firms rated against each other rather than on an absolute scale, the companies essentially will be competing with each other... (Photo: One modern trucks' dispatcher control center) Labels: freight rates, rules and regulations
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