March Madness is at the end and it is time to get back to work! The annual IMUA meeting will be held in Charlotte, NC in May.  Registration is open and we look forward to seeking many of you there.  Stop by our table and visit.  You can find the information on the IMUA website.

This month we report:

CROSS-BORDER OPERATIONS – The U.S. Department of Commerce reports that trucks moved more than 60% of all cross border freight, and the dollar value in December was more than 9 percent greater than a year earlier. Truck cargo grew 9.3 percent, and trucks were responsible for $3 billion in freight.  In other NAFTA news another law suit has been filed to prevent the opening of the Mexican-US border. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety and the Truck Safety Coalition, filed suit this month in the Ninth Circuit claiming that the program violated the Administrative Procedures Act. The suit relies in part, on an audit released by the Inspector General which concluded that the program failed to prove that Mexican carriers should be given access to US roadways.   We will see where this goes.

CSA ATTACK– This has been a tough month for the FMCSA as it faces battles on many fronts. The U.S. Senate’s Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety, and Security of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation had hearings on the Oversight and Reform of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration this month. The FMCSA faces a number of attacks on the public release of data under CSA and demands for full reform of the agency.  U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pa., has filed HR1371, the Safer Trucks and Buses Act of 2015, in the House of Representatives. The act targets CSA and seeks removal of the data from public view. Barletta’s bill calls for FMCSA to revamp CSA and use only data “determined to be predictive of motor carrier crashes” in its scoring mechanism, prohibit the use of data from crashes in which the motor carrier was not at fault, specifically if the motor carrier’s vehicle is struck by an intoxicated driver or wrong-way driver, or if the motor carrier’s vehicle is struck while the truck driver is otherwise engaged in lawful operation.

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I am trying to see if anyone has any pull with the government so that we can put that ground hog out of service.  Six more weeks of this cold is just too much for any of us to bear.  I seriously think that our southern clients need to request a CAB training session and bring all of their underwriters and claims associates in for a nice weather meeting. We need it.  Thankfully February is a short month and spring is on the way.  This month we report:

CVSA – The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance released the results of its October 2014 Operation Safe Driver Campaign: Speeding and failure to use a seat belt topped the list of driver violations in commercial and passenger vehicles, with non-commercial motor vehicle drivers speeding more often.  The top five warnings and citations issued to CMV drivers were: (1) speeding, (2) failure to use a safety belt, (3) failure to obey traffic control devices, (4) improper lane change, and (5) following too closely.

TRUCK FATALITIES – Large trucks traveled nearly 6 billion more miles on U.S. roads in 2013 than in 2012, and did so with greater safety results, according to American Trucking Associations’ calculations of federal data. ATA announced that truck-involved crash fatality rates declined 1.6%, to 1.441 per 100 million miles traveled in 2013 from 1.465 in 2012. The number of truck-miles traveled rose to 275 billion in 2013 from 269.2 billion in 2012 while the total number of fatalities in truck-involved crashes grew by 20 people to 3,964 in 2013. ATA also said the truck-involved injury rate decreased to 34.5 per 100 million miles traveled from 38.6. The large-truck fatality crash rate has fallen 39.2% since 2003 and the injury rate is down 34.2%.

CARGO THEFT – FreightWatch International’s Supply Chain Intelligence Center reports more than 40 thefts at truck stops and highway pull-offs at several locations in Arkansas early this month. In the incidents, along Interstate 40 between West Memphis and Forrest City, and along I-55 between West Memphis and Turrell, criminals used the “shopping” technique where they broke trailer seals then determined if the goods were of value. Stolen items include poultry and firearms.

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