driver safety

Millions in New Grant Funding Finally Given to Highway Safety Initiatives

December 28, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

Long-awaited infrastructure boosts throughout highways across the country are finally underway as federal programs working to bring about these safety improvements will, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, receive ample new funding.

For safety grants across American highways, NHTSA will offer $260 million as part of the $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. This funding comes as an effort to bring vast improvements through certain traffic and roadway safety initiatives, and will work to bring financial aid to various U.S. territories, state-level transportation agencies, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and to Washington, D.C. agencies, as well.

“Traffic crashes take the lives of too many Americans, but these tragedies are not inevitable, and we will not accept them as part of everyday life,” said Pete Buttigieg, Transportation Secretary, in a recent statement. “Bolstered by additional funding from President [Joe] Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law, these grants will save lives by improving safety on America’s roadways.”

The legislation also depicts the intention to raise overall funding by around 30% for a plethora of safety initiatives, infrastructure programs, and reconstruction efforts.

“The variety of funds available allows each state to target its specific challenges,” said Steven Cliff, Deputy Administrator for NHTSA. “Traffic safety may be a national problem, but the solutions are regional and local.”

$133.3 million of the total funding will be allocated strictly to data-driven traffic programs at the state level for highway safety; some of these programs, according to the United States Department of Transportation, involve programs centering around the enforcement of seat belt laws and safety law education, awareness boosting in regards to dangerous driving risks, and campaigns for high-visibility enforcement.

Funds will also be dedicated to improving parent and caregiver inspection stations to determine whether or not child safety seats have been properly and safely installed, as well as to boosting overall efficiency of traffic records themselves.

“This historic legislation increases NHTSA’s budget by 50%,” said Cliff in front of a U.S. Senate committee during his nomination hearing, noting that this budget makes it “the largest investment in motor vehicle and highway safety since NHTSA was established more than 50 years ago.” Cliff, who was nominated by President Biden to lead NHTSA, made a point to explain the new legislation’s likely positive effects on the overarching safety of American roadways.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was set forth by President Biden in mid-November of this year, with supporters of the new $1 trillion infrastructure legislation ensuring that the coming road improvements and overall safety benefits will far outweigh the costs.

“This funding will improve our understanding of where and how crashes happen by improving data quality,” NHTSA’s Cliff continued.

In the first half of this year, the number of deaths in roadway crashes rose by 18.4% as compared to the same period in 2020–the highest number of roadway deaths since 2006, according to an NHTSA report from October.

“This is a crisis,” said Buttigieg following the release of the report. “More than 20,000 people died on U.S. roads in the first six months of 2021, leaving countless loved ones behind. We cannot and should not accept these fatalities as simply a part of everyday life in America.”

Although NHTSA’s report did not specifically point to the number of deaths as a result of truck-related roadway crashes, the statistics are still staggering–around 20,160 died on U.S. roadways in the first six months of 2021, compared to 17,020 in the first half of 2020. For safety advocates, these numbers are a clear indication that many safety-focused changes, projects, and investments need to make their way throughout the country’s infrastructure as soon as possible.

“The report is sobering,” added Cliff in October. “It’s also a reminder of what hundreds of millions of people can do every day, right now, to combat this: slow down, wear seat belts, drive sober, and avoid distractions behind the wheel.”

AI Is Future of Trucking, Startup Founders Say

December 15, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

Artificial intelligence continues to make waves across the industry, becoming a huge hope for trucking companies and the public alike when it comes to the future of roadway safety.

Now, AI Fleet, a trucking company startup based out of Austin, Texas, is prioritizing the utilization of artificial intelligence tech and bringing on drivers that it feels will be able to make a progressive difference in the industry as a whole.

“Our mission is to make truck driving better,” said AI Fleet’s CEO, Mark El Khoury. “That means better for the drivers, better for our customers, and better for the overall nation. Today, the driver shortage is really nothing but a symptom of how poorly-utilized drivers are.”

El Khoury co-founded AI Fleet last year after leaving a prominent role as a consultant within the trucking world; his new company focuses upon AI technology to boost efficiency and circumvent regular trucking industry challenges.

According to El Khoury, trucking has been focused upon customers and shippers since its beginnings–instead of prioritizing the drivers that push the industry forward. Because of this, the overall truck driver shortage has been as serious as ever, with more and more truckers making the decision to leave the industry for good.

“Our current drivers–overall in the U.S.–are unhappy that they’re not making enough money.” he explained. “Clearly, that’s the problem that we have to solve.”

AI Fleet’s software can choose hauls for truckers by taking into account what will bring in the most money for a driver and his or her company, in addition to considering what route will be best for the driver, specifically. Downtime is also shortened with this system as the technology can alert drivers of all aspects surrounding their next shipment even before they complete the current haul. This is possible through a variety of back-office efforts on top of automated shipment planning and acceptance.

“A driver journey starts when a driver is available,” said El Khoury. “They usually drive empty miles to pick up their load, but once they arrive to pick up their load, they usually have to wait for their appointment. Once they get to their appointment, [they] have to wait to get loaded.”

El Khoury noted that all of this waiting time points to efficiency shortcomings in the truck driver hauling process itself.

“After you’re loaded to drive to your destination…you have to wait to get unloaded, and then you have to wait to get assigned for [the] next load,” he continued. “Every time I said ‘wait’…is actually an inefficiency in the driver journey.”

These problems are ultimately avoidable, El Khoury said–all a company needs to do is implement and employ certain kinds of innovative technology.

“Where our technology comes into play–it’s helping us make better decisions by being able to review those billions of options and then assigning loads to drivers in a way to maximize driver utilization,” he explained.

This has been a largely vacant space in the trucking sector, El Khoury noted, saying that the AI Fleet team quickly concluded that the best way to become a major player in the industry would be to find a way for technology to truly benefit the everyday operations of a trucking company. Typically, these companies are not the best software consumers, so solely selling software products to fleets was not considered to be the most lucrative choice.

“We basically ended up starting a trucking company from scratch,” he said. “We use technology to replace a big chunk of our operations. Instead of helping humans do a better job as many trucking companies do, the AI technology is the brain behind making decisions.”

Additionally, AI Fleet wants to bring a strong focus to overall care for truck drivers, encouraging truckers to go home at least once a week and offering health care, paid time off, and a guaranteed salary. Nearly two-thirds of AI Fleet’s recent hires have been through referrals, El Khoury added.

“Trucking is not scalable today,” he said. “This driver utilization problem means that large trucking companies, at some point, say, “You know what? If we keep growing or [out] utilization is already low…it’s going to potentially get worse.”

Now, AI Fleet hopes to soon become the most prominent trucking company in the country.

“We are hoping to show that through a different business model and through technology, we can build a scale with trucking companies,” said El Khoury.

Amazon Finds Ways Around Strained Supply Chain, But is it Safe?

December 14, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

“There are structural advantages you have in redundancy if you’re Amazon,” said former Amazon leader who guided logistics software-focused teams, Jason Murray. “Amazon has its own transportation network, it has access to all the carriers. Multiple ships, multiple factories.”

Because of this, the major online retailer has been able to circumvent shipment difficulties that have left boxes and boxes of product inventory stuck at ports along the west coast–Los Angeles in particular–by chartering the Olive Bay and subsequently dispatching to a port north of Seattle (where the company’s base is located). Amazon has also docked at the Port of Houston, in addition to Everett, allowing the retailer to meet the demands of one of the biggest online shopping holiday seasons to date. In fact, according to Adobe, shoppers across the United States are projected to spend $207 billion among online retail options–a 10% increase from 2020.

To help keep these shipments moving smoothly and efficiently, Amazon brought on an additional 150,000 seasonal employees, offering sign-on bonuses of up to $3,000 and overall pay boosts. Costs for logistical moves–such as dispatching trucks that are only half-full–to meet demands during the ever-important holiday shopping season and an ongoing major boost in e-commerce will likely reach around $4 billion, enough to put many other companies out of business.

However, Amazon vans hauling cargo from hundreds of delivery depots, thousands of employees and contracted workers, Amazon-chartered ships bringing in products from Asian factories, and Amazon Air cargo jets making their way across the country will all be to thank if Amazon meets the high demands of customers across the country.

“Amazon had space on ships, and I couldn’t say no to anyone,” said home decor and lighting retailer David Knopfler of Lights.com. His comments come as one of thousands of sellers offering their products on Amazon’s website who previously refused to do so. The reason? These companies would need to share pricing and supplier information and data with Amazon, potentially allowing for future competition with the company. However, holiday season container shortages made it difficult for these merchants to refuse access to these shipment capabilities.

“It’s a one-stop-shop from Asia to Amazon,” said Goja’s CEO, Walter Gonzales. Goja sells a variety of products on Amazon’s site. “It reduces the gray areas where the shipping process might fail.”

Now, Goja has stocked up on 95% of the inventory it will need to fill holiday season orders, Gonzales noted.

In fact, Amazon has been booking cargo ship space in advance since around 2015 in an effort to make for a smooth-as-possible shipping process between its warehouse and Chinese factories, an irresistible offer for nearly any online seller.

“They basically went from zero containers a month a few years ago to over 10,000 containers a month,” said ocean freight consultant Steve Ferreira. “The thing is an 800-pound gorilla now.”

Still, bringing Amazon customers their holiday season orders efficiently and on-time has been trickier in the midst of a continuous labor shortage; job-hunt websites have been filled with Amazon warehouse gigs fit with incentives, benefits, and bonuses. Overtime opportunities are allowing employees to earn even more than their supervisors, although the pressure of current demand may not be worth the extra income.

“Amazon will stick to its guns and get things to customers,” said former Amazon Logistics executive, David Glick. “It’s going to be extensive, but in the long term, [it] builds customer trust.”

Regardless of efforts to keep customers happy during this time, Levinson and Stefani’s Ken Levinson wants to make sure Amazon–and any company hiring transportation workers right now–is bringing in the best candidates possible and keeping them trained and well-informed on all aspects of safety protocol. Safe driving is imperative, he said.

“It goes back to training,” he explained. “Just because someone may be in a rush to get things done, it’s not an excuse to let safety go to the wayside. Often, companies have unrealistic expirations based on their workers’ pay and delivery times that can create a huge incentive to be unsafe, and we can’t have that. We have to make sure they’re going to regulate themselves.”

He also hopes police offers are keeping a close eye on everyone hauling shipments over the holidays, especially given the inclement weather that comes with the winter season.

“Law enforcement needs to be diligent in making sure safety laws are adhered to, especially when it comes to speeding and driving in hazardous conditions,” Levinson said.

Dock Efficiency Relies on Proper Planning; Safety Still Needs Prioritization

December 11, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

The nation’s supply chain continues to face difficulties and delays, especially during the pandemic era boost in e-commerce on top of the demands of the holiday season.

Now, finding methods of improving efficiency and speed is imperative for warehouse companies, dock equipment managers, and the trucking industry.

“Efficiency is about clear, routine operations with reduced manual steps and communication with everyone that is working the dock area, including the transportation drivers,” said Blue Giant Equipment Corp.’s director of engineered solutions, Gerard Biasutto.

Delayed or missed deliveries, on top of driver annoyance, are common challenges for many fleets–especially given the current difficulties surrounding the truck driver shortage.

“I am frequently speaking with drivers about the growing delays at shippers’ docks,” said Grand Island Express’ director of operations, Deen Albert. “Although we are constantly reviewing and revising our delay [and] detention pay to our drivers, this is a growing frustration for drivers and is a threat to driver retention in our industry.”

Additionally, loading docs require regular maintenance, updates, and planning to keep productivity levels high.

“The loading dock is often an ignored place from a maintenance and equipment standpoint, but it is the first and last entry point for the product,” said director of marketing at Ideal Warehouse, Dirk Seis.

To keep less-than-truckload operations working smoothly and on time, the loading dock must keep hours of service open for as long as possible, noted the operations leader of productivity and efficiency at Averitt Express, Amos Rogan.

“Much like the airline industry, the customer expectation is for those flights to depart and arrive timely to make service,” he said. “LTL is the same in that we must hit our schedules to meet the expectations of our customers.”

Of course, proper communication is the most important part of keeping dock shipments moving as safe as possible, Rogan added.

“If you don’t have a good plan of how shipments are going to be processed, you will see dock associates not moving at their highest potential,” he said, adding that project planning includes mapping out routes so that cross-dock movement can take place smoothly. “Anyone working the dock will only be as good as the plan they are working with.”

Still, the biggest issue when it comes to delays at loading docks is typically understaffing.

“As a carrier, we can see that the staging areas are becoming more and more congested,” said Grant Island Express’ Albert. “In certain circumstances, this can be due to a lack of space, but in many circumstances, this is due to an inefficient or overloaded workflow. This creates a visual illustration directly to our drivers and adds to the delay concerns that are already mounting.”

Understanding a dock’s layout is also particularly important when it comes to timely deliveries and pickups.

“We measure our productivity in not only how many pounds per hour we move across the dock but also how many feet per shipment a dock associate travels,” noted Averitt’s Rogan. “If you are shipping trailers on one end of the dock and loading on the other, you’re wasting valuable time traveling back and forth for each shipment.”

Although the issues around potential delays and efficiency are causing further problems for the supply chain, Levinson and Stefani’s Ken Levinson doesn’t want carriers to jump the gun in onboarding new drivers to meet these demands, as safety training around this type of transportation is imperative.

“Everyone understands the pressures of getting trucks loaded, but we always need to keep safety in mind,” he said. “Like anything else, it may be busy and we may want to get things done quickly and get back home, but that doesn’t mean anything should be done unsafely.”

For companies bringing new transportation workers to the loading docks for the first time, Levinson urges that they prioritize safety training efforts as much as possible.

“This is a good time to reiterate protocols to make sure loads are safely sealed and that people are kept safe,” he said.

Is Allowing Teenage Truckers to Haul Interstate Cargo the Answer to the Driver Shortage? Industry Groups Say Yes

December 10, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

“Regulatory flexibilities, especially during emergencies, are vital to supply chain continuity,” wrote a coalition of trucking industry groups in a recent letter to President Joe Biden.

This statement comes as part of an overarching request to ease federal truck driver testing requirements in an effort to find a solution for the current ongoing truck driver shortage in the United States. This particular request calls for methods of allowing teenage drivers to begin entering the industry as interstate truck drivers.

In fact, new legislature implemented by Biden will allow drivers between the ages of 18 and 21 to operate commercial motor vehicles across state lines as part of a three-year pilot program. This program–which became part of the new infrastructure bill as a way to help the trucking industry meet demands at a time where the driver shortage has reached 80,000 truckers–has received strong opposition from industry safety advocates. The most prevalent argument against the new rule? Teenage drivers are involved in car accidents and crashes at a rate of four times more than their older counterparts.

“Allowing teens to drive big rigs across state borders in the face of research showing that this age group has significantly higher fatal crash rates is reckless and dangerous,” said co-chair of Parents Against Tired Truckers, Russ Swift. “An empty store shelf is not as tragic as an empty chair at Christmas dinner because your loved one needlessly died in a crash caused by a teen trucker.”

Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety president Cathy Chase agreed, noting that allowing such young drivers to operate CMVs would allow for “inexperienced, risk-prone teenagers” to bring higher safety risks to everyone on the road.

In addition, more flexible hours-of-service regulations have been extended during the pandemic and the shortage, continuing from a Trump-era exemption allowing drivers to extend their on-duty periods to 14 hours and to be able to split their rest breaks how they’d like. Initially, truckers were limited by the Department of Transportation to driving only 11 hours a day with at least one mandatory half-hour break in the first eight hours of their on-duty period. This flexibility arguably worsens the ongoing issue of truck driver fatigue, which reduces overall safety on America’s roadways.

“Long workdays, excessive driving hours, and unreasonable delivery demands jeopardize the safety of truck drivers and motorists,” said president of the Truck Safety Coalition, Dawn King.

Still, the trucking industry stays convinced that the most practical way to ease the shortage, boost the economy, and meet rising e-commerce demands is to lower the minimum age of transporting this cargo.

“Older drivers are leaving and retiring, and we’re not bringing in younger drivers to replace them fast enough,” said John Stomps, CEO of Total Transportation of Mississippi, noting that he believes this is the only way to help the current strain on the country’s supply chain.

Executive vice president for advocacy at American Trucking Associations, Bill Sullivan, has tried reassuring these safety advocates that trucking companies will prioritize safety when they onboard such young interstate truckers.

“The last thing any of our members want to do is do this unsafely,” he said. “We want to produce a driver who is at least as safe as a21-year-old.

The coalition of trucking industry organizations that wrote to Biden about pushing forward regulation relaxations are also working to ensure truck drivers are not mandated to become vaccinated against COVID-19, claiming that truck drivers spend the majority of their work days alone. Because of this, they believe a mandate would be unnecessary and may cause more truckers to leave the industry itself.

“We’re not anti-vaccine, but in our survey of 120,000 truckers, 50% were vaccinated and 50% weren’t vaccinated,” said Sullivan. “37% of all drivers said they would go to a company that doesn’t have a vaccine mandate or leave the industry altogether.”

These added flexibilities may help ease the long-term truck driver shortage and help the industry meet the current demands of the country, but it’s clear that keeping shipments efficient is more important to many industry members than the safety of truckers or other drivers with whom they share the road.

Legislation lowering the minimum age for operating commercial motor vehicles across state lines is highly likely to come to fruition, industry experts believe.

HOS Regulation Waivers Extended Once Again

December 6, 2021 by Levinson and Stefani Leave a Comment

Because of COVID-19 continuing to wreak havoc across the United States, regulatory waivers are being extended by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration regarding the permitted work time for truck drivers.

For commercial truckers driving property-carrying trucks, the maximum driving time has been extended once again–this time until February 28th, 2022.

“Although the number of COVID-19 cases began to decline in the U.S. following widespread introduction of vaccinations, persistent issues arising out of COVID-19 continue to affect the U.S., including impacts on supply chains and the need to ensure capacity to respond to variants and potential rises in infections,” said the FMCSA.

Because of this, commercial carriers and drivers are eligible for the hours-of-service regulation waiver, particularly those working to haul COVID relief-related medical supplies as well as any transportation regarding medical care services and other necessary pandemic response efforts.

“Therefore, a continued exemption is needed to support direct emergency assistance for some supply chains,” continued FMCSA in its waiver announcement. “This extension of the modified emergency declaration addresses national emergency conditions that create a need for immediate transportation of essential supplies and provides necessary relief from the [Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations] for motor carriers and drivers.”

Still, the hours-of-service waiver is limited to transporters of public safety-related goods such as masks, hand sanitizer, soap, medical gloves, disinfectants, vaccines, kits for the administration of vaccines, and vaccine-related ancillary supplies. Additionally, the waiver includes the transportation of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, ethyl alcohol, food, paper products, and the emergency restocking of any distribution hub, as well as the transportation of livestock and livestock feed. Commercial drivers and carriers with current out-of-service orders are excluded from this waiver.

This emergency regulatory waiver declaration was first announced by FMCSA this summer in an effort to provide regulatory relief in regards to the maximum driving time mandates for both passenger-carrying vehicles and property-carrying vehicles. This declaration was initially designed to ease the strain on the United States’ supply chain, while the White House worked to find additional methods of expediting freight movement.

To do so, the Biden Administration implemented a specific task force that brought about new ways of keeping the country’s freight moving efficiently during the pandemic era; COVID-19 has been blamed as the major factor in commercial supply chain disruption.

Previous hours-of-service relaxation efforts allowed truckers to extend their daily driving time by two hours when working in inclement weather and to drive a total of 14 hours instead of 12. Additionally, drivers were originally allowed to divide their mandatory 10-hour rest breaks into 5-5 or 6-4 hours periods with further control of that time usage–whether they decided to use that particular time to rest or not.

Many safety advocates have lamented these flexibility-boosted waivers, citing the issue of truck driver fatigue—an issue that has become more serious than what recent statistics have shown. In fact, the National Transportation Safety Board has focused heavily on fatigued driving, going as far as to add the overall reduction of fatigue-related traffic accidents to its ‘Most Wanted List’ of safety boosts for 2019 and 2020.

“Drowsy driving does not leave telltale signs,” said the board. “It is widely believed to be underreported on police crash forms.”

The trucking industry has also had a history of high levels of spending in regards to congressional lobbying and campaign contributions related to added flexibility for both truck drivers and their companies, explained FairWarning.

“These [proposals] are opportunities for drivers to be pushed to their limits further, to drive without resting,” said Truck Safety Coalition executive director, Harry Adler. “It’s more [of an] opportunity for a driver to operate while fatigued, which is really detrimental.”

If government proposals like these “are going to keep the highways as safe as–or safer than–they currently exist,” the American Trucking Association needs to dive deeper into the reality of trucker fatigue, said vice president of ATA safety policy, Dan Horvath. “We are not quick to give an immediate response. We really do take the time to do a thorough review, to work with our members.”