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The Roemer Report On-Line, July 2001

FUEL SURCHARGE LEGISLATION RESURFACES: Carriers and small business truckers may get some relief from the rising cost of fuel with the reintroduction of mandatory fuel surcharge legislation. The Motor Carrier Fuel Cost Equity Act of 2001, HR2161, which stalled in the Senate last year, was reintroduced in the House of Representatives on June 14. The legislation would make it mandatory for motor carriers, brokers, and freight forwarders to add a fuel surcharge that adequately covers the cost of fuel over $1.10 per gallon. The party paying for the shipment would have to pay the surcharge. The bill also mandates that the money collected from the surcharge be paid directly to the trucker or company that buys the fuel. The mandatory surcharge would be a welcome reprieve from the last 18 months, in which the price of diesel fuel has risen more than fifty cents a gallon over 1999 levels. It would be particularly good news for small business truckers because fuel accounts for up to one-third of their entire budget and is their single biggest operating expense. It's estimated that the increasing cost of diesel fuel was the primary factor in the repossession of 200,000 trucks since January 2000.

ANOTHER ROADBLOCK FOR NAFTA? The Bush administration's pledge to open the entire country to Mexican trucks on January 1, 2002, may have run into a roadblock. Democrats in both the House and Senate recently introduced legislation that would require Mexican trucks to meet U.S. safety standards before entering the country. In the Senate, a democrat introduced a bill that would bar Mexican trucks from entering the United States beyond the narrow border commercial zones. In the House, a longtime NAFTA opponent introduced a 21-page resolution that calls on President Bush to delay the border opening. Congressional efforts to keep the border closed to Mexican trucks could mean the United States would face retaliatory tariffs and quotas on goods exported to Mexico, says Ken Hoffman, an international trucking law attorney. "These retaliatory moves would send the cost of U.S.-made goods sky high in Mexico and many U.S. manufacturers would lose their Mexican market," warns Hoffman. And "that would cost jobs in the U.S." in the long run. The House resolution cites numerous safety concerns regarding Mexican trucks and says they should not enter the country until they comply with U.S. Department of Transportation and Environmental Protection Agency rules. According to Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), who introduced the bill, "Only about
1 percent of Mexican trucks entering the U.S. are inspected by the U.S. at the border, but 36 percent of those that are inspected are turned back for serious safety violations." Dorgan says opening the border would endanger drivers on U.S. highways.

CREATIVE RECRUITING PAYS OFF: What do you do when the traditional recruiting methods turn up few applicants? If you're like a growing number of trucking firms, you're finding more creative ways to attract drivers, dispatchers, dock workers, mechanics, and managers. Roadway Express has been partnering with the Job Corps, a government school-to-work program that trains at-risk and disadvantaged youths, most of whom are minorities. Within two months, the Roadway-Job Corps partnership produced eight drivers with more drivers expected to follow. The manager of human resources planning at Roadway is delighted with the program, describing students as "engaged" and "focused." The program has proved so successful that Roadway hopes to expand its partnership with the Job Corps to train entry-level mechanics. Meanwhile, M.S. Carriers in Memphis, Tennessee, and World Wide Solutions in Columbus, Ohio, have been successfully recruiting, training, and employing drivers from Puerto Rico. As U.S. citizens, Puerto Ricans do not need to obtain work visas from the Department of Labor. And with unemployment between 12 and 20 percent on the Island, Puerto Ricans are lining up by the hundreds for employment opportunities in the trucking industry. M.S. Carriers admits that many of its U.S. drivers did not readily accept the new recruits, but a companywide "educational process" helped the American drivers adjust. Viking has been trying to attract applicants with disabilities, military veterans, minorities, and women. Human resources managers believe it is important for the trucking industry to reach out to minorities and women. And thanks to power steering, automatic transmissions, and other features that make driving easier than ever, trucking no longer is viewed as solely a man's job.

TRAILERS GET SMART: With the economy in a downturn, productivity and efficiency are more important than ever. And while drivers and other trucking professionals sometimes focus more on the tractor side of the tractor-trailer combo, it's the trailer that is arguably more important when it comes to efficiency. After all, "the trailer is the part that makes the money in trucking," says the president of one trailer manufacturing company. Trailer manufacturers try to squeeze out every bit of productivity they can in making trailers through the introduction of "smart trailers" and the use of innovative materials. Smart trailers have programmable microprocessors that can analyze the performance of the trailer's bearings or brakes and transmit the findings to the driver or dispatcher. These trailers also can be equipped with sensors that can indicate how close a driver is to the loading dock or that can sense backward movement and turn on the backup lights and horn. A smart trailer can also communicate to the driver the condition of the tires or the suspension system, so the driver would know, for example, if a tire was flat. New building materials also play a major role in making trailers more efficient. One trailer manufacturer uses a new material called duraplate, "a sandwich of steel and high-density polyethylene." This so-called sandwich results in a light, but strong trailer, with the polyethylene adding extra strength but very little weight.

TRUCK SAFETY COMES OF AGE: Not long ago, nobody knew much about medium- and heavy-duty truck safety. What safety measures were implemented were borrowed from the auto industry. These days, however, new technology has yielded countless safety devices that have saved lives, prevented accidents, and made driving a truck safer than ever. Here's a glance at just a handful of the many new safety devices available today: (1) Jackknife warning system. One new system emits a distinctive sound when a truck is jackknifing, giving drivers an early warning and providing enough time to react and gain control of the vehicle. (2) Blind spot mirrors. Mounted inside the cab on the passenger side visor, this mirror allows drivers to view clearly any objects located in their blind spot. Such visibility is especially important when you consider that 98 percent of all lane change accidents result in injuries. (3) Improved headlights. A new forward lighting system uses high-intensity discharge and halogen infrared bulbs to provide improved illumination at a greater distance. The bulbs also last longer, require less power than existing systems, and provide a whiter, more natural light. (4) Night vision system. The typical driver's nighttime vision is about 350 feet ahead, but a new night vision system extends that distance to 1,500 feet. The system uses an externally mounted infrared camera that senses heat given off by nearby objects and creates an image on a display in the cab. (5) Nighttime guidance. Two small, low-powered laser modules mounted on the truck project two small dots of light on the road 15 feet in front of the vehicle. The lights, corresponding to the left and right outermost dimensions of the truck, help the driver know his exact lane position. This helps reduce the mental workload of driving and lane tracking.

THE BENEFITS OF HYBRID-FUEL ENGINES: With sky-high diesel fuel prices, an increasing number of fleets are considering the possibilities of alternative fuels. And two companies are hoping carriers will consider their low-emissions, high-performance natural gas engines when looking at alternatives. Westport Innovations in Vancouver, British Columbia, is contributing its high-pressure direct-injection (HPDI) technology, and Cummins Inc. in Columbus, Indiana, is manufacturing the engines. So how will the engines work? A tiny amount of injected diesel fuel causes ignition of the natural gas in the cylinder. But this engine is more innovative and efficient than traditional dual-fuel engines. Diesel fuel is used only for ignition-making up 2 to 5 percent of the overall fuel-yet it provides the advantages of diesel engines over spark-ignited gas engines through high-compression ratios and electronic controls. Relying primarily on natural gas, this hybrid engine meets all emissions standards, and has added cost efficiency, since the long-term outlook for natural gas prices and taxes are low. In addition, fuel economy is comparable to that of a diesel engine, as are power output and torque characteristics. However, since liquid natural gas provides less power density than diesel fuel, tanks will have to be 1.7 times larger than the size of an equivalent diesel tank to get the same operating range. For this reason, the primary markets will depend on a local liquid natural gas infrastructure.

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