News - page 51

Among many truckers, lease-purchase programs have a less-than-stellar reputation. Some programs are easy to enter, offering no-money-down no-credit-check guarantees. But they also can make it hard to achieve the ultimate goal: truck ownership.

“There are some good companies out there with lease-purchase programs that help the driver, but the fail rate with most lease-purchases is very high,” says Allen Smith, founder of Truth About Trucking, a website and Internet broadcast that gives new and prospective drivers an inside look at over-the-road driving.

Smith, a former household-goods-hauling owner-operator who now works as an intrastate company driver in Florida, tried three lease-purchase programs in the early 1990s and never found a way to make them work. His 2011 Truth About Trucking survey showed 77 percent of drivers never complete their lease-purchase agreements.

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Opinions vary on the depth of knowledge techs should have, but they could easily be categorized in two groups: A lot and A bunch.

David Milne, with the Automotive Training Managers Council (ATMC), says today’s techs are facing a unique challenge rarely seen before.

“We are currently training technicians for jobs that we don’t know what they’ll be like,” he says, adding that the continual evolution of on-board computers has pushed available training to its limits. “Throughout (the technicians’) careers, probably every component on that truck is going to have an electrical tie in with it.”

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WASHINGTON — Not surprisingly, Hours of Service and Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA), infrastructure funding and MAP-21 implementation appear on the House Highways and Transit Subcommittee’s oversight plan for the 113th Congress.

The plan was released Wednesday as part of the overarching oversight plans for the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee of which the subcommittee is a part.

Subcommittee assignments were also announced Wednesday.

The oversight plan notes that the trucking industry has raised concerns that the proposed HOS changes scheduled to go into effect July 1 are “overly complex, potentially reducing productivity. Law enforcement personnel have questioned whether the rules will require additionaltraining for effective enforcement.”

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January CCJ Innovator: Crete Carrier Corporation

Lincoln, Neb.

With its new Patriot Fleet, Crete Carrier delivers its message of appreciation for military veterans over the road

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The suit brought against the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration last summer by the Alliance for Safe, Efficient and Competitive Truck Transportation (ASECTT), with four other trade associations and several trucking companies and brokers, saw action in December, as plaintiffs filed written arguments in court. ASECTT Chairman Tom Sanderson, writing in an email to ASECTT members, said FMCSA “will file its brief in opposition on January 8, 2013, and our rebuttal brief is due on January 22.  Oral argument will be scheduled soon thereafter” in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

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