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Remembering Truckers....One Driver At A Time! truckdriversremembered@yahoo
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18-WHEEL NEWS REEL!!
FOR THE LATEST NEWS, REGULATIONS AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE TRUCKING INDUSTRY, OR COMMERCIAL TRANSPORTATION IN GENERAL, CHECK HERE....UPDATED REGULARLY.
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HEADLINES.........
* TEEN CREATES WEBSITE TO MEMORIALIZE TRUCKER FATHER!
* AL-QAEDA HAS INFILTRATED U.S. TRUCKING INDUSTRY.
* LITTLE CHANGES APPEAR IN FINAL HOS RULES.
* BLUE RADIO MARATHON TO START AUG 23rd.
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"AN UNFORGETTABLE DRIVER"
Teenager creates website to memorialize her trucker father....by Christine Green/Trucker's News/September 2005.
Losing loved ones is never easy, but ensuring that their memories live on can help ease the pain. In an effort to honor their father’s memory, the Davis family created a website dedicated to the life of Gary W. Davis, a truck driver who was killed at the age of 48 in a work-related accident on Feb. 12, 2004. The website, www.garywdavis.com, tells the life story of Gary Davis, husband to Teresa Davis and father of Britney and Kathryn Davis. Born and raised in Sacramento, Calif., Davis was a driver/leadman at Overnite Transportation for more than 18 years and was known as “Hollywood” on the road. He had an extraordinary safety record and had been awarded a number of safe driver awards throughout his career. Davis’s father had also been a truck driver.
The website, created and designed by Davis’s 17-year-old daughter Britney, has a photo gallery poetry dedicated to truckers, a comment section, a calendar of events and even a collection of Davis’s favorite recipes. Britney won an honorary Student Award at her high school for the site.
“It became a labor of love and a form of therapy for her,” Teresa Davis says about Britney’s work on the site.
In August 2004, the family held a barbecue in memory of Davis. About 180 friends, family, drivers and some of Davis’s delivery customers attended the event. Because it was such a success, the family decided to make the barbecue a yearly event.
In addition to honoring Davis, the website hopes to share information that could help prevent work-related deaths or injuries and to discuss safety issues, insurances, worker’s compensation and more. The Davis site links to another site that was created by Davis’s nephew, Scott Hall. The web site, www.truckdriversremembered.com, is designed to allow loved ones of drivers who have passed to share their “truck driver remembered” stories. It also links to support groups for drivers and their families and has trucking industry news, polls and a trucker slang guideline.
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AL-QEADA HAS INFILTRATED U.S. TRUCKING INDUSTRY!
An attack using our own trucks against us is likely and imminent.
(PRWEB) August 21, 2005 -- “The safety of the nation’s logistics industry and the security of the entire
country has been seriously compromised by our failure to provide finger print screening for all Commercial
Driver (CDL) applicants,” states Terry M. Evans, CEO of Fleet Defender Consulting Services, LLC, a private
company providing anti-terrorism consulting to trucking companies. “Without question, terrorists, convicted
felons and other undesirables are traveling the country, legally driving 80,000 lb. big rigs throughout every
community in America. We have quite literally made our highways a welcome mat for terrorism.”
Given that trucks are the number one tool used by terrorist worldwide, the prospect that anyone can gain
access to a tractor trailer is particularly chilling. The government recently mandated finger printing only for
the Haz-Mat endorsement. However, this represents an extremely small fraction of the CDL driver population
and having the endorsement is voluntary.
Safety and security officers with trucking companies across the country have reported thousands of drivers
opting out of the Haz-Mat endorsement when confronted with fingerprinting.
“You can bet there’s a reason these guys are avoiding fingerprinting,” states Mr. Evans.
Thus far, the government’s only apparent response to the grave threat of terrorism using trucks has been to
fund the multi-million dollar Highway Watch Program. The program presents a basic one hour awareness
training session to truck drivers and other interested parties.
“While this awareness training is a welcomed service, would it not make more sense to first screen people
before providing them with anti-terrorism awareness training?” asks CEO Evans. “Many of my fine and
talented colleagues in the Highway Watch Program have expressed the same concerns.”
“Finger printing all CDL drivers must be mandatory and must be done now without further delay,” urges Mr.
Evans. “Failure to take this basic security step is inexcusable and unacceptable.”
Evans urges readers to forward this article to their elected representatives and demand immediate action.
“Americans often wonder how they can make a difference in the war on terrorism. Here is the opportunity to
make a real difference," Mr. Evans says.
Readers wanting more information or to contribute or participate should visit the company website at
www.fleetdefender.com.
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LITTLE CHANGES APPEAR IN FINAL "HOS" RULES.
by Barb Kampbell - The Trucker staff.
WASHINGTON — The new Hours of Service regulations were announced in a news conference Aug. 19 and for most people involved in long-haul trucking there will be little if any change noticed by them.
For example, there will be no Electronic On-board Recorders required with the new rule, the same as it was with the rule that went into effect in January 2004. The two major changes involve sleeper-berth provisions for long-haul truckers and provisions for short-haul truckers.
The sleeper berth provision no longer allows a driver to split the time. Of the total 10 hours a day that is required off-duty, eight of those hours must occur consecutively in the sleeper berth. Drivers are no longer allowed to split that time with a minimum of two hours.
The news conference was held by Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administrator Annette Sandberg.
The rule becomes effective Oct. 1. Sandberg said an interim period will begin on that day and will end on Dec. 1 to give personnel time to adjust and revise materials related to the changes.
During the transitional period, FMCSA and state law enforcement will monitor carriers for egregious violations of the new rule and pursue enforcement action where necessary, Sandberg said.
Materials regarding the new rule will be available at truck stops and trade shows.
“The research shows that this new rule will improve driver health and safety and the safety of our roadways,” said Sandberg. “Ensuring drivers obtain necessary rest and restorative sleep will save lives.”
“Studies show that drivers are less likely to be fatigued if they take a single, eight-hour block of rest than if they break their rest into smaller periods of time as they were allowed under the previous rule [the rule in effect for most of 2005],” Sandberg said.
The rules currently in effect were thrown out by an appeals court which called the rules “arbitrary and capricious” and that they failed to take drivers’ health into consideration.
With the minimal amount of change involved in the new HOS, Sandberg was asked by someone in the media if she thought this would bring another challenge in the courts. She said she couldn’t guess on what would happen in the courts. Half of the rule, which is almost 400 pages long, addresses driver health, she said, adding that “we’ll just have to wait and see what happens in the court.”
Sandberg estimates that only 5.5 percent of fatalities involving large trucks are attributed to fatigue. The other 94.5 percent are addressed using other safety measures. Data is not yet complete on what effect the new rule had on fatigue related deaths in 2004, according to Sandberg.
The new rule regarding sleeper berth time is effective for both individual drivers and those who drive team.
This is what the rules are:
• Commercial Motor Vehicle drivers may drive 11 hours after 10 hours off-duty time
• CMV drivers may not drive beyond the 14th hour after coming on duty, following 10 hours off-duty
• CMV drivers may not drive after 60/70 hours on duty in 7/8 consecutive days
• CMV drivers may restart the 7/8 consecutive day period after taking 34 or more consecutive hours off-duty.
“This new rule will help keep drivers healthy and make our roads safer,” said Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta. “Drivers that are well rested are less likely to lose control, crash, or injure others.”
The current rules were vacated by the court on “driver health and driver health only,” Sandberg said. She said that while officials at FMCSA feel they provided enough scientific evidence for the rules that were thrown out, they have added even more proof from additional studies for these new rules.
The other change now allows short-haul operators not required to hold a CDL, like landscape crews and delivery drivers who work within a 150-mile radius of their starting point, to extend their work day twice a week. They also will no longer have to maintain logbooks.
This change, according to Sandberg, was prompted by safety data that show short-haul drivers make up over half the commercial fleet yet are involved in less than 7 percent of the nation’s fatigue-related fatal truck crashes.
The current HOS which went into effect January 2004 was thrown out by a District of Columbia Appeals Court after Public Citizen and others filed suit. The panel of three judges at the court told FMCSA to rewrite the rules and later an Act of Congress gave FMCSA until September of this year to come up with something new.
For more information, or to review the new HOS rule, visit www.fmcsa.dot.gov.
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