Driver shortage decreases slightly to 78,000, ATA says

From Transport Topics. American Trucking Associations revealed Oct. 25 that it estimates the shortfall of professional drivers has decreased slightly to 78,000 for this year. ATA Chief Economist Bob Costello unveiled the new figure during ATA’s Management Conference & Exhibition. “I said we were about 80,000 short in 2021,” Costello said. “But that was based…

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Experts discuss possible future risks for truckers

From Transport Topics. A panel of experts discussed the safety challenges and opportunities that exist for truckers out on the road today, including how emerging technologies both promise improvements but also raise questions. “When we look at the crash figures, we have to look at all of the crashes, and that includes car crashes,” said…

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ATA’s Chris Spear: 2022 has brought trucking major victories

From Transport Topics. American Trucking Associations President Chris Spear said he is excited to talk about the victories the federation has achieved over the past year, but he’s equally energized about taking on the issues facing it in the months ahead. “We’ve probably had more tier one wins this year than ever before,” Spear said…

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USDOT updates national safety strategy

US DOT logo

From Transport Topics. Additional safety strategies for the nation’s mobility networks were recently announced by the U.S. Department of Transportation as part of its comprehensive plan. A framework known as the “Safe System Approach,” was endorsed to create multiple layers of protection for the public via safer people, roads and vehicles, speed management, and improvements…

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September tonnage rises 5.5% year-over-year

truck with flatbed on highway

From Transport Topics. Truck tonnage in September increased 5.5% when measured against the same month a year ago, and on a sequential basis it rose 0.5% from August, according to American Trucking Associations. September’s index of 118.8 compared with 118.2 in August. (It equaled 100 in 2015.) The federation’s For-Hire Truck Tonnage Index is dominated…

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Nearly $550,000 in insurance dividends paid out to MTAC members

MTAC is very pleased to share the message below, which is from our partner Acadia Insurance. This is great news about our commercial “Safety Group” insurance program. Any member who is interested in getting involved with this program should reach out to the program’s sponsoring agent, another one of MTAC’s official partners, Bouvier Insurance. Acadia…

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ATRI’s latest Crash Predictor Model corroborates strong role of driver behaviors to future truck crashes

ATRI logo

From ATRI. The American Transportation Research Institute today released the 2022 update to its well-known Predicting Truck Crash Involvement research. ATRI’s Crash Predictor research, originally published in 2005 with updates in 2011 and 2018, designed and tested a predictive model that identified statistically significant relationships between truck driver safety behaviors and future crash probability. The…

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Contractor or employee? Labor Department proposes new definitions

US Capital

From Transport Topics. The U.S. Department of Labor has published a new proposal on how workers should be classified, saying that thousands of people have been incorrectly labeled as contractors rather than employees, potentially curtailing access to benefits and protections they rightfully deserve. Misclassifying workers as independent contractors denies those workers protections under federal labor…

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US imports sink in September, suffer steepest drop since 2020 lockdowns

trucks in highway traffic

From FreightWaves. First came the pullback in spot shipping rates from their historic peak. Then came reports of plunging Asian bookings and mass retail order cancellations, with spot rates falling even faster. Now, all of this is finally showing up at America’s ports. According to Descartes, which aggregates U.S. Customs data, inbound volumes to all…

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