TT_051519_AllPages

Vol. 32, No. 10 

www.thetrucker.com May 15-31, 2019 

Flatbed carrier Falcon Transport shuts down suddenly, 

second flatbed carrier Williams Trucking LLC follows suit 

The Trucker file photo 

Operation Safe Driving 

Law enforcement personnel will 

be on the lookout for drivers 

engaging in dangerous driving 

behaviors July 14-20 for the 

annual Commercial Vehicle Safety 

Alliance Operation Safe Driver 

Week. Drivers engaged in unsafe 

driving will be pulled over by law 

enforcement and may be issued a 

warning and/or citation. This year’s 

focus is on speeding. 

Page 8 

Navigating the news 

J.B. Hunt celebration..............3 

Infrastructure talks..................4 

Florida toll roads.....................5 

Work zone safety....................6 

California fuel flap...................9 

Minnesota cell ban...............11 

Women to Watch..................13 

At the Truckstop...................14 

Tonnage drops off.................19 

Fleet Focus...........................21 

Future of electric...................25 

Lane Departures...................27 

Courtesy: PGT TRUCKING 

Never say never 

Some of Justin Shea’s earliest 

memories are of riding around with 

his father in an old cabover a few 

days a week. He swore he’d never 

get involved in trucking, [but] life 

has a few twists and turns. Indeed. 

Now here he is working for PGT 

Trucking, the same company his 

dad has driven for going on 30 

years. 

Page 27 

Klint Lowry 

klint.lowry@thetrucker.com 

When flatbed truckload carrier Falcon 

Transport suddenly went out of business April 

27 without any explanation or prior warning 

to employees, it left people around the nation 

puzzled. After all, with nearly 600 employees, 

Falcon was a pretty big company. It isn’t every 

day that a carrier of that size simply shutters its 

doors. 

If people who follow the trucking industry 

hadn’t still been waiting for answers to what 

happened with Falcon, there may have been 

scant notice four days later when small flatbed 

carrier Williams Trucking LLC folded promptly 

in a manner that seemed to echo the closure at 

Falcon Transport. 

At around 8 p.m. Eastern Time April 27, 

Falcon employees received email and text messages 

from Falcon Transport’s Director of Operations 

Jayson Calhoun stating: 

“We regret to inform you that Falcon Transport 

is not able to continue operations and will 

be shutting down effective today. Please stop 

any work you are doing for the company effective 

immediately. You are not expected to return 

to work. Please be on the lookout for further 

information we will be sending regarding this 

situation.” 

According to multiple reports, many employees 

commented on social media that they 

did not receive their pay Friday, and that it had 

been explained that there had been a technical 

issue that would soon be fixed. 

Some drivers said their fuel cards had been 

deactivated after the message went out, and 

there were reports of drivers being stranded 

around the country, along with offers on social 

media to help get them home. Other now-former 

employees warned that the company’s DOT 

See Falcon on p7 m 

800-444-5791 

www.ooida.com 

Courtesy: WFMJ 

Nearly 600 employees for flatbed carrier Falcon Transport suddenly found themselves out of a job 

April 27, when the company sent out a memo informing them that the company was out of business, 

effective immediately.

L 

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Nation May 15-31, 2019 • 3 

Courtesy: J.B. HUNT TRANSPORT SERVICES 

Left to right, J.B. Hunt Chief Commercial Officer Shelley Simpson; President and CEO 

John Roberts and Senior Vice President of Safety Greer Woodruff hand out high-fives to 

Million Mile drivers during the Walk of Fame event at corporate headquarters in Lowell, 

Arkansas. 

J.B. Hunt holds its Million Mile fete 

complete with high-fives from execs 

THE TRUCKER NEWS SERVICES 

LOWELL, Ark. — J.B. Hunt Transport 

Services held its annual Million Mile Celebration 

event April 23 at its company headquarters 

in Lowell, Arkansas, to recognize 

53 drivers who recently surpassed 2, 3 and 4 

million safe miles driven in their career with 

the company. 

J.B. Hunt awarded $750,000 in safe driver 

bonuses, with each driver earning an amount 

based on their total miles achieved. 

“Drivers like these are the big reason why 

J.B. Hunt is one of the safest fleets on the 

road today,” said Craig Harper, executive 

vice president and chief operations officer of 

J.B. Hunt. “If you traveled to the moon and 

back twice, you’d still be short of 1 million 

miles. To take that level of precision and caution 

in what you do each day is really amazing, 

and the whole company is grateful for 

their dedication.” 

The elite group of drivers are based in a 

variety of locations throughout the country, 

representing 19 states from coast to coast. In 

addition to an honorary lunch and visit with 

company leadership, drivers participated 

in J.B. Hunt’s Million Mile Walk of Fame, 

a long-standing tradition where employees 

line four flights of stairs to congratulate the 

drivers with applause and high-fives. Each 

driver also received additional recognition 

on J.B. Hunt’s Million Mile Wall, which lists 

the more than 3,600 J.B. Hunt drivers who 

have achieved 1 million-plus safe miles. 

The Million Mile event is one of the highest 

honors for J.B. Hunt drivers and their 

families. 

The company implemented the Million 

Mile program in 1996 and has hosted the 

ceremony since 2001. 

J.B. Hunt holds events throughout the 

country each quarter to recognize drivers 

who achieve one million safe miles. 

In total, the company has awarded more 

than $28 million in safe driver bonuses 

throughout the program’s history. 

“J.B. Hunt is committed to its drivers and 

recruits the top talent in the industry, putting 

thousands of skilled and well-trained drivers 

on the road each year,” Harper said. 8

4 • May 15-31, 2019 Nation 


Trump, congressional Democrats agree: $2 trillion needed 

for infrastructure, but no consensus on where to find funds 

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 

WASHINGTON — President Donald 

Trump and Democratic congressional leaders 

agreed late last month to work together 

on a $2 trillion infrastructure package but put 

off for later the difficult question of how to 

pay for it. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer 

said there was “goodwill in the meeting,” a 

marked departure from the last meeting between 

Trump, Schumer and House Speaker 

Nancy Pelosi, which ended with Trump 

walking out in a huff. Schumer said the two 

sides agreed that infrastructure investments 

create jobs and make the United States more 

competitive economically with the rest of the 

world. 

Most importantly, Schumer said, “we 

agreed on a number.” 

“Originally, we had started a little lower,” 

Schumer said. “Even the president was eager 

to push it up to $2 trillion, and that is a very 

good thing.” 

Pelosi added, “We did come to one agreement: 

that the agreement would be big and 

bold.” 

Pelosi and congressional Democrats had 

asked for the meeting with Trump to discuss 

launching an ambitious building program 

that’s a top priority for the party and has been 

a rare area of potential bipartisan accord with 

Republicans. Trump, too, has long promised 

a big infrastructure plan. 

The dozen Democratic lawmakers in the 

meeting with the president called it a constructive 

start. They said Trump agreed that infrastructure 

investments should go beyond roads 

and bridges and include broadband, water systems 

and enhancements to the electrical grid. 

Democrats also put the onus on Trump to 

come up with a funding source and said they 

would meet again in three weeks, when the 

president will present his ideas. The nation’s 

top business groups and labor unions support 

increasing the federal gasoline tax, currently 

18.3 cents a gallon. It was last raised in 1993. 

Infrastructure is seen as the one issue with 

the best chance for the two sides to work together 

this Congress — and even that isn’t 

given good odds for a fruitful ending. 

The meeting played out against the backdrop 

of high tensions over escalating Democratic 

investigations following the release of 

special counsel Robert Mueller’s report into 

Russian meddling. Lawmakers and the Republican 

president also have on eye on the 

2020 elections, meaning every provision of 

an infrastructure package — including how 

to pay for it — will be made with that in 

mind. 

Still, advocates for an infrastructure package 

boost see a narrow window for action. 

“I think a deal can be had if everybody 

is willing to put their battle-axes away for 

The dozen Democratic lawmakers in 

the meeting with the president called 

it a constructive start. They said Trump 

agreed that infrastructure investments 

should go beyond roads and bridges 

and include broadband, water systems, 

enhancements to the electrical grid. 

Associated Press: EVAN VUCCI 

Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of N.Y., surrounded by House Speaker Nancy 

Pelosi and other congressional Democrats, talks with reporters after meeting with President 

Donald Trump about infrastructure at the White House on April 30. 

a period,” said former Republican Rep. Bill 

Shuster of Pennsylvania, who served as 

chairman of the House’s transportation committee 

for six years. 

A compromise could offer political benefits 

to both sides. Trump’s re-election prospects 

are tied to a strong economy that would 

get another boost from new road and bridge 

projects. House Democrats have passed an 

array of bills that have gone nowhere in the 

GOP-controlled Senate. 

Pelosi has dozens of new Democratic 

House members who won in competitive districts, 

said Shuster, and “they need to be able 

to go home next year and say they’ve accomplished 

something.” 

But the two sides also have some competing 

priorities that will complicate matters. 

The president and Republican leaders want 

to speed up the permitting process for building 

energy and transportation projects and 

that’s not on most Democratic lawmakers’ 

to-do lists. Democrats are looking for ways 

to pay for greater infrastructure spending 

without adding to the national debt, and that 

could mean higher fuel taxes. 

Committees in both chambers of Congress 

have started to lay the groundwork for an infrastructure 

bill through hearings, with Democratic 

lawmakers hoping to have legislation 

ready for consideration by June or July. 

The infrastructure issue has aligned the 

nation’s top business groups and unions, a 

rarity in Washington. The U.S. Chamber of 

Commerce has proposed increasing the federal 

fuel tax 5 cents a year for five years, then 

allowing it to increase with inflation. 

So far this year, Alabama, Arkansas, Ohio 

and Virginia have enacted gas tax increases, 

although Virginia’s only applies to a portion 

of the state. Some 30 states have done so 

since 2013. 8 

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The Trucker 

USPS 972 

Volume 32, Number 10 

May 15-31, 2019 

The Trucker is a semi-monthly, national newspaper for the 

trucking industry, published by Trucker Publications Inc. at 

1123 S. University, Suite 320 

Little Rock, AR 72204-1610 

Trucking Division Senior Vice President 

David Compton 

davidc@targetmediapartners.com 

Vice President / Publisher 

Ed Leader 

edl@thetrucker.com 

Trucking Division General Manager 

Megan Cullingford-Hicks 

meganh@targetmediapartners.com 

Editor 

Lyndon Finney 

editor@thetrucker.com 

Assistant Editor 

Dorothy Cox 

dlcox@thetrucker.com 

Associate Editor 

Klint Lowry 


Production Manager 

Rob Nelson 

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Graphic Artist 

Christie McCluer 

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Special Correspondent 

Cliff Abbott 

cliffa@thetrucker.com 

National Marketing Consultants 

Jerry Critser 

jerryc@targetmediapartners.com 

Dennis Ball 

dennisb@targetmediapartners.com 

John Hicks 

johnh@targetmediapartners.com 

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megl@targetmediapartners.com 

Greg McClendon 

gregmc@targetmediapartners.com 

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Nation May 15-31, 2019 • 5 

Despite environmental concerns, Florida lawmakers pass bill to create 3 new toll roads 


TALLAHASSEE, Fla.— Florida is on 

the fast track to building three new major 

toll highways in mostly rural areas under a 

bill sent to Gov. Ron DeSantis by the state 

House on earlier this month despite concerns 

over their potential negative impact 

on the environment. 

The bill, passed on a 76-36 vote, creates 

task forces to study the potential routes 

and commits tens of millions of dollars 

for eventual construction of the highways. 

Supporters say the roads will spur rural job 

growth, relieve congestion on Interstate 75 

and Interstate 4 — the main tourist road to 

Walt Disney World and other Orlando theme 

parks — and create new hurricane evacuation 

routes. 

Republican Rep. Jay Trumbull of Panama 

City, the chief House sponsor, invoked 

the interstate highway system’s creation by 

President Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s 

and the building of Florida’s Turnpike as 

examples of essential and economically 

successful projects. 

“Could you imagine today if you were 

driving through Florida without the turnpike 

system?” Trumbull said. “We have the 

ability today to push our state forward.” 

One highway would connect Collier 

County in the southwest to Lakeland, located 

between Tampa and Orlando. Another 

would extend the Suncoast Parkway 

from Citrus County to Jefferson County at 

the Georgia border. The third would extend 

from the north end of the Florida Turnpike 

to the Suncoast Parkway. 

All would be toll roads. Construction 

would begin before Dec. 31, 2022, with a 

goal of opening all three highways to traffic 

by Dec. 31, 2030. The task forces would 

select the exact routes. 

Opponents said a financial commitment 

to the roads should await studies on whether 

they will harm wetlands and wildlife and 

spur urban sprawl. They also said the bill 

amounts to a handout to the highway construction 

industry. 

“The bill before us today is the most 

massive expansion of our highway system 

since the 1950s. Let’s not green-light 

a project without having the proper facts,” 

said Rep. Bobby DuBose, a Fort Lauderdale 

Democrat. “We are basically handing over a 

blank check.” 

The legislation, however, was a top priority 

of Senate President Bill Galvano, a 

Bradenton Republican, and was destined to 

pass from the beginning of the 60-day legislative 

session. Galvano said the bill requires 

the task forces to evaluate wildlife crossing 

design features that would protect endangered 

Florida panthers and other habitat, as 

well as measures that would safeguard water 

quality and agricultural land use. 

“These new infrastructure corridors will 

help Florida strategically plan for future 

population growth, revitalize rural communities, 

and enhance public safety, while at 

the same time protecting Florida’s unique 

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That did not sit well with groups who say 

the money could be better spent on greater 

needs. 

“This is why Floridians are so cynical 

about government,” said Jonathan Webber, 

deputy director of Florida Conservation 

Voters. “Just imagine the amount of 

good we could do if this money was spent 

on cleaning our water, building more parks, 

or finding solutions to the growing climate 

crisis.” 8 

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6 • May 15-31, 2019 Nation 


Study shows drivers distracted by smartphone 

29 times more likely to be in work-zone wreck 

©2019 FOTOSEARCH 

With the average text taking approximately 

five seconds to read, that’s at least a football 

field’s worth of driver inattention. 


COLUMBIA, Mo. – A vehicle traveling at 

55 mph covers a distance greater than a football 

field in five seconds. With the average 

text taking approximately five seconds to read, 

that’s at least a football field’s worth of driver 

inattention. 

Texting while driving is dangerous, and 

possibly even fatal, especially in a highway 

work zone. 

Now, researchers at the University of Missouri 

say drivers not paying attention — such 

as answering a phone call, a text message or 

being distracted by a passenger — for any 

length of time are 29 times more likely to be 

involved in a collision or near-collision in a 

highway work zone. 

The results from this study could provide 

recommendations on “behavioral countermeasures” 

to state transportation agencies and the 

Federal Highway Administration, which are 

implementing countermeasures to decrease injuries 

and fatalities in highway work zones. 

These recommendations include better 

public education, laws to ban texting and 

driving, and policies that deter driver distractions. 

The results could also be used when developing 

new technology, such as driverless 

vehicles. 

“Prior to our study, researchers analyzed 

data on work zone safety by looking at one 

checkbox among 70-80 different fields on a 

police officer’s crash report to see if the crash 

occurred inside a work zone,” said Praveen 

Edara, a professor of civil and environmental 

engineering at the MU College of Engineering. 

“Unfortunately, crash reports do not include 

detailed information about driver behavior 

prior to a crash. What’s unique about our research 

project is that we used naturalistic driving 

study data that provides information about 

how driver, vehicle, roadway and environmental 

factors contribute to a crash. In other words, 

we reconstructed a driver’s actions and the surrounding 

environment prior to the crash from a 

firsthand account.” 

The study uses data from the Transportation 

Research Board’s second Strategic Highway 

Research Program’s Naturalistic Driving Study. 

During 2006 – 2015, researchers collected data 

from more than 3,000 drivers traveling more than 

50 million miles. With this information, researchers 

can now see a detailed firsthand account of a 

driver’s interaction with the vehicle, roadway and 

surrounding environment. Of the seven current 

Federal Highway Administration funded projects 

using this data, only MU is using the data to specifically 

look at highway work zones. 

“Prior to this study, we knew that narrow 

lanes in work zones are less safe than wider 

lanes and similarly, speeding in work zones 

is correlated with injury severity,” Edara said. 

“With this unique data set, it also allows us to 

see the responsibility the driver has in increasing 

work zone safety.” 

The study, “Risk Factors in Work Zone 

Safety Events: A Naturalistic Driving Study 

Analysis,” was published in the National Academies 

of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s 

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the 

Transportation Research Board. 8 

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b Falcon from page 1 b 

number was no longer valid, so it was illegal 

for Falcon’s trucks to be out on the road. 

Drivers were said to have taken the message 

at its word and stopped working as soon as 

they could, leaving their trucks or trailers at 

the first place they could and going home. 

It was in inglorious end for a company 

that had been in existence for more than a 

century. The company website was still up 

and running more than a week later, including 

a scrolling banner calling for new drivers. 

According to the website, Falcon, based 

in Youngstown, Ohio, was “founded in 1903 

with a single horse and wagon.” Falcon was 

family-owned and operated until it was purchased 

by the private equity firm Counter- 

Point Capital Partners, based out of Los Angeles, 

in 2017. 

Much of the early speculation for the 

cause of the company’s demise was that it 

could have had something to do with the 

closing of General Motors’ Lordstown Assembly 

plant, near Youngstown, in March. 

A great deal of Falcon’s business had been 

with the automotive industry. The Lordstown 

Assembly plant had been a major client and 

employees speculated that the company had 

tried but had been unable to find enough 

loads to replace the lost revenue. 

The dust was still settling from Falcon 

Transport’s sudden collapse four days later, 

on May 1, when Dothan, Alabama-based 

flatbed carrier Williams Trucking, LLC suddenly 

announced to its workers that the company 

is going out of business and that they 

should stop what they’re doing and bring 

their trucks and trailers back to the terminal. 

According to reports by Dothan-area TV 

stations, employees received a memo timestamped 

6:14 a.m. Central Time telling them 

that the company was closing and drivers 

were to return to company terminal immediately. 

The memo read, in part: 

“…Clean all the stuff of out your truck 

and have someone pick you up. As long as 

everthing [sic] goes smooth (all paperwork 

turned in, and all your equipment turned in, 

all your equipment there, and no issues) you 

will be paid for all your miles. We are closing 

down…” 

Nation May 15-31, 2019 • 7 

Local ABC-TV affiliate station WDHN 

aired part of a conversation with an unnamed 

driver who said he’d been with the company 

nearly seven years. He was among those already 

on the road when he got the memo. 

“Got that message and listened to it, and 

I had to pull over and make sure what I was 

listening to,” the driver said. 

The driver went on to say that three weeks 

earlier, when an office employee suddenly 

quit, a fellow employee had asked management 

whether there was any danger that the 

company may be closing and had been told 

“absolutely not.” 

Like Falcon, Williams Trucking began 

as a small family business. According to the 

company website, John and Wanda Knopp 

started the business with a single truck in 

1994. The company website said Williams 

had 20 company trucks and employed another 

14 owner-operators. 

Several now-former Falcon Transport 

employees have joined in a class-action suit 

seeking 60 days of pay and Employee Retirement 

Income Security Act benefits, under the 

Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, 

or WARN, Act, which requires employers 

to gives employees 60 days’ notice before 

closings or mass layoffs. 

Such recourse may not be available for 

former Williams employees. The WARN Act 

only applies to companies with 100 or more 

employees. A government filing stated the 

company had 48 drivers in its employ. 8 

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8 • May 15-31, 2019 Nation 

CVSA’s Operation Safe Driver Week 

set July 14-20 with focus on speeding 



GREENBELT, Md. — Law enforcement 

personnel will be on the lookout for drivers engaging 

in dangerous driver behaviors July 14-20 

for the annual Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance 

(CVSA) Operation Safe Driver Week. Drivers 

engaged in unsafe driving behaviors will be 

pulled over by law enforcement and may be issued 

a warning and/or citation. 

The Operation Safe Driver Program was created 

to help to reduce the number of crashes, 

deaths and injuries involving large trucks, buses 

and passenger vehicles due to unsafe driving behaviors. 

The program is sponsored by CVSA, in 

partnership with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety 

administration (FMCSA) and with support from 

industry and transportation safety organizations. 

The initiative aims to help improve the behavior 

of all drivers operating in an unsafe manner 

— either in or around commercial motor vehicles 

— through educational and traffic enforcement 

strategies to address individuals exhibiting highrisk 

driving behaviors. 

A press release issued by CVSA announcing 

this year’s Operation Safe Driver Week cited the 

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s 

(NHTSA) 2015 Traffic Safety Facts report, 

which found that drivers’ actions contribute to 

94% of all traffic crashes, with speeding being 

one of the behaviors most responsible for traffic 

crashes. 

The CVSA also cited other statistics regarding 

the dangers of speeding: 

• In 2017, speeding was a contributing factor 

in 9,717, or 26%, of all traffic fatalities, according 

to NHTSA data. 

•According to the Insurance Institute for 

Highway Safety Highway Loss Data Institute, 

speeding has been a factor in more than a quarter 

of crash deaths since 2008. 

•According to FMCSA’s 2016 Large Truck 

and Bus Facts, speeding was the most frequent 

driver-related crash factor for drivers of commercial 

motor vehicles and passenger vehicles. 

•During last year’s Operation Safe Driver 

Week, 16,909 passenger vehicle drivers and 

1,908 commercial motor vehicle drivers were issued 

citations for speeding. In addition, 17 commercial 

motor vehicle drivers and 714 passenger 

vehicle drivers were cited for driving too fast for 

the conditions. 

For these reasons, CVSA selected speeding as 

the emphasis area for this year’s Operation Safe 

Driver Week, and law enforcement jurisdictions 

throughout North America will be endorsing, 

promoting and supporting the slogan “Late won’t 

kill you, speeding will.” 

“For more than two decades, speeding has 

been involved in nearly one-third of all motor vehicle 

fatalities,” said CVSA President Chief Jay 

Thompson with the Arkansas Highway Police. 

“That is unacceptable, especially because it’s preventable. 

We will continue to educate the public 

on the dangers of speeding and we will identify 

individuals who are speeding on our roadways 

and may issue citations as a deterrent to future 

speeding tendencies and to affect driver behavior.” 

In addition to the emphasis on speeding, law 

enforcement personnel will be tracking other 

dangerous driver behaviors throughout Operation 

Safe Driver Week, such as distracted driving, texting, 

failure to use a seatbelt, following too closely, 

improper lane change, reckless or aggressive 

The Trucker file photo 

Law enforcement officers around the country will have their eyes out for lead foots during this 

year’s CVSA Operation Safe Driver Week. 

driving, failure to obey traffic control devices, 

evidence of drunk or drugged driving, etc. 

A 2014 study titled “Do Traffic Tickets Reduce 

Motor Vehicle Accidents? Evidence from a 

Natural Experiment,” investigated whether traffic 

violation enforcement actually reduces the number 

of motor vehicle crashes. The study’s author 

used one of the best-known enforcement programs, 

Click It or Ticket, which focuses on mandating 

seat belt use and ticketing violators. The 

study found that the Click It or Ticket campaign 

decreased motor vehicle crashes by roughly 11 

percent and found that a 1 percent increase in 

citations issued led to a 0.28 percent decline in 

motor vehicle crashes. The ticketing campaign 

also reduced the number of nonfatal injuries from 

motor vehicle crashes. 

“As unpopular as traffic citations are among 

drivers, we know that driver behavior does respond 

to contacts with law enforcement and 

warnings and citations,” Thompson said. “Roadway 

safety is our top priority and this traffic enforcement 

initiative supports our goal of making 

sure everyone driving on our roadways is doing 

so safely.” 

To find out about Operation Safe Driver Week 

enforcement events going on in a given area, 

contact the agency or department responsible 

for overseeing commercial motor vehicle safety 

within that jurisdiction. 8 

McReynolds wins WIT’s Distinguished Woman in Logistics award 

Courtesy: ARCBEST CORP. 

Judy McReynolds has been in the logistics 

and transportation industry for 28 years, 

including 21 at ArcBest. In 2010, she was 

named to the position of president and CEO. 

She was elected chairman of the board in 

2016. 


PLOVER, Wis. — The Women In Trucking 

Association (WIT) has named Judy R. 

McReynolds, chairman, president and chief executive 

officer of ArcBest, as the winner of the 

fifth annual Women In Trucking Association’s 

Distinguished Woman in Logistics Award. 

The announcement was made during the 

Transportation Intermediaries Association 

(TIA) 2019 “Capital Ideas” Conference & Exhibition 

in Orlando, Florida. McReynolds was 

chosen from among five finalists for the award. 

Other finalists were Lindsey Graves, chief operating 

officer, Sunset Transportation; Michelle 

Halkerston, president, CEO and owner, Hassett 

Express; Sarah Ruffcorn, chief operations officer, 

Trinity Logistics; and Erin Van Zeeland, 

group senior vice president and general manager 

of logistics services, Schneider. 

McReynolds has been in the logistics and 

transportation industry for 28 years, including 

21 at ArcBest. In 2010, she was named to the 

position of president and CEO during a time 

when the industry and economy were recovering 

from the Great Recession. She took the 

company from a net loss of $127.5 million in 

2009 to reporting an adjusted net income of 

$103 million as of year-end 2018. During her 

tenure, ArcBest revenue has increased more 

than 110% and employment has increased 

26%. In 2016, McReynolds was elected as 

chairman of the board of ArcBest Corp. 

“Early on in my career, I decided I wasn’t 

going to make gender an issue or allow other 

people to do so. When I was named president 

and CEO in 2010, I was one of very few 

women in that role in the logistics industry. 

Our industry traditionally has a lot of male 

representation, although there is clearly a 

recent trend toward more female representation,” 

McReynolds said. “At ArcBest, we believe 

in promoting the best person for every 

role. As long as companies are focused on 

putting the best people in leadership, more of 

our industry’s leaders will be women.” 

McReynolds serves on numerous outside 

boards, including OG&E Energy Corp., 

First Bank Corp., First National Bank of Fort 

Smith and the Transportation Industry Council 

of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. 

She also serves on the dean’s executive advisory 

board of the Sam M. Walton College 

of Business at the University of Arkansas, 

the Brandon Burlsworth Foundation Board, 

as well as the University of Arkansas Fort 

Smith Foundation Board, of which she is a 

former chair. She is the current chair of the 

American Transportation Research Institute 

board and a member of the American Trucking 

Associations’ board of directors and executive 

committee. 

“Judy McReynolds has been a visible advocate 

for women in the trucking industry and we 

are so proud to honor her with this year’s ‘Distinguished 

Woman in Logistics Award,’” said 

Ellen Voie, president and CEO of WIT. “She 

has embraced diversity and her company’s 

performance is evidence of the results. We’ve 

been tracking ArcBest’s success through our 

annual WIT index of publicly traded companies, 

and Judy and her team have been the 

leader in promoting women in both leadership 

roles and board seats, and we applaud her accomplishments.” 

The Distinguished Woman in Logistics 

Award was established to promote the achievements 

of women employed in the North American 

transportation industry. 8


Nation May 15-31, 2019 • 9 

California’s governor seeks explanation for state’s relatively high fuel prices 


SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California’s 

governor wants to know why gas prices are 

higher in his state than in the rest of the 

country, blaming potential “inappropriate 

industry practices” rather than the state’s 

higher taxes and tougher environmental 

regulations. 

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom asked 

the California Energy Commission for an 

analysis of the state’s gas prices by May 

15. California drivers were paying an average 

of $4.03 per gallon April 30, or $1.18 

more than the national average, according 

to AAA. 

The same differential can be seen with 

diesel prices. On Monday, the U.S. Energy 

Information Administration’s weekly roundup 

of fuel prices showed the price of diesel 

in California to be about 86 cents more expensive 

than the national average. 

Higher taxes, along with a combination 

of tougher gas standards and environmental 

regulations, normally account for about 

70 cents of that difference, said Gordon 

Schremp, a senior fuels specialist with the 

California Energy Commission. But the rest 

is a mystery. 

In 2017, the state’s Petroleum Market 

Advisory Committee found that California 

has had “a continuous and significant unexplained 

differential compared to the rest 

of the country” since February 2015. That 

difference has cost Californians more than 

$17 billion, said Severin Borenstein, faculty 

director at the Energy Institute at the University 

of California, Berkeley’s business 

school. 

In a letter to energy commission chairman 

David Hochschild, Newsom defended 

the state’s environmental standards, accusing 

critics of using the high prices to “undermine 

our clean air and safety standards.” 

“Independent analysis suggests that an 

unaccounted-for price differential exists in 

California’s gas prices and that this price 

Courtesy: KPBS 

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM 

differential may stem in part from inappropriate 

industry practices,” Newsom wrote. 

The commission agreed to do the price 

analysis but declined further comment. 

Western States Petroleum Association 

President Catherine Reheis-Boyd noted that 

California’s gas prices have been scrutinized 

in dozens of government inquiries, “all of 

which concluded the dynamics of supply 

and demand are responsible for movements 

in the price of gasoline and diesel fuel.” 

Spiking gas prices have caused headaches 

for California policymakers since the 

Legislature approved a 12-cent gas tax increase 

in 2016. 

Last year, voters recalled a Democratic 

state senator who voted for the increase and 

replaced him with a Republican. But a statewide 

ballot initiative to repeal the higher tax 

failed with more than 56 percent of the vote. 

As gas and diesel prices kept climbing, 

19 state lawmakers in January asked Attorney 

General Xavier Becerra to investigate 

the “unexplained surcharge.” 

“This mystery surcharge happens between 

the refinery and retail purchase by 

the consumer,” Democratic Assemblyman 

Marc Levine said. “This is a punitive, abusive 

practice that Californians are paying.” 

But it’s unclear if Becerra’s office took 

any action. Representatives from his office on 

Tuesday would not confirm or deny an investigation. 

8 

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10 • May 15-31, 2019 Nation 


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Nation May 15-31, 2019 • 11 

Minnesota governor signs bill banning handheld cellphone use while driving 


ST. PAUL, Minn. — Motorists will be required 

to use hands-free devices to talk on the 

phone while driving on Minnesota roads starting 

Aug. 1 under a bill that Gov. Tim Walz signed 

last month intended to crack down on the growing 

problem of distracted driving. 

Walz acknowledged dozens of people surrounding 

him at the ceremony who held pictures 

of loved ones they lost in crashes caused by distracted 

drivers. He said he knows their pain will 

never leave but that lives will be saved because 

of their years of sharing heartbreaking stories to 

pass the law. Minnesota is joining 16 other states 

and the District of Columbia with similar laws. 

“We will reduce deaths,” Walz said. “Sons 

will come home. Mothers will come home. Our 

children and grandchildren will come home because 

of the work that you did.” 

The new law marks an important bipartisan 

success for the Democratic governor and 

a Legislature divided between a Democraticcontrolled 

House and Republican-controlled 

Senate. More diplomacy will be critical for resolving 

the big partisan differences that remain 

on taxes and spending if lawmakers are going to 

complete their work by their May 20 deadline. 

Vijay Dixit, of Eden Prairie, whose daughter, 

Shreya, died in a crash caused by a distracted 

driver in 2007, was there to see 12 years of his 

campaigning become law. 

“I hope that distracted driving, which was a 

tongue-twister in 2007, will disappear from the 

face of this Earth over the next few years that we 

have this law in place,” he said. 

The chief author in the House, Democrat 

Frank Hornstein, of Minneapolis, said the “courage, 

perseverance and dignity” of the survivors 

changed hearts and minds at the Capitol. The 

converts included the chief Senate author, Republican 

Scott Newman, of Hutchinson, who said 

he didn’t support the proposal four years ago but 

came to realize after hearing the families’ stories 

that he was in a position to make a difference. 

The law bars motorists from holding and using 

cellphones or other wireless devices while 

driving. Built-in Bluetooth systems meet the legal 

requirements that systems be voice-activated, 

but so do cheap hands-free mounts sold by many 

stores and online retailers. There’s an exception 

for emergency calls. Drivers can still use GPS 

navigation apps, stream music and listen to podcasts 

if they’re voice activated or if they start 

them up while they’re still parked. 

The penalty for a first offense will be a $50 

fine, rising to $275 for additional violations. 

Minnesota already bans texting and emailing 

while driving. 

Separate legislation has already passed the 

Senate to stiffen existing penalties for texting 

while driving. That bill would also treat drivers 

who kill or injure someone while texting 

or talking on a non-hands-free phone more like 

drunken drivers, with felony-level penalties. But 

the measure is still in committee in the House, 

where it’s unclear if it will pass this year. 

According to the Department of Public 

Safety, at least 27 of Minnesota’s approximately 

380 traffic deaths last year were related to 

distractions of all kinds, and officials consider 

cellphones the fastest-growing distraction. Col. 

Matt Langer, chief of the State Patrol, said the 

real toll from distracted driving is likely higher. 

Langer called on Minnesotans to start complying 

with the law now rather than waiting for 

it to take effect Aug. 1. The department will 

now launch a public education campaign using 

$700,000 in federal funds so that all Minnesota 

drivers learn what they need to do to comply 

with the law. 8 

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Perspective May 

15-31, 2019 • 12 

Now more than ever it is 

important to manage your 

health; job may depend on it 

Cliff Abbott 


“Touch your toes, turn your head and 

cough, pee in the cup.” Many experienced 

drivers can remember when obtaining or renewing 

a medical certification was a minor 

biannual inconvenience. In recent years, 

however, regulations have tightened. 

Passing the DOT medical exam isn’t as 

easy as it once was. To begin with, medical 

examiners now must be registered with 

the government. The Federal Motor Carrier 

Safety Administration maintains a National 

Registry of Certified Medical Examiners. 

Unless your family doctor is listed in the 

National Registry, you may have to go elsewhere 

for your physical exam. 

That doesn’t mean your family doctor or 

primary care physician doesn’t play a role, 

however. Increasingly, the FMCSA is interested 

in health conditions that could impact 

driving and making sure each driver is properly 

treated. Your regular doctor may very 

well need to communicate or provide documentation 

to your physical examiner to validate 

that you are complying with treatment 

and that treatment is effective. 

One of the oldest issues is hypertension, 

or common high blood pressure. Age, weight 

gain, stress and smoking all contribute to 

hypertension problems. In some cases, the 

driver can reverse, or at least delay, blood 

pressure issues with weight loss and quitting 

smoking programs. For most, however, the 

problem only gets worse with time. 

Fortunately, many cases of high blood 

pressure can be addressed with an inexpensive, 

daily pill. Unfortunately, the problem 

must be diagnosed and a prescription written, 

and then the driver must keep up with 

prescription refills and periodic doctor visits. 

Many don’t, choosing to ignore the issue 

until they can’t pass the next DOT physical 

exam. That’s dangerous, and dumb. Once the 

driver flunks the exam or is granted a shortterm 

expiration date, it may take more than 

simply restarting the medication to get certified 

for a year. The examiner may want to 

see data that you’re following doctor’s orders 

and that the medication is working over a period 

of time. 

Another medical condition that stops a 

driver’s career quicker than a flat steer tire 

is obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). This is 

another condition that gets worse with age, 

weight gain and smoking. Those who suffer 

from OSA may not even realize a problem 

exists as their sleep is frequently interrupted 

by periods of not breathing. The sufferer may 

or may not remember waking up gasping for 

air, but the result is poor quality sleep and 

low blood oxygenation that leaves the driver 

tired for the next driving shift. 

See Safety on p18 m 

Trip shows importance of trucking to cruise ship industry 

Lyndon Finney 


Eye on 

Trucking 

Cleaning out the notebook while wondering 

when it’s going to stop raining every week … 

* * * 

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I had 

the privilege of taking a weeklong cruise on the 

Carnival Dream out of New Orleans. 

The ship docked at 7 a.m. May 5. 

It was scheduled to leave for its final voyage 

out of New Orleans at 4 p.m. that afternoon 

(the Dream is being relocated to a new home 

port in Galveston, Texas, and will make shorter 

trips in the Caribbean. 

You only have to be around a ship of that 

magnitude to appreciate the role trucking plays 

in that transition from inbound to outbound. 

At 15 decks high and one thousand feet 

long, the Dream would be the largest building 

in most American cities and towns. 

On a cruise, its population is larger than 

most of those cities and towns. 

It has a capacity of 3,646 guests and operates 

with a crew of 1,367, most of whom are 

working under a six-month contract with Carnival. 

The ship serves over 14,000 meals a day. 

Imagine the tons of meat, fruit and veggies 

and paper goods that have to be loaded at the 

home port, because we didn’t see any tractortrailers 

on the docks at ports in Jamaica, the 

Cayman Islands and Cozumel. 

Bad, rough roads and highways cause 

all sorts of physical harm. Your body is 

shaken and bounced, your nerves are on 

edge, and you are exhausted. And don’t 

get me started on the way roadwork is set 

up or just trying not to run over stupid car 

drivers. 

— Kathy Blailock Williamson 

How does all that food get to the home 

dock? 

Mostly in big rigs, which are at the pier 

when the ship docks and continue to unload 

well up into the day. 

In fact, as we drove away from the pier, 

there were several tractor-trailers queued up 

on a road leading to the port area. 

I’m sure those 3.600 guests on our ship 

took for granted how those goods and supplies 

got to the ship. 

We didn’t. 

* * * 

From time to time, you see articles in our 

paper and on our website about Highway 

Angels (Truckload Carriers Association) and 

Highway Heroes (Goodyear Tire and Rubber 

Co.). 

Once in a while, we get a nomination from 

a reader, in this case of former professional 

truck driver Veronica Fiorina, who writes: 

“On March 11, trucker Johnnie Gillins, 

Jr., an owner-operator contracted to CFI, was 

driving his truck on Interstate 4 heading east 

from Tampa, Florida, on the way home to 

Lakeland, Florida. He observed the driving of 

a day cab swerving over the white lines into 

other traffic, then returning to his lane. 

“This was happening continually. He did 

manage to write down the transport’s name 

and truck number as well as the truck license. 

“As the driver neared Exit 33, he negotiated 

the off ramp at an extremely high rate of 

speed and swerved to the left and drove off the 

road. The day cab rolled over with trailer still 

connected and the driver was wedged between 

the steering wheel and floor. 

“Johnnie stopped immediately, but was 

Got an opinion on a key 

trucking issue? 

Send it online to: 


Talk continues about how much America needs to improve its infrastructure. 

Recently, Democrats met with President Donald Trump and said they’d agreed on 

a plan to spend on $2 trillion on the infrastructure, but so far, no one has come up 

with a plan to fund all the work that needs to be done. How do poor roads impact the 

ability to do your job and how do poor roads impact your compensation? 

The poor road conditions impact my ability 

to do my job by the resulting delays from 

all of the lane closures and detours. We need 

media to help us educate drivers on how to 

keep traffic flowing better through these restricted 

areas. Somebody needs to review 

how many strobe safety lights are necessary, 

as they hinder flow by blinding drivers — especially 

truck drivers sitting four feet above 

the roadways. Every day, I unsafely, suddenly 

have to brake firmly because somebody 

has seen a flashing light (of any color) and 

dropped their anchor abruptly. 

—James Stark 

unable to open either door. The driver of the 

day cab seemed to be unconscious and was 

not replying to shouts. Johnnie called 911 

and waited for professional people to arrive 

to assess the driver’s injuries, secure the area 

against possible fires and to give a report to 

the police. 

“Johnnie showed concern for a fellow driver 

and took the initiative to stop. More people 

should set an example and show that kind of 

empathy. His company has a good driver.” 

We are told the driver of the day cab was 

not seriously injured and is now OK. 

Way to go, Johnnie. And thanks, Veronica. 

* * * 

Elsewhere in today’s edition, you’ll find a 

story about President Donald Trump and members 

of Congress agreeing we need to spend $2 

trillion to fix the nation’s infrastructure — and 

were all smiles. 

But they never decided where the $2 trillion 

could be located. 

As Yogi Berra used to say, “déjà vu, all over 

again.” 

Come on, up there in Washington, get 

with it. 8 

I am a team driver. I can’t sleep while he 

is on these poor roads. It makes it dangerous 

for me to drive at night when I couldn’t 

sleep all day. 

— Linda Simpkins

Women to Watch 

13 

WOMEN IN TRUCKING 

WIT’s April Member of the Month Bonnie 

Neal still loves driving after 40-plus years 

Dorothy Cox 


Some truck drivers like to get paid to see the 

U.S. Others love being their own boss with nobody 

looking over their shoulder. 

What Bonnie Neal has always loved about 

trucking are the machines and tools involved, 

adding she’s “daddy’s little tomboy.” 

For this 76-year-old, trucking is all about “the 

equipment. It doesn’t matter how old the truck or 

the trailer, I like to listen to the engine, the actual 

fun of driving.” 

Neal is Women In Trucking’s (WIT) April 

Member of the Month and after more than 40 

years of being a professional driver, she wouldn’t 

change a thing. 

Not that she likes “the new electronic stuff at 

all.” 

She now drives part time with mostly regional 

or local routes because she doesn’t want to mess 

with an electronic logging device. A seasoned 

driver knows when they’re tired and when they’re 

rested without a device to tell them, she said. And 

although she thinks forward-facing cameras have 

their uses, especially to document when an accident’s 

not the trucker’s fault, she’s not so sure 

about cameras facing the truck driver. 

Neal started driving when a chauffeur’s license 

was all-encompassing whether it be for a 

bus, taxi or truck, and the physical was $20. 

The eldest of four (three girls and a boy), she 

was born in the “little logging town” of Sweet 

Home, Oregon, near lakes, rivers and the Cascade 

Mountains. 

It was really her father, a truck driver, who got 

Neal into trucking. “My daddy started taking me 

with him when I was 10 years old and I rode with 

him until I was 17 and he was starting to teach me 

how to drive.” 

The company put an end to that. No women 

drivers allowed. 

But Neal married “a young man who was a 

truck driver” and when he signed on with a produce 

company that allowed women drivers, Neal 

wasted no time in getting her license. 

They hauled produce around California and to 

Seattle and back and hauled greenery from Vancouver 

Island (off Canada’s Pacific Coast) over to 

florists in California. Then they backhauled juice 

from Washington state. 

There came a time, however, when Neal’s 

husband didn’t want to be married to another 

truck driver anymore. After they divorced, she 

kept on trucking. 

“I always used to drive,” she said. “I learned 

how to drive a car when I was 15 on a 1930 Model 

A coupe that was twice my age.” She liked the 

challenge of “making the equipment be orderly 

and proper.” 

She doesn’t care for automatic transmissions, 

preferring to shift according to the engine rpms. 

“Every engine is different, and you feel it out, listen 

to it.” 

She’s of the school that, when backing up, 

you get out and look to make sure there are no 

surprises, although it’s a little easier with power 

steering, she said. 

And while there’s no doubt technology is one 

of the biggest changes Neal has seen in trucking, 

it’s the attitude of the motoring public that stands 

out in her mind. And it’s not only the four-wheelers 

you have to watch. Some young truckers drive 

their trucks like they drive their cars, she said — 

too fast. 

She spent a year at a truck driving school taking 

students out to test their driving skills, and 

rather than just test them on straight stretches 

of highway, she also took them on back country 

roads and places where they had to take corners 

and make allowances for the close proximity of 

cars. 

She’s seen the attitudes of the driving public 

change over the years. Most now don’t stop to 

help people on the side of the road because it’s 

unsafe. Even back in the ’80s her carrier had a 

no passenger policy. She broke that rule once to 

help four teenage girls stranded on the side of the 

road in Texas. There weren’t cellphones then and 

it was getting dark. She took them up the road so 

they could call their parents. She also moved the 

car so it wasn’t sticking out in the road. 

Neal learned about WIT at the Great American 

Trucking Show in Dallas. “I looked into WIT 

and they interested me,” she said. They had advice 

on what drivers needed to know rather than 

just a bunch of advertisements. 

Neal was out of town when WIT announced 

she was their April Member of the Month. And 

around the same time, her little hometown newspaper 

in Sweet Home published a two-page feature 

spread on her. 

“Well, after all this time somebody noticed 

I’ve been driving trucks,” she said with a chuckle. 

She plans to go on driving until she can’t pass 

her physical. She never did drugs or smoked or 

drank, so she’s in good health. 

“I’m thankful the good Lord lets me do this. 

I like knowing I’m performing a service and that 

I’ve helped people.” 

You can’t say better than that. 8 

The Women In Trucking Association is a nonprofit organization 

focused on the transportation and logistics industry. Our mission? 

To encourage the employment of women in the trucking industry, 

promote their accomplishments and minimize obstacles faced by 

women working in the trucking industry. WIT is proudly headed up 

by President and CEO Ellen Voie. 

Courtesy: SARAH BROWN/The New Era 

What Bonnie Neal has always loved about trucking are the machines and tools involved. 

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14 

AT 

THE TRUCK STOP 

PRESENTED BY CAT SCALE, VISIT WEIGHMYTRUCK.COM 

This driver likes the expedite way of life: The loads 

are light and so are his spirits 

Expediter Ray Shamel says he has more quality time with his wife now that he’s driving around the country than he did driving locally back home. 

The Trucker: Klint Lowry 

Klint Lowry 


Seeing Ray Shamel standing in line at the Petro truck stop off 

Interstate 40, exit 161, near Little Rock, Arkansas, you could 

almost mistake him for a professional truck driver. He looks the 

part. And he’s obviously at home at a truck stop. 

Then again, he’s got a little more pep in his step, he’s a little 

less bedraggled than most truckers are as they take care of 

business and life’s necessities. He’s quick to smile and to start 

a conversation wherever he finds one. He’s relaxed rather than 

weary. 

There’s a simple explanation for the similarities and the 

differences, and he’s happy to reveal it. 

“I’m an expediter,” he said with a wide grin, as though he had 

just revealed a plot twist to a mystery. He’s a professional driver, 

all right, but instead of a big rig, he drives a sprinter-style van 

for Barrett DirectLine Expedited Service, based in Bentonville, 

Arkansas. 

“I haul small freight,” Shamel said. “I can haul up to 

three skids.” When someone has a small load that has to get 

somewhere quickly, that’s the niche expediters like Barrett fills, 

anywhere in the Lower 48, although, “usually we stay in the 

freight lanes, normally east of the Mississippi, mostly.” 

Shamel has been driving for Barrett for about a year. Before 

that, he’d driven a straight truck near his home in Davison, 

Michigan, a suburb of Flint about 65 miles north-northwest of 

Detroit. 

“I always liked driving, but my kids were young and at home, 

so I stayed at home and worked local until my kids were grown,” 

he said. “So now I decided to get out and see the country, drive 

and make money doing it.” 

The way Shamel describes it, with expediting, he enjoys the 

best aspects of long-haul driving without a lot of the headaches. 

Take all that angst about Hours of Service, especially since 

ELDs became mandatory. Shamel has been following the issue, 

though none of it applies to him. 

“We manage our own time, so we’re more able to stop where 

we want,” he said. When it is time to stop, he doesn’t have hunt 

for parking like he would with an 18-wheeler. His van has a 

pulldown bed, so he can get a room or just park somewhere. 

“If I want to pull into a roadside park and get some sleep, a 

truck may not be able to get in, but I can do that.” 

Ask almost any driver about the best aspects of being an OTR 

driver, and they will tell you it’s the chance to see the country. 

“In a van, you can get more places that you want to see,” 

Shamel said. “Let’s say I’ve got a delivery near Niagara Falls, 

and I’ve always wanted to see it. Once I drop that, I go out of 

service for a day or 12 hours or whatever, I can go, take a look, 

take some pictures, enjoy myself, enjoy my day.” 

Or suppose he’s out West and wants to take a short detour 

and see the Grand Canyon. Would he be able to maneuver those 

narrow, winding national park roads in a semi? 

No driver likes to deadhead, but with his fuel costs being just a 

tiny fraction of what it would be driving a tractor-trailer, it’s not 

as big a deal if he decides he doesn’t want to wait to get home. 

Like any driver with a family, being away from home can 

be the most depressing downside of the job. Shamel is out on 

the road for three to four weeks at a time. But he and his wife 

have more quality time now that he’s on the road. 

“When I was working a regular job at home, I was driving 

long hours,” Shamel said. “I’d get home, my wife worked third 

shift. I’d get home either right after she left for work or right 

before she left. And then she’d be gone all night. We had to fight 

for moments to have time together. 

“Now that I’m an independent contractor running through a 

carrier, I’m able to come in and go out of service whenever I 

want. If my wife says, ‘I have a two-week vacation in June, do 

you want to do something?’ we can book a cruise. I’m able to 

work it round her schedule now so every moment that she has 

off, I’m able to be there with her.” 

Expediters have a tight community out on the road. Shamel 

belongs to a Facebook group called Transportation Life: Wheels, 

Wings and Rudders. They number about 3,000 members. 

“It’s like having this huge extended family of fellow 

expediters,” he said. So even though you’re away from home, 

you have friends that are out here. We’re able to meet up, you 

know, have dinner somewhere.” 

It’s a nice feeling to pull up somewhere and see a couple of 

vans. “There’s a lot of women out here who are solo,” he said. 

“If they’re in an area with other members of the community they 

might feel safer.” 

Then he added, honestly, it’s comforting even if you’re a guy 

to know you’re among friends. 

Shamel had been sitting in Little Rock and had just gotten a 

call. In just a couple of minutes he’d be heading out to pick up a 

load to take to Louisville, Kentucky. 

After that? Who knows, but that’s part of the fun. 8

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16 • May 15-31, 2019 Perspective 


Watch out. Person conducting drug 

recognition evaluation on drivers may 

not have training needed to do so 

Brad Klepper 

exclusive to the trucker 

Ask the 

Attorney 

Let’s be totally upfront about this. I am 

vehemently opposed to anyone operating 

any type of vehicle under the influence of 

drugs or alcohol. I really can’t express how 

strongly I feel about this. Having a license 

is a privilege — not a right. 

I am also a big believer in the Constitution 

and due process. The 14 th Amendment 

to the U.S. Constitution says, in essence, that 

the States shall not deprive a person of life, 

liberty or property without due process of 

law. This means that the government must 

follow fair procedures before depriving a 

person of life, liberty or property. In other 

words, everyone gets an opportunity to be 

heard and a decision made by a neutral party. 

All this brings me to the reason I am 

writing this article. On April 20th of this 

year (coincidence with the “4/20 holiday”?), 

several states began conducting drug recognition 

evaluations at various locations. In 

short, drivers were taken out of their vehicles 

and a Drug Recognition Evaluation 

(DRE) was conducted. Numerous drivers 

were cited under 392.4(a) and were placed 

out of service based solely on the opinion 

of the person conducting the DRE and in 

spite of evidence to the contrary. 

Not surprisingly, I received a call from a 

carrier the following day. One of their drivers 

had been placed out of service following 

a DRE. Here is where it gets interesting. 

The driver had pulled into a weigh station 

when he was motioned to enter the 

scale house. The driver exited the vehicle 

with his paperwork and license. Upon entering 

the scale house a female officer took 

the driver to administer a series of tests, including 

field sobriety tests and tests of his 

vital signs. In the course of this, the officer 

took him to a darkened bathroom to perform 

pupil response tests. The officer used 

a sphygmomanometer to test his blood pressure, 

and had him roll up his shirt sleeves 

and pant legs to inspect his arms and legs 

for sign of drug injections. No injections 

were found. 

The driver did not like to be touched, 

and the invasive personal nature of the testing 

made him uncomfortable, so he requested 

a breath or blood test instead. The officer 

performed a breathalyzer, which read 0.0, 

or negative. The officer took a urine sample, 

and tested it at the scene. It also came 

back negative. 

A K-9 unit was led around the truck and 

did not alert. The officer kept asking the 

driver if he was on drugs (which the driver 

denied) and performing various tests. The 

entire process took between 1-3 hours and 

despite the negative breathalyzer, urine 

test, lack of drug injection sites and failure 

of a K-9 unit to alert to his truck, the driver 

was placed out of service for 24 hours for 

an alleged violation 392.4(a). The out of 

service was solely based on the opinion of 

the officer conducting the drug recognition 

evaluation. 

When the carrier learned of the alleged 

392.4(a) violation they reached out to enforcement 

seeking some explanation as 

all the tests had come back negative for 

the presence of drugs. The carrier was 

informed by enforcement that they were 

sending off a second urine sample for testing 

but regardless of the results of that test 

they were standing by the opinion of the 

officer conducting the DRE that the driver 

was impaired by drugs/alcohol and would 

not be removing the alleged violation. 

See Klepper on p17 m 

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b Klepper from page 16 b 

This is not the first time a DRE evaluation 

has been used. However, it is the first 

time I have run across one being used to 

evaluate a CMV driver. 

As background, the Drug Recognition 

Evaluation program was created by a couple 

of L.A. police officers who felt that medical 

doctors did not receive sufficient training in 

the signs of drug impairment for street drugs 

and therefore could not offer judgment about 

a suspect’s condition. 

In order to become qualified to perform a 

DRE, an officer must attend a two-day preliminary 

training course. Upon completion 

of the course, the office may take the sevenday 

DRE course. The course covers the 12 

steps of the DRE procedure and the seven 

categories of drugs covered in the manual. 

Due to limited space, I am not going to 

list all of the 12 steps of the evaluation or 

the seven categories covered (if you really 

want to know, shoot me an email.). However, 

the evaluation does include a breath 

alcohol test, eye exams, divided-attention 

tests, dark-room examination of pupils, 

muscle tone, potential injection sites, opinion 

of the evaluator and a toxicology examination. 

All of these test are conducted by 

an officer, not a medical professional, with 

nine days training. 

For what it is worth, most medical doctors 

believe that without formal medical training 

the person conducting the evaluation is not 

qualified to make the determination that a 

person is under the influence of drugs or alcohol. 

In addition, factors other than drug 

or alcohol use can impact the outcome of the 

tests being performed. I don’t think anyone 

would dispute that the stress of the evaluation 

environment would be enough to elevate a 

person’s heart rate, blood pressure, temperature 

and can even impact a person’s muscle 

tone (under stress muscles tend to be firmer). 

The point I am trying to make is the person 

conducting the drug recognition evaluation 

may lack the scientific and medical 

Perspective May 15-31, 2019 • 17 

training required for the DRE to be relevant 

and reliable enough to be admitted under 

Rule of Evidence 702. In fact, several state 

courts have case law concerning the admissibility 

of DRE evidence. These include 

Texas, Minnesota, Florida, Oregon and 

Washington. 

The rub of all of this is that if no citation 

was issued there is not a court of law in which 

a driver can challenge the validity of the evaluation. 

Instead, the only means available is 

to file a DataQ challenge. Needless to say, 

there is an absence of a neutral party making 

a decision on the matter. In my opinion, this 

creates a due process issue. 

Again, I am opposed to anyone operating 

any type of vehicle under the influence of 

drugs or alcohol; however, I am also a big believer 

in due process. While I think the DRE 

can have value I think that it is not reliable 

enough to be solely relied upon in the face of 

evidence to the contrary. 

Brad Klepper is president of Interstate 

Trucker Ltd., a law firm entirely dedicated 

to legal defense of the nation’s commercial 

drivers. Interstate Trucker represents truck 

drivers throughout the 48 states on both 

moving and nonmoving violations. Brad 

is also president of Driver’s Legal Plan, 

which allows member drivers access to his 

firm’s services at discounted rates. He is a 

lawyer that has focused on transportation 

law and the trucking industry in particular. 

He works to answer your legal questions 

about trucking and life over the road. 

For more information, contact him at 

(800) 333-DRIVE (3748) or interstatetrucker.com 

and driverslegtalplan.com. 8 

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18 • May 15-31, 2019 Perspective 

b Safety from page 12 b 

Unfortunately, sleep apnea isn’t treated 

with a pill. It is diagnosed through a sleep 

study and, where indicated, is treated with 

a Continuous Pulmonary Airway Pressure 

(CPAP) or Bi-level Pulmonary Airway Pressure 

(BiPAP) machine. 

There is no simple test the medical examiner 

can perform to determine if the driver 

suffers from OSA. Instead, the physician 

looks for signs such as labored breathing or 

obesity along with behaviors like smoking. 

When indicated, the physician will recommend 

the driver contact his or her regular 

doctor for a sleep study. This procedure used 

to mean a night or two spent in a clinic, trying 

to sleep with a mask, wires attached everywhere 

and medical staff walking around. 

These days, most can be performed at home 

with a take-home device the doctor can recommend. 

The devices not only assist with breathing 

during sleep, they record important information 

about breathing rates and volumes, episodes 

of wakefulness and other information 

that the doctor can use to determine if treatment 

is effective. 

That’s the problem for the driver who 

hasn’t been tested — the testing may be overnight, 

but the process isn’t. Your doctor may 

need to see days or even weeks of data to 

determine compliance with the treatment and 

effectiveness. Drivers might find themselves 

out of work for weeks until the examiner is 

satisfied enough to sign off on the exam. 

The newest condition to require personal 

physician certification is diabetes mellitus, 

and that’s good news. In the past, drivers 

who needed insulin to regulate blood sugar 

were prohibited from driving, period. The 

FMCSA began pilot programs to grant exemptions 

to drivers using insulin, but the 

process was long and cumbersome, and few 

drivers went through with it. Some drivers 

who were treating their diabetes with oral 

medications delayed or refused insulin treatment, 

knowing that taking injections would 

effectively end their driving careers. 

As of November 19, 2018, insulin-dependent 

drivers, like drivers with hypertension 

or sleep apnea, can drive as long as their 

condition is controlled as verified by their attending 

physician. As with sleep apnea, however, 

it’s not as simple as just taking medication 

and showing up for the DOT physical 

exam. 

The driver will need documentation to 

show the examining doctor that the diabetes 

is controlled and effective. This comes with 

a new form, the MCSA-5870, that drivers receive 

from their own treating physician. 

There are some things the driver’s doctor 

will have to see in order to make the certification. 

To start, the driver must provide 

at least three months of ongoing blood glucose 

self-monitoring records, and these can’t 

come from notes on paper. A blood glucose 

monitor that records dates, times and readings 

and allows electronic downloading must 

be used. Of course, the testing must be done 

in accordance with the doctor’s instructions. 

Then, there’s the HvA1C blood test, 

which provides blood glucose information 

from the past 90 days or so. Highs and lows 

that may not show up with the periodic finger-stick 

testing will show in the “A1C” test. 

Here’s the kicker — the FMCSA does not 

specify what the A1C reading or daily bloodglucose 

readings must be. The only requirement 

is that the “treating clinician” must 

certify that the driver has a “stable insulin 

regimen” and “properly controlled insulintreated 

diabetes.” That leaves a lot of room 

for professional opinion to vary, and it’s 

possible that the medical examiner will not 

agree with the driver’s doctor that the diabetes 

is controlled. 

The driver’s treating physician must also 

certify that the diabetes has not resulted in 

other untreated physical damage, such as 

damage to nerves, kidneys, liver or retinas 

in the eyes. 

The MCSA-5870 Assessment Form can 


be obtained at the FMCSA website at fmcsa. 

dot.gov/sites/fmcsa.dot.gov/files/docs/regulations/medical/422521/itdm-assessmentform-final.pdf. 

More information about diabetes 

and the Commercial Driver’s License 

can be found on the website of the American 

Diabetes Association, at diabetes.org/ 

living-with-diabetes/know-your-rights/discrimination/drivers-licenses/commercialdrivers-and-diabetes-discrimination/?utm_ 

source=Offline&utm_medium=Print&utm_ 

content=CDL&utm_campaign=ADV. 

The panic of passing of the biannual DOT 

physical exam has been replaced by a serious 

need for each driver to manage their own 

health, conferring with a personal physician 

to ensure that life threatening conditions are 

properly treated. 

Don’t wait for the next physical exam 

or, worse, until a medical episode results in 

death or injury to someone else in an accident. 

Deal with it today. 8 

Find us on 

Facebook 

search: The Trucker

Business 

May 15-31, 2019 • 19 

ATA’s Truck Tonnage Index (Seasonally Adjusted; 2015=100) 

118 

116 

114 

112 

110 

108 

106 

104 

102 

100 

98 

APR - 14 

JUL - 14 

OCT - 14 

JAN - 15 

APR - 15 

JUL - 15 

OCT - 15 

JAN - 16 

APR - 16 

JUL - 16 

California court dismisses lawsuit, 

citing FMCSA ruling on meal breaks 


A California court has dismissed a portion 

of a class-action lawsuit brought by a 

professional truck driver against the carrier 

he worked for claiming the company had 

failed to provide him with adequate meal and 

rest periods in accordance with California’s 

meal-and-rest-break-requirements. 

The dismissal is the first application in a 

court case of a decision by the Federal Motor 

Carrier Safety Administration in December 

that federal rest-break laws supersede California’s 

meal-and-rest-break regulations, the 

ruling possibly portends a shift in the legal 

standing of the long-running issue. 

OCT - 16 

JAN - 17 

APR - 17 

JUL - 17 

OCT - 17 

JAN - 18 

APR - 18 

JUL - 18 

OCT - 18 

JAN - 19 

MAR - 19 

On May 2, the U.S. District Court for 

the Central District of California dismissed 

the portion of the suit, brought on in January 

2016 by California-based driver Anthony 

Ayala against Chattanooga, Tennessee-based 

U.S. Xpress Inc., that U.S. Xpress did not 

provide Ayala with adequate meal and rest 

periods, per the California regulations. The 

suit further claimed that U.S. Express’ mileage-based 

pay system violates California’s 

minimum-wage laws. That portion of the suit 

is still pending. 

U.S. District Judge George Wu granted 

U.S. Express’ request for dismissal on the 

See Meal on p20 m 

Courtesy: CELADON GROUP 

Paul Svindland, Celadon chief executive officer, said the sale of the carrier’s logistics division 

marks an important milestone in executing Celadon’s strategic plan to simplify its business 

and reduce debt. 

Tonnage index shows 2019 freight 

drop-off continued in March, by 2.3% 

Cliff Abbott 


ARLINGTON, Va. — The American 

Trucking Associations’ (ATA) advanced seasonally 

adjusted (SA) For-Hire Truck Tonnage 

Index fell again in March, this time by 

2.3 percent after decreasing 1.5 percent in 

February. In March, the index equaled 113.2, 

or 13.2 percent higher than the baseline of 

100, established for 2015. The March Index 

compared with 115.8 in February, which was 

down from January. 

“In March, and really the first quarter 

in total, tonnage was negatively impacted 

by bad winter storms throughout much of 

the U.S.,” said ATA Chief Economist Bob 

Costello. “While I expected tonnage to moderate 

in the first quarter, the late Easter holiday 

and the winter storms made it worse.” 

The ATA, along with the entire trucking 

industry, is closely watching for indications 

that growth in freight availability is slowing, 

possibly signaling an economic downturn. 

“It is likely that tonnage will improve in 

the second quarter,” Costello said, “although 

year-over-year gains will be significantly below 

the 2018 annual increase of 6.7 percent.” 

See Tonnage on p22 m 

The Trucker: KLINT LOWRY 

The dismissal of the lawsuit is the first application in a court case of a decision by the Federal 

Motor Carrier Safety Administration in December that federal rest-break laws supersede 

California’s meal-and-rest-break regulations. 

Celadon continues streamlining strategy, 

selling off logistics division to TA Services 


INDIANAPOLIS — Celadon Group said 

Monday that it had disposed of substantially 

all of the assets used in its logistics business 

division in an all-cash transaction. 

The carrier said the move was a continuation 

of its strategic plan to streamline operations, 

reduce total debt and focus on its core 

trucking business by completing the sale of 

logistics Monday with an effective financial 

transfer date of April 1. 

The purchaser was TA Services, a PS Logistics, 

LLC. PS Logistics is said to be a rapidly 

growing full-service provider of assetbased 

transportation, brokerage, 3PL, and 

supply chain services. 

The Celadon Logistics Division, which 

provided a full spectrum of freight brokerage, 

transportation management and warehousing 

solutions, contributed approximately $139 million 

in revenue to the company in the fiscal 

year ended June 30, 2018. The proceeds were 

used to pay transaction expenses, to reduce borrowings 

under the company’s revolving credit 

agreement and to provide additional liquidity. 

Paul Svindland, Celadon chief executive 

officer, said the transaction will include an 

ongoing strategic relationship under which 

Celadon will have access to the logistics 

platform to continue to serve customers’ 

needs on a revenue sharing basis as well as a 

commitment for the company not to conduct 

independent brokerage operations. 

The transition of customer relationships, 

IT and other activities will be ongoing. 

See Celadon on p20 m

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20 • May 15-31, 2019 Business 

b Meal from page 19 b 

b Celadon from page 19 b 

Jon Russell, Celadon’s president, chief 

operating officer and former president of logistics, 

will remain a member of the company’s 

senior management team while serving 

as a consultant to TA Services through the 

transition process. 

Post-transition, Russell is expected to become 

part of TA Services management team. 

“The sale of Logistics marks another important 

milestone in executing our strategic 

plan to simplify our business and reduce 

debt,” Svindland said. “Over the past several 

quarters, we have divested the former Quality 

business, the joint venture with Element, 

our flatbed business, our West Coast dedicated 

business, A&S/Buckler and now Logistics. 

Giving effect to these dispositions, the 

go-forward Celadon has returned to its roots 

as an asset-based truckload carrier serving 

the North American market, with particular 

focus on the eastern half of the United States 

and cross-border traffic with Mexico and 


grounds that, based on FMCSA’s decision, 

the court did not have the authority to review 

the case. 

“The Secretary of Transportation’s authority 

to issue such determinations has been 

delegated to the FMCSA Administrator,” 

the court document states. “Judicial review 

of a pre-emption determination may only be 

heard by a circuit court.” 

California state laws require employers to 

provide breaks for their employees for meals 

and rest. Employees working more than 

five hours in a day are entitled to receive a 

30-minute meal break and, if work extends 

beyond 10 hours a day, they must receive 

an additional 30-minute break. Employees 

are also entitled to a 15-minute break every 

four hours. For years, interstate motor carriers 

have argued that these and other states’ 

laws should not apply to them because they 

are already governed by FMCSA’s Hours of 

Service regulations. 

One of the favorite arguments by the carriers 

has been that it would be excessively 

burdensome for trucks driving cross-country 

to have to adhere to a “patchwork” of varying 

regulations every time they crossed state 

lines. 

Under federal HOS regulations, drivers 

are required to take a 30-minute break after 

eight hours. Part of the confusion is whether 

carriers should have to honor state regulations, 

federal regulations or both. It is possible 

that under some interpretations, drivers 

would be have to take two 30-minute breaks, 

along with two 15-minute breaks, in an 11- 

hour shift. 

On December 21, 2018, the FMCSA, in 

response to petitions filed by the American 

Trucking Associations and the Specialized 

Carriers and Rigging Association in September, 

determined that the California regulations 

had no safety benefit, were incompatible 

with federal regulations and caused an 

unreasonable burden on interstate commerce. 

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth 

Circuit is currently considering a suit filed in 

February by California Labor Commissioner 

Julie Su and state Attorney General Xavier 

Becerra seeking to have FMCSA’s decision 

reversed. 

In the district court’s dismissal, the court 

indicated it did not accept an argument by the 

plaintiffs that the defendant’s request for partial 

dismissal should be dismissed until the Ninth 

Circuit reached a decision in its case. 8 

Canada. On a pro forma basis, we remain 

one of the largest industry competitors, with 

key locations in approximately a dozen states 

and provinces and a consolidated annual revenue 

run rate of approximately $550 million. 

“From a leverage perspective, this transaction 

and our recent sale of our A&S Kinard 

and Buckler subsidiaries have reduced our 

outstanding borrowings and capital leases by 

approximately $185 million. We continue to 

work with existing and new financing sources 

toward both an extension of our current 

facility and a longer-term capital structure 

that will support our ongoing operational and 

financial improvement efforts.” 

Svindland said he expected that TA Services’ 

significant existing footprint and resources, 

combined with Russell’s expertise, 

would provide an excellent platform for Logistics’ 

continued growth and dedication to 

excellent customer service. 

“We look forward to the ongoing strategic 

alignment between our companies and are 

confident in delivering continued value to our 

customers as well as an excellent new home 

for the Logistics employees,” he said. 8 

THETRUCKER.COM


Business May 15-31, 2019 • 21 

Understand the terms, all the terms, before signing that equipment lease agreement 

Cliff Abbott 


Making the wrong decision when choosing 

which carrier to lease your equipment to can be 

a recipe for business disaster. What too many 

independent contractors fail to realize is that the 

lease agreement is the defining document for the 

contractor-carrier relationship. Forget the advertising 

and the recruiter promises; a prudent business 

decision simply cannot be made without 

thoroughly understanding what’s included in the 

lease agreement. 

Unfortunately, that lease agreement is often 

presented during orientation as a file document 

to be signed, sometimes even included in a stack 

with other tax and legal documents. Signing it 

without a complete review is a mistake. 

Important, even critical, information is often 

buried in the amendments and attachments. Be 

sure to carefully review those, too. 

Compensation is usually at the top of contractor 

concerns, and it’s easy to be swayed by 

a higher rate per mile or a higher percentage of 

load revenue. Further reading, however, often 

reveals stark differences in how compensation is 

calculated. What empty miles, if any, are paid? 

Are bobtail miles compensated at a different rate? 

Does compensation change with length of haul? 

What about charges for equipment rental or 

other chargebacks? Who pays for tire or other repairs 

to the trailer while it is in the contractor’s 

control? 

When compensation is a percentage of load 

revenue, it’s often a percentage of a percentage of 

load revenue. Some carriers subtract costs from 

each load for administrative or other purposes, 

calculating the percentage paid to the contractor 

on the adjusted revenue. It’s important to understand 

up front exactly what the compensation will 

be and how it will be presented on the settlement 

statement. 

Accessorial and other pay varies greatly from 

carrier to carrier. The lease agreement should 

clearly spell out compensation for detention, layover, 

weather or other payments, including any 

unpaid waiting period. Some carriers compensate 

©2019 FOTOSEARCH 

Important, even critical, information is often buried in the amendments and attachments of 

a lease agreement. Be sure to carefully review those, too. 

Fleet Focus 

for accessorials only after, and if, the customer 

pays. If the carrier decides not to dispute a claim 

for detention, for example, the contractor doesn’t 

get a say in the matter. 

Fuel surcharges are an important part of compensation, 

too. Some carriers pass on 100 percent 

of fuel surcharges, but it’s not a bad thing if they 

don’t. Surcharge agreements often vary with 

customers, and a carrier may choose to pay a set 

amount rather than calculate each load separately. 

What’s important is that the contractor know exactly 

what to expect. In many cases, a fuel surcharge 

table is provided linking the surcharge to 

the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s 

national average fuel price, issued every Monday. 

Control over dispatches can be just as important 

as the compensation. Many carriers advertise 

“nonforced dispatch,” a term that can be 

disingenuous. According to the U.S. Department 

of Labor, a forced dispatch is indicative of an employer-employee 

relationship. An independent 

contractor, by definition, has the right to accept 

or refuse loads. Some carriers allow the contractor 

to choose from available loads listed on their 

website. Others let the contractor choose from 

a list of a few loads they present. Some carriers 

want independent contractors to run the system, 

dispatching them as they do company-owned 

trucks. While not strictly meeting the definition 

of “independent,” this arrangement can benefit 

both parties by maximizing use of the contractor’s 

equipment, but it also means restricting the 

contractor’s right to choose. While penalties for 

refusing dispatches aren’t generally allowed under 

the contractor status, unofficial penalties like 

reduction in dispatched miles, longer wait times 

between dispatches or assignment to the leastpopular 

loads are often reported. It’s best to have 

a clear understanding of how dispatch is handled 

before signing the lease agreement. 

Running a trucking business invariably means 

taxes, permits and insurance, and the requirements, 

and amounts for these can differ greatly 

between carriers. 

The contractor is usually responsible for any 

physical damage insurance on the equipment, although 

some carriers will provide the coverage 

through their insurance carrier. Liability insurance 

is required by law and is sometimes provided free 

by the carrier. Others charge the contractor a flat 

amount for this coverage, while others insist that 

the contractor provide the coverage. Nontrucking 

liability, or bobtail insurance, covers the rig when 

it isn’t under dispatch, like when the contractor 

heads home for some time off. Some carriers offer 

this coverage as an option, some don’t care 

where the contractor gets it, and some insist the 

contractor be covered under the carrier’s policy. 

Cargo insurance is another area where carriers 

differ. Some provide it, while some require the 

contractor get it elsewhere. 

Like insurance, carriers can differ greatly on 

expenses for tags and permits. Some, but not all, 

provide an apportioned plate for the tractor, allowing 

the contractor to pay over time or to not 

pay at all if certain service requirements are met. 

Some carriers obtain all the necessary permits, 

and there can be many, especially if the carrier 

hauls hazardous materials, alcohol products or 

other commodities that can be permitted separately. 

Then there’s the IFTA fuel program. Most 

carriers provide the necessary stickers and keep 

track of fuel taxes, adjusting amounts owed or 

overpaid every quarter in a settlement. 

Finally, most carriers require the contractor 

to make a deposit in an escrow account. The 

amount required varies between carriers, but the 

funds are held to cover costs such as insurance 

deductibles, cargo claims, unpaid citations and 

other expenses the contractor may incur. Some 

carriers require additional escrow amounts for 

maintenance or other funds. It’s important that 

the contractor understand exactly how much 

will be held in escrow and who can access the 

money. It isn’t uncommon for a misunderstanding 

to occur when carrier and contractor don’t 

agree on carrier withdrawals from the account. 

When the contractor leaves, the carrier has legal 

obligations to pay any unused escrow amounts 

within a specified period of time. Disputes can 

occur, however, and nobody benefits from litigation. 

The risks of this and other issues can be 

reduced greatly with a thorough understanding 

of the lease agreement before signing. 8 

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22 • May 15-31, 2019 Business 


b Tonnage from page 19 b 

Compared with March 2018, the SA index 

increased 1.6 percent, down from February’s 

3.9 percent gain. During the first 

quarter, tonnage was up 3.8 percent from the 

same period in 2018. 

The not-seasonally adjusted index, which 

represents the change in tonnage actually 

hauled by the fleets before any seasonal adjustment, 

equaled 116.3 in March, 10.3 percent 

above February’s level of 105.5. 

The ATA Tonnage Index is calculated 

from data supplied by the organization’s 

members and is a useful tool in predicting 

trucking trends. Combined with other economic 

factors, carriers can obtain a better 

idea where the market is heading and plan 

accordingly. 

In one development, the U.S. Federal Reserve 

System made a policy announcement 

May 1 in which it indicated concern with the 

very low inflation rates the country is currently 

experiencing. The Fed statement said 

that that no significant cuts to interest rates 

are planned for the remainder of 2019. Interest 

rates are typically cut when the Fed wants 

to stimulate the economy to faster growth, a 

position encouraged by President Trump. 

Too much growth, or a growth rate that’s too 

fast, can lead to increased inflation, bringing 

additional problems, prompting the Fed’s 

wait-and-see attitude. 

Although consumer spending has slowed 

in recent months, there was an increase of 

0.7 percent in March, an indication that the 

economy is still growing. At the same time, 

construction spending fell, with spending on 

single-family homes currently at a pace 8.2 

percent behind the pace at this point in 2018. 

U.S. manufacturing also weakened in 

March, with declines in primary metals, 

petroleum/coal products and transportation 

products. 

As for the trucking industry, North America 

Class 8 preliminary orders fell in April 

from an already down March, reaching a 

31-month low, according to a May 2 release 

by ACT Research. Orders in April were 57 

100% Owner Operated for Over 40 Years 

percent lower than in the same month a year 

ago. The biggest reason for the decline, according 

to ACT, is the large backlog of 

trucks already ordered and yet to be built. 

“We continue to contend that current order 

weakness has more to do with very large 

Class 8 backlogs and orders already booked, 

than with the evolving supply-demand balance,” 

said ACT President and Senior Analyst 

Kenny Vieth. 

A similar situation exists with orders 

for Class 8 trailers, which also declined in 

March, for the fourth consecutive month. 

The backlog of trailer orders is large enough 

to keep the manufacturers busy for the rest of 

2019, so anything ordered now wouldn’t be 

delivered until some time in 2020, when economic 

conditions could be much different. 

Vieth spoke to some of those conditions 

in the tractor-orders release, saying, “Of 

course, contracting freight volumes, falling 

freight rates, and strong Class 8 capacity additions 

suggest that the supply-demand balance 

will become an issue later this year.” 

That simply means that the industry’s capacity 

to haul freight is still growing faster 

than the available freight is. Sooner or later, 

something has to give, and that something 

usually starts with freight rates. 

Spot freight rates, usually the first to 

change, have been falling for the past three 

months in the van and refrigerated sectors 

while remaining flat in flatbed, according to 

a May 7 DAT Trendlines release. Both van 

and refrigerated rates have shown a small increase 

so far in May, which could be more 

due to seasonal factors than anything. Summer 

is usually great for freight, but with more 

trucks added each month the usual summer 

increase could be somewhat subdued. 8 

ALWAYS 

Moving 

FORWARD 

WITH PRIDE, INTEGRITY, AND YOU. 

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Mercer’s freight is consistent. Our nationwide network of independent 

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RECRUITING at a Glance 

Company Driver Owner Operator Teams Lease Purchase Flatbed Van Reefer HAZMAT Expedited Specialized Tanker 

Cargill 

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See our ad on page 21! 

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P.I.&I. Motor Express 

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Smith Transport 

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CD OO T LP F V R H E S TK 





CFI 

www.CFIDrive.com 

(877) 592-3642 


Janco Ltd. 

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National Carriers 

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ProFleet Transport Corp. 

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Transport Designs, Inc. 

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D&D Sexton, Inc. 

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Landstar 

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(877) 472-0097 


Penske Logistics 

www.gopenske.com/careers 

(855) 235-1361 


Schneider 

www.schneiderjobs.com 

(800) 44-PRIDE 


Tribe Transportation 

www.TribeTrans.com 

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Diamond Transportation 

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McColister’s Transportation 

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(800) 257-9595 ext. 9490 

See our ads on pages 11 & 13! 

PFS Brands 

www.jobs@pfsbrands.com 

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Skelton Truck Lines 

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(800) 387-9796 ext 231 






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24 • May 15-31, 2019 Business 


Recruitment 

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call call (800) 666-2770 

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Equipment 

May 15-31, 2019 • 25 

Top Daimler exec says battery-electric 

vehicles key to emissions-free transport 

Courtesy: DAIMLER TRUCKS NORTH AMERICA 

To meet the goal of an emissions-free transportation environment, the industry must work together 

to establish a common battery-electric vehicle charging infrastructure, Daimler Trucks 

North America President and CEO Roger Nielsen said at the ACT Expo. 

Volvo says newest series of parameter updates 

designed to provide more customer value 


LONG BEACH, Calif. — Roger Nielsen, 

president and CEO of Daimler Trucks North 

America (DTNA), recently declared batteryelectric 

vehicles as the solution to achieve 

emissions-free commercial transportation in 

North America. 

Speaking to a crowd assembled in Long 

Beach at the ACT Expo, Nielsen said, “The 

road to emissions-free transportation is going 

to be driven with battery-electric vehicles. I believe 

the future is electric.” 

The road to emissions-free driving, he said, 

does not include plug-in hybrids for DTNA. 

Near-zero-emissions natural gas medium- and 

heavy-duty vehicles are currently available and 

will continue from Freightliner as an interim 

solution until full commercialization of the battery-electric 

Freightliner eM2 and eCascadia. 

The company sees potential for hydrogen 

fuel cells to extend battery-electric truck range, 

but does not see it as viable in the near term. 

The vision of electric vehicles does not exclude 

fuel cells: “I can see a glimpse of it over 

the horizon, but it will not be this generation of 

See Daimler on p26 m 


GREENSBORO, N.C. — Volvo Trucks’ 

newest series of parameter updates complements 

its newly-launched Parameter Plus subscription 

package, which allows for up to 50 parameter updates 

annually per covered vehicle. 

With over 250 parameters to choose from, 

this new set of updates will provide customers 

with notable value in terms of cost savings, fuel 

efficiency and uptime, the OEM said in a news 

release. 

“The enhancements we’ve made to our range 

of available parameter updates demonstrates 

Volvo Trucks’ commitment to maximizing uptime 

for our customers through best-in-class connectivity 

capabilities,” said Ashraf Makki, product 

marketing manager at Volvo Trucks North 

America. “Our customers are already seeing the 

value in the recently introduced Parameter Plus 

package, which allows owners to switch between 

operating modes remotely, balancing fuel usage 

and performance to optimize the truck’s transport 

assignment and maximize profitability. These updates 

will only add to that value.” 

This new release of the parameter updates fur- 

See Volvo on p26 m 

Courtesy: WABCO 

Jon Morrison, WABCO president, Americas, said the company is pioneering the creation of 

Active Lateral Safety as it did with forward safety when it introduced its OnGuard ADAS system. 

Courtesy: VOLVO TRUCKS NORTH AMERICA 

With over 250 parameters to choose from, Volvo Trucks’ new set of updates will provide customers 

with notable value in terms of cost savings, fuel efficiency and uptime, the OEM said. 

WABCO offers new technology to help fleets 

improve safety, uptime, on-time performance 


ATLANTA — WABCO Holdings Inc., a 

global supplier of braking control systems and 

other advanced technologies designed to improve 

the safety, efficiency and connectivity 

of commercial vehicles, last month introduced 

an integrated Active Lateral Safety technology 

suite to help fleets reduce accidents and increase 

driver control and comfort in a full range of operating 

environments. 

The new suite, which will be available later 

this year, integrates the company’s active steering 

technology with two Advanced Driver Assistance 

Systems (ADAS) to establish a comprehensive 

“cocoon of safety” around the vehicle. 

“By combining these technologies into an 

integrated safety package, we have extended 

the benefits of active steering to two of the most 

common critical events leading to accidents — 

drifting out of the desired travel lane and failing 

to detect a vehicle in the driver’s blind spot,” 

said Jon Morrison, WABCO president, Americas. 

“We are pioneering the creation of Active 

Lateral Safety as we did with forward safety 

when we introduced our OnGuard ADAS system. 

Together, these solutions enhance vehicle 

intelligence and protection to support the overall 

success and safety of on-highway fleets.” 

The new Active Lateral Safety suite consists 

of three integrated safety solutions from WAB- 

CO: 

• Active steering system featuring a Sheppard 

hydraulic power steering gear equipped 

with magnetic torque overlay technology 

• OnLaneASSIST active lane keeping assist 

system, and the 

• OnSideASSIST blind spot assist system. 

Morrison said WABCO’s active steering 

technology utilizes a magnetic torque overlay to 

enable several new features that help maximize 

safety, increase uptime and improve driver comfort 

and acceptance: 

• Road crown compensation 

See WABCO on p26 m

26 • May 15-31, 2019 Equipment 

Diesel Laptops, training centers form partnership 


GILBERT, S.C. — Diesel Laptops and 

American Diesel Training Centers (ADTC) have 

formed a strategic partnership designed to address 

the diesel technician shortage and the ongoing career 

development that is essential to improving 

employee retention. 

All ADTC facilities will be outfitted with the 

relevant Diesel Laptops hardware and software 

products for integration into the 300-hour ADTC 

training curriculum. That includes diagnostic testing 

and hardware kits and cross-platform online 

repair information. 

Diesel Laptops and ADTC will also jointly 

produce and distribute training in other modalities, 

including live webinars and instructor-led 

training that will be offered through ADTC’s 

shop-based training facilities across the U.S. 

“It is no secret that there is a real shortage of 

techs coming into the industry,” said J.B. Ryan, 

senior vice president of strategic initiatives at Diesel 

Laptops. “Combining resources with ADTC 

addresses this problem head-on while educating 

them on the most critical parts of diagnostics and 

troubleshooting.” 

Diagnostic skills and the accompanying use 

of technology are critical in attracting new entrants 

into the field of diesel repair and maintenance, 

Ryan said. Advancing those skills with 

more in-depth training and use of the most modern 

technology and services available ensures that 

technicians stay current with marketplace needs, 

ensuring their ability to effectively service customers 

and provide a strong return on investment 

for their employers. 

“ADTC and Diesel Laptops essentially 

have the same mission, to provide the industry 

with the workforce, knowledge and technology 

to most effectively keep the United States 

moving and growing,” said Timothy Spurlock, 

president and co-founder of American Diesel 

Training Centers. 8 

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b Daimler from page 25 b 

engineers who will be delivering it,” Nielsen 

said. 

To hasten the arrival of zero-emission commercial 

transport, three goals must be achieved, 

Nielsen said. 

First, the industry must work together to 

establish a common battery-electric vehicle 

charging infrastructure. Daimler AG is a 

founding member of CharIN, an organization 

whose aim is to standardize charging requirements 

for electric vehicles, including commercial 

vehicles. 

Second, batteries must become cheaper, 

lighter and more powerful. DTNA is leveraging 

its global network to develop proprietary batteries 

for its commercial vehicles that meet the 

standards of quality, durability and integration 

that customers demand. 

Finally, the real cost of ownership for 

customers must be strengthened through increased 

incentives, decreased maintenance 

costs and cheaper energy costs. Organizations 

such as the South Coast Air Quality 

Management District (SCAQMD) will be instrumental 

in creating a viable business case 

for electric trucks. A $16 million grant from 

SCAQMD partially funds the Freightliner 

Electric Innovation Fleet. 

b Volvo from page 25 b 

b WABCO from page 25 b 

• Wheel imbalance rejection 

• Return-to-center 

• Adjustable steering feel 

• Side wind compensation 

• Active steering damping, and 

• Speed-dependent steering effort. 

WABCO OnLaneASSIST combines active 

steering with a forward-looking camera for active 

lane correction. Rather than simply warning 

of vehicle drift, the system applies assistive 

torque to the steering wheel, when necessary, to 

help the driver stay in the lane. Once the vehicle 

is again targeting the lane center, the overlay 

torque is released. Drivers can override the assistive 

steering input at any time. 

Fleets also can choose to add optional video 

capture to the OnLaneASSIST system for increased 

insight to driving performance. This capability 

is available through the OnLane camera 


The key to ensuring electric vehicles 

are ready for commercialization is testing, 

Nielsen said. DTNA and its global affiliates 

exhaustively test their electric vehicles over 

millions of miles on the track and in the realworld. 

With its first electric truck already in 

customer hands, DTNA plans to put nearly 

50 on the road by the end of the year. This 

includes a test fleet and the Freightliner 

Electric Innovation Fleet shared between 

Penske and NFI. Affiliated brands Fuso and 

Mercedes-Benz trucks have already begun 

deliveries of the battery-electric eCanter and 

eActros in Asia, Europe and North America. 

By the end of 2019, nearly 200 battery-electric 

vehicles powered by Daimler will be deployed 

for testing, co-creation and collaboration 

worldwide. 

“For our engineers, these early customer 

partners are our test drivers. We want them 

to test these vehicles to their extremes. We 

want to see the failures so we can engineer 

solutions,” Nielsen said. 

To enable rapid scale-up of thoroughly 

tested and validated electric vehicles, DTNA 

said Wednesday that it will begin converting 

the Portland manufacturing plant to produce 

electric Freightliners. The plant lies just 

blocks from DTNA’s LEED Platinum headquarters. 

The plant renovations begin next 

year with series production scheduled to begin 

in 2021. 8 

ther increases the potential of the nearly 17,000 

Volvo trucks benefiting from OTA update capabilities, 

delivering a higher level of accuracy and 

efficiency and offering increased flexibility and 

optimization. The new packages include over 

250 updates in categories including road speed, 

cruise control, transmission, idle shutdown and 

fuel economy. 

Included in these enhancements is comfort 

shift, a software package that provides smoother 

launches when load shifting must be minimized, 

giving drivers a smoother start, changed gear shift 

strategy and gentler drive. Idle shutdown is another 

area of control being offered, giving authority 

over minimum and maximum time allotted for 

idleness. 

The Parameter Plus package, introduced in 

March 2019, set the stage for the release of advanced 

updates such as these. A supplement to 

Volvo’s Remote Programming, the new Parameter 

Plus package was designed with thorough 

feedback from customers to meet the demands of 

their applications via over-the-air updates while 

significantly increasing uptime. Average industry 

time for typical parameter and software updates 

can require two or more days of downtime, along 

with the added administration and costs of acquiring 

a supplementary truck and managing additional 

driver logistics. The new Parameter Plus 

package with OTA powertrain software updates 

can be completed in under 20 minutes and parameter 

updates in under 10 minutes. 8 

and affiliated SmartDrive program. 

WABCO OnSideASSIST provides a 160-degree 

range of lateral radar coverage as well as 

rearward reach of up to 33 feet to help drivers 

avoid collisions both in overtaking and lane 

change maneuvers, regardless of visibility conditions. 

It has been estimated that blind spot 

detection systems can prevent or mitigate up to 

50 percent of driver vision-related crashes. As 

an added safety feature, OnSideASSIST is designed 

to detect the presence of another vehicle 

in an adjacent lane and provide a bit of resistance 

to the steering wheel to alert the driver 

when changing lanes. 

“WABCO is dedicated to helping fleets improve 

safety, uptime, on-time performance and 

driver retention through the mobilization of advanced 

vehicle intelligence. This exclusive new 

suite of technologies is engineered to meet the 

current requirements of today’s on-highway vehicles 

while also serving as a bridge to the autonomous, 

connected and electric vehicles of the 

future,” Morrison said. 8 

K 

s 

a 

K

Features 

May 15-31, 2019 • 27 

Keeping it in the family: Justin Shea 

says PGT Trucking has a personable 

atmosphere despite all its growth 

Dorothy Cox 


ALIQUIPPA, Penn. — Some of Justin 

Shea’s earliest memories are of riding around 

with his father in an old cabover a few days a 

week. 

“Trucking was a family thing,” said Shea, 

and “I swore I’d never get involved, [but] life 

has a few twists and turns. It happens to a lot 

of us.” 

Indeed. Now here he is working for PGT 

Trucking, the same company his dad has driven 

for going on 30 years. 

Shea is a terminal manager for PGT and 

owns a few of his own trucks, leasing them out 

to the carrier. 

A bachelor’s degree in information systems 

notwithstanding, Shea was a welder for 

six years in Franklin, Pennsylvania, his hometown, 

before deciding that yeah, maybe he 

should give trucking a try. 

He drove for his dad for three years before 

buying his first truck and leasing it with PGT. 

A mostly flatbed company that has branched 

out to dry and refrigerated vans and doing business 

in the U.S., Mexico and Canada, PGT 

has no lack of freight. A lot of that is because 

Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, is in the heart of what 

has traditionally been steel country. 

Established as a family company in 1981 

in Industry, Pennsylvania, PGT became a core 

carrier for U.S. Steel in 1983 and experienced 

explosive growth through the 1990s. In 1999 

they became a major carrier for National Gypsum. 

They’ve made numerous acquisitions of 

other companies over the years, continuing 

Klint Lowry 


Lane 

Departures 

For almost my entire adult life, and that’s 

a lot of living, I have been a consistent gymgoer. 

Staying fit, and studying how to stay 

fit, has always been an interest of mine. Very 

few of you have seen me in person, so let 

me assure you, I look like a classic Roman 

statue. 

But before I digress, way back at the very 

first gym I ever joined, there was a trainer 

their history as a “state-of-the-art flatbed transportation 

company” hauling steel, building materials, 

machinery, oil and gas, raw materials, 

aluminum and automotive-related freight. 

The carrier employs both company drivers 

and owner-operators and has more than 1,000 

power units and more than 30 terminals and 

locations. 

All the while, they’ve managed to keep a 

family atmosphere. 

Shea said that’s because drivers are assigned 

a personal fleet manager who gets to 

know them on a daily basis. Drivers tend to 

stay at PGT because “they’re not just a number,” 

he said. “A lot of them have been with us 

for a long time and everybody knows everybody. 

… [You get to] know their families. 

“We’ve got a mix of ages, the older veterans 

like my dad, who’s coming up on 60, and 

I’m seeing some green guys, although not as 

many as I’d like.” 

Shea talks with drivers quite frequently 

and said what they like about the carrier is that 

they’re family-oriented, there’s flexibility to allow 

drivers to get home for baseball games and 

family functions, they pay well, and they offer 

good health and retirement benefits. Home 

time is top-of-mind for most drivers and income 

is a close second, he said, with benefits 

coming in third. 

PGT offers the latest equipment, with recent 

orders taken on 100 2020 model-year 

trucks, and although most drivers like the latest 

model vehicle, they don’t always like the latest 

technology such as CDLs and in-cab cameras, 

considering them intrusive. 

What they do like are FaceTime and Skype: 

Courtesy: PGT TRUCKING 

Justin Shea, shown with his wife Jessica, said one of the reasons for the personable atmosphere 

at PGT Trucking is because drivers are assigned a personal fleet manager who gets 

to know them on a daily basis. 

who told me, if you want to learn, say, how 

to build big shoulders, watch the guys who 

have big shoulders and see what they do. 

It isn’t a foolproof strategy, but I’ve always 

followed the gist of what the trainer 

was saying. To this day, I pick up training 

methods I’ve never seen before just by keeping 

my eyes open at the gym. And then if I 

see someone with a move that’s intriguing 

enough, I’ll ask the person about it, and if 

I’m still intrigued I’ll give it a try. One thing 

most dedicated gym rats have in common, 

they love to share their knowledge. I’ve 

probably learned as much that way over the 

years as I have reading books and magazines. 

Once I got old enough to understand what 

they mean by “nothing new under the sun,” I 

learned that I hadn’t invented anything innovative 

with this strategy. In fact, this is fairly 

common advice. You can’t be an expert in 

everything, so surround yourself with people 

who are, that’s the way I read it in one of 

those Dale Carnegie, “How to Be a Success 

at Everything” type books. But you don’t 

need to rely on experts. 

Just like at the gym, wherever you are, 

you are surrounded by people who have at 

least a little knowledge about something that 

you don’t. And just like at the gym, most 

people like to be the smart one in a conversation, 

all they’re waiting for is the invitation 

to share their knowledge. 

That’s one of the ways I’m so disappointed 

in the so-called Information Age. True, 

the internet has brought the potential to put 

the accumulated knowledge of mankind at 

“That’s great for the OTR driver,” Shea said. 

And, some like automatic transmissions 

while others don’t. Depending on their age, 

some drivers are almost anti-technology, he 

added. 

A lot of what appeals to drivers, he said, is 

feeling comfortable with the company and not 

feeling connected. Plus “showing [them] appreciation 

goes a long way.” 

Shea and his wife Jessica have a 4-yearold 

son, Aedan, and the youngster has already 

shown a love for big trucks. Tongue-in-cheek, 

Shea said, “I don’t know if that’s a blessing or 

a curse.” 

On a more serious note, however, he said 

trucking is a great career because it “offers a 

good way to support your family; you get good 

wages and benefits and [with PGT] there’s a 

good family atmosphere.” 

What’s not to like? 8 

Keep those comments coming, folks — well, some of those comments, anyway 

our fingertips. But it’s also opened the door 

for the collected but unsolicited babblings 

of untold, anonymous idiots, cranks and just 

plain nut jobs. 

This is especially true in that most insidious 

of inventions, “reader comments” at the 

end of news stories. Of course, the practice 

was invented to create a sense of “interactive 

reader engagement.” And in theory, the 

potential is there for the kind of constructive 

intellectual exchange I’m sure they used at 

the first pitch meeting. 

Instead, what do we usually get? Barely 

intelligible ramblings from people who either 

didn’t read the article or misunderstood 

every word of it. Other folks who want to fly 

in and unload on whatever personal agenda 

See Lane on p28 m

28 • May 15-31, 2019 Features 

b Lane from page 27 b 

that has nothing to do with the story. And 

then there’s the hardheads whose minds 

aren’t open to anything they don’t already 

believe. 

Then there is the one inevitable idiot who 

writes “I’m only here for the comments,” 

like he’s expecting it can get a laugh for the 

millionth time. 

But I have to say, compared to the world 

at large, the comments I see from truckers on 

our website and other truck-centric websites 

tend to stay more on point and be far more 

insightful. I was reminded of that recently 

after we ran a story about that young driver 

who lost control of his truck near Denver and 

caused a 28-vehicle pileup. 

That story occurred late in the week, and 

I recall someone commenting early on how 

they’d love to get some follow-up on exactly 

what happened to cause such a horrific crash. 

I told myself that when I came back on Monday, 

I’d follow up and report on what had 

been ascertained over the weekend. 

The first place I stopped was our own 

website, where I found several of our readers 

had beaten me to it. They’d been following 

every report they could find, and in the reader 

comments they were sharing the information, 

along with their own insights based on 

experience. In minutes, they brought me up 

to date and then some. They gave me perspective 

I’d have never gotten from a news 

release. 

Now, that’s what all reader comments 

should be like. 

I’m not saying we don’t occasionally get 

comments that go off the deep end. Even 

among rational commenters, I get a sense 

that if someone could harness the untapped 

anger that permeates this industry, we could 

abandon diesel, electric and hydrogen tomorrow 

and run America’s trucks on pure rage. 

Still, I have found that the trucking community 

is similar to gym culture in that when 

you open the floor to discussion, there is a lot 

of insight to be had. I have found that online, 

and I have found it to be the case in person. 

There are endless studies and analyses 

done about trucking, and I have access to 

some of the most brilliant minds to dedicate 

themselves to this profession. Their expertise 

is been invaluable, but it’s what I pick 

up from drivers that fills in the cracks the 

experts and company officials leave behind. 

So, in case you’re a commenter or have 

thought about being a commenter and you’ve 

wondered if anyone is paying attention, keep 

reading, and I’ll do the same. 8 

sign up 

For our free weekly newsletter 




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