Skip to content
Search AI Powered

Latest Stories

newsworthy

House negotiators kill longer-trailer provision in omnibus spending bill

Lawmakers freeze hours-of-service restart provision, order FMCSA to demonstrate its value in improving driver health, safety, and performance.

Republican and Democratic negotiators in the House earlier today killed language in a $1.1 trillion fiscal year 2016 omnibus spending bill that would have added 10 feet to the length of each twin-trailer operating on the country's federal-aid highways. The move dealt a huge setback to commercial interests, which saw the provision as a safe and sensible way to improve motor carrier productivity.

At the same time, legislative drafters effectively shut down the Obama Administration's proposal ordering commercial drivers required to be off-duty for 34 hours within a typical workweek to take two consecutive days of rest between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m., and to limit those extended rests to just once a week. The trucking industry claimed that the language—included in the agency's 2013 driver "hours of service" rules—were not supported by sound science, would cut into fleet productivity, and would force drivers off the road during hours of sparse road congestion only to push more traffic into riskier daytime hours, as drivers would have to share the roads with millions of rush-hour commuters.


Lawmakers required the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), the subagency of the Department of Transportation that drafted the rules, to demonstrate that the controversial language would result in "statistically significant improvement" in all outcomes of driver health, safety, and performance as compared with drivers operating prior to July 1, 2013, the date the rules took effect. Congress had earlier frozen FMCSA's implementation of the provision.

WIN FOR SAFETY GROUPS

The conferees' move to strip out the longer twin-trailer language represents a big victory for highway-safety advocates, who argued that adding the equivalent of 5 feet to the length of each 28-foot trailer would jeopardize a driver's ability to safely merge onto oncoming highway traffic and to navigate on- and off-ramps. The U.S. road infrastructure was not built to accommodate twin-trailers that are each 33 feet long, according to safety groups.

The House and Senate appropriations committees had approved the so-called "longer truck" language in their respective versions of the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development FY '16 budget appropriations.

Today's action, combined with an earlier decision by lawmakers to exclude language in the recently signed federal transport-funding bill that would have raised the gross vehicle weight limit—the sum of tractor, trailer, and cargo—on federal aid highways to 91,000 pounds from 80,000 pounds, means that federal truck size and weight limits will remain at levels last changed in 1982. Various states allow for heavier and longer commercial vehicles to operate within their borders.

Supporters of the longer-truck measure said the extended trailers come with similarly longer wheelbases, which would improve stability and performance. They said the longer trailers would not add any more weight to the vehicle, and would reduce the number of trucks needed on the road by allowing shippers to load more lightweight, high-cube goods in each trailer. Adding five feet to each trailer would eliminate 6.6 million truck trips annually, prevent 912 crashes, cut fuel consumption by 204 million gallons annually, and increase fleet productivity by up to 18 percent, supporters said.

The explosive growth of digital commerce over the next 10 years will result in a 40-percent increase in less-than-truckload (LTL) shipments moving in 28-foot twin trailers, backers of the longer-truck language contend. The increase in cubic capacity would be critical, because most orders are lightweight shipments that cube out before they weigh out.

In a statement, the Coalition for Efficient and Responsible Trucking, whose core membership is LTL carriers, said it was "unfortunate and disappointing that political scare tactics won the day over sound policy. In rejecting a modest extension in the length of twin-trailers, Congress missed an opportunity to bring long-overdue efficiencies to freight trucking that would have produced tangible safety, economic, and environmental benefits at a time when so many roads and bridges have fallen into disrepair after years of neglect."

The American Trucking Associations (ATA), which mostly represents large fleets, echoed those comments, saying Congress "allowed itself to be cowed by fear-mongering tactics of antitruck lobbyists." ATA, for its part, found itself in a politically uncomfortable positions because it endorsed a provision that 15 of the nation's largest truckload carriers, and key ATA members, had gone on record opposing as potentially unsafe and harming the competitive positions of smaller truckload carriers.

The Latest

More Stories

Warehouse automation project orders fell 3% in 2024

Warehouse automation project orders fell 3% in 2024

Warehouse automation orders declined by 3% in 2024, according to a February report from market research firm Interact Analysis. The company said the decline was due to economic, political, and market-specific challenges, including persistently high interest rates in many regions and the residual effects of an oversupply of warehouses built during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The research also found that increasing competition from Chinese vendors is expected to drive down prices and slow revenue growth over the report’s forecast period to 2030.

Keep ReadingShow less

Featured

screenshot of kodiak hub software

Swedish supply chain tech firm Kodiak Hub expands to U.S.

The Swedish supply chain software company Kodiak Hub is expanding into the U.S. market, backed by a $6 million venture capital boost for its supplier relationship management (SRM) platform.

The Stockholm-based company says its move could help U.S. companies build resilient, sustainable supply chains amid growing pressure from regulatory changes, emerging tariffs, and increasing demands for supply chain transparency.

Keep ReadingShow less

Logistics gives back: February 2025

Here's our monthly roundup of some of the charitable works and donations by companies in the material handling and logistics space.

  • For the sixth consecutive year, dedicated contract carriage and freight management services provider Transervice Logistics Inc. collected books, CDs, DVDs, and magazines for Book Fairies, a nonprofit book donation organization in the New York Tri-State area. Transervice employees broke their own in-house record last year by donating 13 boxes of print and video assets to children in under-resourced communities on Long Island and the five boroughs of New York City.
  • Logistics real estate investment and development firm Dermody Properties has recognized eight community organizations in markets where it operates with its 2024 Annual Thanksgiving Capstone awards. The organizations, which included food banks and disaster relief agencies, received a combined $85,000 in awards ranging from $5,000 to $25,000.
  • Prime Inc. truck driver Dee Sova has donated $5,000 to Harmony House, an organization that provides shelter and support services to domestic violence survivors in Springfield, Missouri. The donation follows Sova's selection as the 2024 recipient of the Trucking Cares Foundation's John Lex Premier Achievement Award, which was accompanied by a $5,000 check to be given in her name to a charity of her choice.
  • Employees of dedicated contract carrier Lily Transportation donated dog food and supplies to a local animal shelter at a holiday event held at the company's Fort Worth, Texas, location. The event, which benefited City of Saginaw (Texas) Animal Services, was coordinated by "Lily Paws," a dedicated committee within Lily Transportation that focuses on improving the lives of shelter dogs nationwide.
  • Freight transportation conglomerate Averitt has continued its support of military service members by participating in the "10,000 for the Troops" card collection program organized by radio station New Country 96.3 KSCS in Dallas/Fort Worth. In 2024, Averitt associates collected and shipped more than 18,000 holiday cards to troops overseas. Contributions included cards from 17 different Averitt facilities, primarily in Texas, along with 4,000 cards from the company's corporate office in Cookeville, Tennessee.

Catch a thief, stop a vandal

Electric vehicle (EV) sales have seen slow and steady growth, as the vehicles continue to gain converts among consumers and delivery fleet operators alike. But a consistent frustration for drivers has been pulling up to a charging station only to find that the charger has been intentionally broken or disabled.

To address that threat, the EV charging solution provider ChargePoint has launched two products to combat charger vandalism.

Keep ReadingShow less
ATRI releases annual list of nation’s top truck bottlenecks

ATRI releases annual list of nation’s top truck bottlenecks

New Jersey is home to the most congested freight bottleneck in the country for the seventh straight year, according to research from the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI), released today.

ATRI’s annual list of the Top 100 Truck Bottlenecks aims to highlight the nation’s most congested highways and help local, state, and federal governments target funding to areas most in need of relief. The data show ways to reduce chokepoints, lower emissions, and drive economic growth, according to the researchers.

Keep ReadingShow less