Dave brings to you 38 years of valuable experience in transportation, management, business and compliance. Dave has driven in every condition across North America and overseas as military, police, company driver to owner operator to now Publisher Editor of Canadian Trucking Magazine.
What a contest do we have for any of our readers on facebook! Go to our facebook page Canadian Trucking Magazine and click LIKE at the top of the page. Find the AD posted there and also click LIKE and share it. For clicking LIKE your name will automatically be entered. When you SHARE it, everytime someone you shared our page with clicks LIKE, they are entered and you are again. When we reach 5000 Fans we will pull 14 names for $50 and 1 for $100 for a SOURCE gift card. It should be fast and easy as we have 2600 Fans right now the largest number of Fans of any transport magazine. If each one shared with one friend thats 5000.
If you don’t have facebook, I am sure your better half or rugrats do. If all fails and you still want to win some great prizes from CTM, well that is easy too! Come say Hi to me at the upcoming truck shows and events. I always have thousands in prizes and swag at the booth. The SOURCE has always come to the plate to promote thesource.ca, the web site easy to use from anywhere you have internet to order the toys we deserve and the tools we need for on the road. Plan ahead now and watch for the truck shows in this magazine as I am sure you will be near one or more of them in the next few months. If you have never taken in FERGUS or the Big Rig week-ends you have no idea what you are missing. Kids if you have them will never forget you taking them to these shows and brother and sister these shows bring out the kid in us. Dryden show is a little different this year as they are doing 4x4s, and who does not love those. continued on page 4
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If you are sitting around Dryden on the September 1st and in the truck killing time, when you should take in this show. It will be about 4x4s this year but the Strong man competition and dance are awesome adding to that a classic car show. A note I would like to make to my friends running the rock pile. Keep a sharp eye out, as the snow disappears the tourists appear and travel a little to fast or careless because of no ice conditions. In the last month I have had two brothers of ours involved in accidents over the rocks by four wheelers that were careless. Neither one could have been prevented. Perhaps a good MORON masher is what you need on the front of your truck and remember February’s magazine about BFG, Big Front Grill or Big F@#*!ing Grill made of stainless steel, weighing only 230 lbs and costing under 2,000 bucks if you use the CTM100 discount! Dose it make sense to get behind it!
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I know it sounds like a sales pitch, but I truly believe in grill protection to save your life, down time and towing. To find one that is strong stainless steel and only adds about 230 lbs is a no brainer. Some fleets like Day and Ross will pay half of it for you.
Again thanks to the SOURCE for providing the 14 $50 and 1 $100 prizes for our facebook contest. I have used thesource.ca when I am on the road to buy gifts and toys and tools as I have found them to be the best products for the best prices and delivered right to your door, stop or terminal. Again you will also find SOURCE products at the CTM booths at the truck shows. Please make an effort to drop in to my booth and say hello and give me your opinion on what you like about our magazine here and what you would like to see in it. I guess everyone has heard that the Stirling Show was cancelled this year, but another one has sprung up just miles north in Ottawa. TRUXPO 2012 is back in BC at Abbotsford and is always a great show with the latest and greatest. In Red Deer and Chilliwack the Big Rig week-ends, again something that if you take in once, you will every year. Fergus was and is still the biggest in Canada, July 27th to 29th, I will be there in booth M30 out front and hard to miss. No matter what, when you can get that many trucks out for a week-end and the trucking events and trades, it is a truck show! Of course MATS is still the mother of Truck Shows in the world and it is gone for another year but will be back bigger than ever in 2013.
You all be safe out there, I would rather hear from you than about you!
HAPPY TRAILS........ Dave
BAD APPLES GIVE US ALL A BAD NAME, SHUT THEM DOWN!
Hello again all. The Governments on both sides of our borders, Canada and the U.S.A. have been really cracking down on border related issues and criminal offenses. If you have noticed when crossing the borders between the U.S.A. and Canada in this last year, longer line ups, longer wait times, secondary screenings, vehicle inspections, etc., it is because the governments are cracking down at all border points due to the increased illegal activities. While I have been out on the road these last few months working with government issues across Canada and into Alaska, I have wondered what our world is coming to and what are we to expect tomorrow. It seems that our major drug trafficking in Canada occurs in/out Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec. Unfortunately it appears that our trucking industry is being hit the most for these occurrences. There are thousands of great honest truck drivers across Canada whom we know and trust, it is those few bad apples that have given us a bad name. Of course we are not just talking about truck drivers here, these criminals can be the people next door we see walking their dogs, we just don’t know. Where this hurts us the most is cross border business. As you all know, since the new government in the U.S.A. has taken over, their initiative is to bring home to the U.S.A. all Trade making our daily business profitability dwindle. We need to keep our business going cross border and most importantly across Canada. Our staff members need to be trained better on the how to’s and the what to look for’s regarding Security and Trust. The extent of the drug trafficking, child abductions, murders, illegal activities all inclusive, has gone up. There are many factors in this puzzle and leaves one to feel rather uneasy at times. Having seen and experienced some of these incidents first hand, I can truly tell you that I returned with
By: Dawn Truell, President, Cross Border Services this wow what has this world come to attitude. I am a Christian and believe that all of us can fix this, we can educate ourselves on the going’s on and the preventative measures that we can all take to gain back the security and trust that we all once had and experienced. Here are some stories that have happened: CBSA confirmed the deportation of Samuel Martin Luin. The Edmonton resident was convicted of 17 offences including sexual assault, assault causing bodily harm and assaulting a peace officer while incarcerated. Male suspect Eric Shawn Carty shot and killed Kirk Matthews who was outside his home. Canada wide warrant Michel Bergeron, murder, gangsterism, drug trafficking, conspiracy to commit murder. Banks Singh Chadi, warrant related to a conspiracy
to traffic substantial quantity of heroin. RCMP after Claudine Bishop wanted in Quebec and Ontario for a variety of offences including armed robbery, fraud over $5000 and abandonment of a baby in Montreal. Border Services Officers in Sarnia, Ontario, prevent 50 kilograms of cocaine from reaching Canadian streets . For further information please contact Dawn Truell, President, Cross Border Services, at: www.crossborderservices.org, crossborderservices@cogeco.net. Note from Dave here, if you see suspicious activity, persons asking you for a ride acrosss the border in your truck, a loose lipped driver talking about smuggling drugs or weapons, do us all a favour and contact authorities. Try to get as much information as possible without becoming involved and shut these bad guys down!
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Who Needs a Level Playing Field? By Sandy Long
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In article after article, large carriers and their associations are quoted as saying EOBRs and speed limiters are necessary to create a ‘level playing field’ for them to be competive in the trucking industry. They cite competition from companies who’s trucks go faster than theirs do and who may not be as tight in HOS monitoring. Looking at this logically, there are holes in their theory big enough to drive a semi through easily. The large carriers have, thru competition, cut rates and promised everything under the sun to retain their customer base. Many are training companies for new entry-level truck drivers, causing their accident rates to go up. These two factors caused the carriers to lower their truck’s governed speed for both fuel cost savings and for safety for those new drivers. Furthermore, as reported in TruckingInfo.com, Rep. Peter DeFazio, DOre., introduced legislation to address the detention time, HR 756 that would limit the number of hours a driver can be detained and the FMCSA was looking at doing the same. “In a letter to FMCSA administrator Anne Ferro, David Parker, chairman of the MCSAC, said the agency should seek legal authority over entities that contribute to FMCSA safety violations. According to Parker, an undue detainment can cause drivers to violate hours of service rules.” The move towards detention regulation is also supported by OOIDA who has always contended that detention time was the most common cause of loss of revenue and violation of HOS regulations by drivers. Descent from the ATA was strong; the ATA board of directors voted not to support the measures. "ATA and its members value the time of our drivers," ATA President and CEO Bill Graves said following the board's decision. "However, federal intervention into this area would have significant impacts on the contractual agreements between carriers and shippers."
"No carrier wants to see our drivers' time wasted," ATA first vice chairman Dan England, chairman and president of C.R. England said. "However, this is not an issue that can be handled with a 'one-size, fits all' regulation and as a result is best addressed in contractual agreements between carriers and shippers." "The ability of carriers to negotiate rates, routes and service with our shippers is very important to us," said ATA Chairman Barbara Windsor, president and CEO of Hahn Transportation. "Federal regulation in this area would directly affect shipping rates and would significantly change the playing field for carriers and shippers." Wait! ATA vice Chairman England says that “this is not an issue that can be handled with a 'one-size, fits all' regulation” and Chairman Windsor says that it would “significantly change the playing field for carriers and shippers." Uh, folks, isn’t that exactly what you are wanting to do in your support of EOBRs and speed limiters, develop one-size, fits all regulations; change the playing field for those carriers who do not have access to your discounts and shipper base to your levels of operation? There is nothing ‘level’ about them and further regulation will ‘level’ them all right, in the large carriers direction. In the trucking industry, it is always wise to look for the money trail in any sort of proposed regulation supported by the mega carriers. In an article dated April 2012 on the ATA website it states, “After a year of quarterly increases, the turnover rate for truck drivers at large truckload fleets unexpectedly dipped one percentage point to an annualized rate of 88% American Trucking Associations Chief Economist Bob Costello…” The article continues, “Turnover among large truckload fleets had risen to 89% in the third quarter of 2011 after bottoming out at 39% in the first quarter of 2010. For all of 2011, the large truckload turnover rate averaged 83% - the highest average since 2007 when churn averaged 117%. At small truckload firms, with less than $30 million in annual revenue, the turnover rate dipped to 55% from 57% in the previous quarter. The fourth quarter turnover rate for less-than-truckload fleets fell to just 7% from 10% in the third quarter.” An all time average of 117% and a today’s
rate of 88% for large fleets perhaps provide one money trail found. The Intermodel Insurance Company reports that Noel Perry, managing director at consultant FTR Associates, Nashville, Ind., whose latest driver supply report gauged the shortage at 125,000 in the third quarter said, “We are almost certainly going to see an increase (in driver shortage).” Furthermore, in the same article, USA Truck noted the scarcity of drivers. They reported a “$4.3 million loss; said 10% of its fleet of more than 2,200 trucks don’t have drivers.” Other carriers that have driver-related issues are Heartland Express and Knight Transportation among others. Driver retention is a large factor at any company as shown, as is a ‘driver shortage’ is at larger carriers, though driver shortage may be another way of saying driver retention in this case. It is a well-known fact that many entry-level drivers, who have little choice outside of the large carrier training companies, leave after their initial year. They tire of the micromanagement, the governed slower speeds found at the larger carriers, the impersonality of communication and the lack of adequate hometime. This fact is supported by Tim Brady’s article at Trucker.com. Brady states, “Driver turnover usually occurs within the first year of employment. A company may have an overall turnover rate of 60%, but the ‘newbie flight’ (those first-year hires) can far exceed that—as much as 180% to 240% plus. We’ll define this as driver “churning,” i.e., drivers leaving one carrier and being hired by another. As with most problems, the cause is fairly easy to find; believe it or not, it’s not just about the money. Although several factors contribute to driver churning, its root cause is a lack of communication from the very beginning. It’s making sure both trucker and carrier understand each other’s needs and wants, and how this is going to be accomplished within the business relationship.” If the large carriers can get EOBRs and speed limiter regulations through, they think that this will stop drivers leaving for greener pastures. Billy Woolsey, President of Midwest Compliance Inc., states in a letter to the editor to Transport Topics about EOBRs, “But all that information carries a price because drivers are likely to favor carriers without e-logging devices.
That creates additional problems for small fleets competing for drivers in a marketplace now being reshaped by the government’s new Compliance, Safety, Accountability safety-management program(CSA)… it is glaringly obvious that this is really about politics, not safety…not to mention fueling an incorrect but widely held belief that the agency (DOT) wants to put smaller carriers out of business.” Marge Bailey, founder of DriverFinder.net states, “Depending on what resources a company engages to advertise, i.e.; the size of their budget, what their orientation costs are and cost to get a driver to orientation, a new 'experienced' hire can range from $3500.00 to over $5,000.00 each.” Add in the costs of schooling for entry-level drivers that the company may pay for or reimburse plus additional costs of the training time after school, and you end up with a seriously significant amount of money that replacing drivers costs a carrier. While creating a level playing field using EOBRs or speed limiters due to HOS compliance or safety does not make a lot of sense, creating a level playing field to retain drivers does, at least to the larger carriers who support it. CSA takes care of both HOS compliance and safety issues adequately; there is no need for the rest of us to suffer for the wants of large carriers to save money by retaining drivers.
Ya’ll be safe and I wish you peace and some serenity in your busy lives. (www.facebook.com/theoneandonlytv), email (trkrsvoice@thetruckersvoice.net), or twitter (@trkingsantas).“ Street Smarts: A Guide to a Truck Driver's Personal Safety
Do not cuss a trucker or a farmer with your mouth full!
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