News

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has completed its regulatory review of the Entry-Level Driver Training final rule and has determined the implementation will proceed as planned. The final rule, which spells out new training requirements for drivers seeking a commercial driver’s license, has been under review by FMCSA since February 1 under the terms…

From American Transportation Research Institute: The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) today issued a data call for the annual update to its Operational Costs of Trucking report. The brief online questionnaire seeks to capture basic cost information from for-hire motor carriers such as driver pay, fuel costs, insurance premiums and lease or purchase payments. Carriers…

Excerpt from New York Times opinion pages: Re: “We’re Throwaway People” (news article, May 23): We disagree with the premise of this article — that truck driving is “low paying” and “unhealthy” work. Indeed, trucking is one of the few roads in today’s economy that lead to the middle class without requiring a college degree.…

Excerpt from CT News Junkie, written by Joseph Sculley. As the Connecticut General Assembly contemplates instituting tolls on our major highways, policymakers must consider the full story. It’s not nearly as simple as “everyone else has them, so should we” or “put them on the borders so people from other states will pay.” We recognize…

The Connecticut legislature is considering an unprecedented proposal to bring variable-price tolls to Connecticut’s interstate highways. This type of plan has never been done before on U.S interstate highways. You paid for these highways with fuel taxes, vehicle registration fees, and more. Get your opposition to this latest tax scheme on the record by signing…

News on MTAC member All Waste, from Fox 61. A Hartford based trash and recycling company now has bragging rights. One of their drivers has been awarded with the industry’s top safety award named “Safe Driver of the Year.” Translation? He’s the top trash man. Derrick Belin has had a spotless record for the past eight…

Excerpt from Transport Topics article: It isn’t often that industry supports raising taxes. That seems to be the case with American roads and bridges, however, with both industry officials and the Trump administration signaling that they might be amenable to raising the federal fuel tax to pay for road improvements. During a committee hearing May…

From Transport Topics via Bloomberg: President Donald Trump will propose spending $200 billion in federal funds over 10 years to spur investment in the nation’s infrastructure, a senior Office of Management and Budget official said. The administration’s aim for the funds, which will be part of the budget proposal Trump plans to release on May…

From National Tank Truck Carriers. The Liquid Products Database (LPD) is a program designed to help mitigate corrosion risk for stainless steel chemical trailers.  NTTC partnered with engineers at Battelle Memorial Institute to build an online database that informs fleet managers about the corrosivity of individual liquid chemicals on stainless steel tank trailers. Trailer corrosion is an increasingly expensive, systemic problem…

From American Transportation Research Institute: Traffic congestion on the U.S. National Highway System (NHS) added over $63.4 billion in operational costs to the trucking industry in 2015, according to research released today by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI).  Utilizing a variety of data sources including its unique truck GPS database, ATRI calculated delay on…