Hopefully many of you are packed and on your way to North Carolina to attend the annual IMUA meeting.  Looking forward to some warm weather and seeing so many old friends.  We send a special congratulation shout out to Jim Cunningham of Markel who is receiving the Life Time Achievement Award this year.  Thank you for all of your service to the industry!

This month is fairly short on news.  Everything in the transportation industry is focused on the political maneuverings over CSA and the future of SMS and carrier reporting.  It seems like every day there is a report of another legislator introducing a bill or calling out the agency on CSA.  That leaves little else happening. But we always find some news.  This month we report:

ANTI-INDEMNITY STATUTES – Arkansas has climbed up on the bandwagon to join the many other states to prohibit unfair clauses in trucking contracts. The newest law forbids provisions in contracts that provide for shippers to be indemnified for losses caused by their own negligence, making those clauses void and unenforceable.  Over in New Jersey the Senate Transportation Committee voted unanimously to move forward with their own bill to outlaw indemnification clauses in trucking contracts.  To date, 42 states have acted to protect truckers from these clauses.

TOW LEGISLATION – Towing operations are often a nightmare for claims adjusters as they try to get reasonable charges from tow companies following accidents.  Arkansas, apparently having a busy month, has moved toward reform of tow operations. Arkansas, as of July, 2015, will requires that consumer complaints be resolved within 45 days and permit the Arkansas Towing and Recovery Board to order tow companies to make restitution payments under certain conditions. Another new law taking effect this summer requires the towing board to set up a complaint process for the removal or suspension of a towing company from a non-consensual rotation list, and set fines for companies that violate rotation list policies.

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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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