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Fit or Fat: A Tale of Two Drivers

By Jack Kelsh

You get a call from a customer. They need two loads of frozen food picked up and shipped 1,200 miles in two days. You have a couple of drivers available so you make the deal, set the appointments and dispatch your drivers. You are told that this is a “hot” load. The shipper just got the product at the last minute and it needs to be at its destination for a grand opening. You assure them that you have it under control and guarantee that it will be there on time.

Your drivers arrive at the shipper’s in a timely manner. Both have identical trucks and have approximately the same amount of hours of service remaining to accomplish the given task. The first driver, Jim, bumps the dock, goes in and takes care of the necessary paperwork and in the process of being loaded, makes himself a nutritious lunch consisting of a roast beef sandwich lined with fresh spinach and low fat cheese on 100% whole grain bread. Along with the sandwich, he eats a few fresh, raw string beans, a handful of baked potato chips and a cup of mixed berry yogurt and washes it all down with 100% pure grape juice.

When Jim is finished eating, he’s full, but not stuffed. He finds that he still has about 20 minutes to go before they finish loading his trailer so he does a quick, but very intense, workout on his “19th wheel” beside his truck, and then he goes for a brisk walk around the staging area to further get his circulation moving.

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Healthy living begins one step at a time

The lifestyle of a truck driver is not conducive to healthy living. Job logistics lead to stressful conditions, meals on the go and lack of exercise. But a new study by a Toronto researcher may come as a real wake-up call to drivers.

Dr. Martin Moore-Ede found that truck drivers have a 10- to 15-year lower life expectancy than the average American male, who lives on average to age 76. This statistic has served as a life-changing jolt for some drivers.

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Costly Detour Towards Trucking Certification

By Jay Barry Harris

Safe driving is a paramount goal of every motor carrier. From driver training to utilizing the finest technology available, the trucking industry strives to keep the highways as safe as possible and to ensure the smooth flow of cargo across our country. In conjunction with self-imposed industry standards, the federal government also plays a role in achieving safer highways chiefly through the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). It adopts regulations, which then become a necessary component of any interstate trucking company’s means of conducting business.

Ostensibly proposed to further this goal, the FMCSA regulations mandating comprehensive training for new drivers to obtain a commercial drivers’ license are counter productive. Under these regulations, the FMCSA requires 120 hours of classroom training, of which 44 hours include behind-the-wheel training, before a new driver can qualify to receive his CDL. Upon completion of the training, an applicant will receive a certification that can only be issued by an accredited school. The FMCSA estimates that it will cost a CDL applicant $3,000 (at an estimated $25 per hour) to complete this training.

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My Point: MATS, Driver Survey Highlight Busy Spring

Marvin Shefsky
- Publisher

We always look forward to the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville. This year’s show, set for March 27-29, will once again serve as an amazing gathering place for something like 70,000 truck drivers, members of their families, vendors and industry officials. If you want to take the pulse of the trucking industry and find out what’s around the next turn as far as driver recruitment and retention is concerned (or any other trucking issue, for that matter), there’s no better place to do it than at MATS.

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Survey Aims to Improve Driver Retention

RAMP Media Group is teaming up with TRINCON Group to conduct a national online survey of drivers to help improve problem areas in the trucking industry. The survey, the first of its kind, expects to query 5,000 to 7,000 fleet owners, owner-operators and company drivers to find answers to key issues, such as why retention rates are at a record low. The survey will also create a national database that drivers and company owners can access.

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Driver Sound Off

In terms of driver retention, the relationship between an over-the-road professional and his or her dispatcher might be the most critical relationship in the industry. After all, a dispatcher is the driver’s primary contact with the company day in and day out. If the relationship heads south, more often than not the driver will head south as well.

With that in mind, we asked drivers the following question:

What type of person makes a good dispatcher?

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Female Driven

By Ellen Voie

I was taking a walk recently when I saw a Honda Pilot parked in a driveway with a “for sale” sign in the window. I have been looking for an SUV, so I stopped to read the sign further. I couldn’t help but smile when I read the words “FEMALE DRIVEN” neatly printed under the price.

Female driven. The owner must have considered this to be a selling point or she (or he) wouldn’t have listed it as a notable item. I recalled the old adage about buying a car that had “only been driven to church on Sunday by a little old lady.” I wondered if this was meant to be an advantage.

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