Klint Lowry

On-highway diesel prices took a sharp upward turn for the week ending October 8, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). The average price nationwide climbed by $0.072 to $3.385. It’s the largest weekly gain since September 4, 2017, when diesel shot up 14.2 cents. As they did the week before, diesel prices rose in every region across the country this past week, but to considerably different degrees from one region to the next. The Gulf Coast region, which has enjoyed the lowest diesel prices in the nation, experienced the largest gain this week, rising a full 9 cents to $3.169 per gallon, still the lowest of any region in the country. The Rocky Mountain region saw the smallest increase over the past week, $0.023, to end the week at $3.390, which is higher than any region to its east but lower than the West Coast. The price jumps were uneven on the East Coast, with prices rising in the New England region by a relatively low $0.039, compared to jumps of $0.084 and $0.063 in the Central and Lower Atlantic regions, respectively. Cumulatively, diesel rose $0.068 on the East Coast, to an average price of $3.360 per gallon. The jump was almost as high on the West Coast, where prices were up $0.064 overall. California got the worst of it, a jump of $0.073, to finish the week at $4.111, by far the highest in the country. Overall, the West Coast, diesel is now running $3.886 per gallon.   Nationwide, the price of diesel is currently $0.609 higher than it was a year ago. California has experienced the largest year-to-year gain, at $0.945, and every region has now seen gas prices increase by more than 50 cents per gallon from this time last year. Oil futures rose Oct. 9, on signs that Iranian crude exports are falling ahead of reimposed sanctions by the U.S. and anticipation of Hurricane Michael as it gained strength headed toward the Gulf of Mexico. U.S. benchmark crude was up by 67 cents to close at $74.96 a barrel, while Brent crude climbed by $1.09, or 1.3 percent, to $85.00 per barrel. Click here for a complete list of average prices by region for the past three weeks.

On-highway diesel prices rose for the week ending Oct. 1, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). The average price nationwide climbed by $0.042 to $3.313, the highest it’s been since December 2014. This week’s gain was the largest single-week gain since early May. Prices rose in every region across the country, although unevenly. In California, the price for a gallon of diesel rose $0.052, putting it over the $4 per gallon mark, at $4.038. The West Coast overall saw an increase of $0.043, to $3.802. California, however, did not experience the largest jump in prices for the week. That occurred in the Midwest, where diesel rose an even 6 cents, to $3.278, still one of the regions where diesel prices are lowest. The lowest diesel in the nation remains in the Gulf Region, where it finished the week at $3.079, up by $0.027 from a week ago. The smallest increase was in the Rocky Mountain region, where prices rose $0.012 to finish at $3.367. Nationwide, the price of diesel is currently $0.521 higher than it was a year ago. California has experienced the largest year-to-year gain, at $0.856, while the Lower Atlantic has seen the smallest year-to-year gain, $0.432 per gallon. Oil futures rose Oct. 1, with the U.S. benchmark up by $1.66 to close at $74.91 a barrel, while Brent crude climbed by $1.57, or 1.9 percent, to $84.30. Click here for a complete list of average prices by region for the past three weeks.  

The key to good cooking is combining the right ingredients in just the right way for them to achieve the right balance. The same could be said for an online recipe contest currently underway. In conjunction with National Truck Driver Appreciation Week, September 9-15, pork rind-maker Southern Recipe is hosting a contest called Pedal to the Kettle, in which the public is invited to vote among three recipes, each featuring innovative ways to incorporate Southern Recipe pork rinds into entrees that can be cooked in a truck cab using typical equipment a driver may travel with. The public can go to the Southern Recipe website, PorkRinds.com, to see the recipes and pick on their favorite. Voting is free. And one vote is allowed per person per day through September 15. Each vote is also an entry to win $2,000 and a year’s supply of Southern Recipe products. As part of Southern Recipe’s recognition to Truck Driver Appreciation Week, when voters go online, alongside the introduction to the contest, viewers will see the Saint Christopher Trucker Relief Fund logo and a link to that organization’s website. In conjunction with the contest, Southern Recipe will donate $2,500 to Saint Christopher, a 501 (c)(3) charity that helps over-the-road/regional semi-truck drivers and their families when an illness or injury causes financial hardship. The group also works to provide programs that benefit professional drivers and the trucking industry. Further down the contest page are links to the three recipes, one of which was created by Tom “Captain” Kyrk, who has established himself in recent years as one of the industry’s most vocal proponents of healthier lifestyles for truckers, particularly when it comes to their eating habits. Kyrk can be found not only on his own website, RoadTested Living.com, but at trucking events around the country, espousing the benefits of drivers doing their own cooking on the road. Kyrk was at the recent Great American Trucking Show in Dallas, giving a demonstration of in-the-cab cooking, preparing a three-course meal using Southern Recipe pork rinds, in a continuation of his participation in the contest. After one of his presentations, he and Mark Singleton, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Southern Recipe and Rudolph Foods, discussed the contest and how it benefits everyone involved: Southern Recipe, the Saint Christopher fund, Kyrk and the trucking community as a whole. Kyrk explained that when Southern Recipe approached him to be part of the contest, to come up with a recipe using their pork rinds, it was a perfect fit for his mission. “I’m a driver who’s gained weight over the years,” Kyrk said. “I’ve lost weight over the years. And I’ve discovered that when I cook in the cab I tend to lose weight more.” That is what motivated him to find methods and recipes that allow drivers to eat healthier, although,  “I don’t always like the term ‘healthy,’ because I think it gets misused,” he said. “I think it’s a case where I try to find better-for-me options. He’s a big proponent of improving the quality of dishes by substituting ingredients. “Southern Recipe reached out to me and said, ‘have you ever tried pork rinds?’ And I’m going, ‘I’ll give it a shot.’ And lo and behold, it works.” Now, pork rinds aren’t generally associated with healthy eating, but as Singleton pointed out, “these are not your grandfather’s pork rinds.” “We took out all the artificial everything,” Singleton said. We took out 40 percent of the salt, no MSG.” The rinds are oven baked, Singleton said, and they’ve followed the lead set by the makers of kettle chips by coming out with a line of exotic flavors: pineapple ancho chili, honey chipotle barbecue, spicy dill, sea salt and cracked pepper, cilantro lime, blackberry habanero and Korean Kimchi barbecue. “We have zero carbs, zero trans fats, gluten free,” Singleton said, mentioning that Men’s Health magazine referred to them as a ‘genius junk food.’ “We have a really great story to tell.” And through the contest they can tell it while showing their appreciation for the trucking industry and for the Saint Christopher fund. This is the seventh year that Southern Recipe and its parent company, Rudolph Foods, has done something to mark Truck Driver Appreciation Week. Singleton said the company’s participation comes from a genuine sense of appreciation. “Timely pickups and timely deliveries are critical to us,” Singleton said. It just makes sense when someone is that important to your operation that you acknowledge that and treat those people accordingly. “We’re just friends making money.” This is the third year the company has focused its attention on the Saint Christopher Trucker Relief Fund. “We’re thrilled to partner with Southern Recipe again this year and support our road warriors,” said Shannon Currier, director of philanthropy and development at the Saint Christopher fund. “We hope the community supports this year’s campaign.  This is a fun way to give back and show what life on the road really looks like.” Winners will be announced, and the charity donation will occur after Truck Driver Appreciation Week ends September 15.

At events like the Great American Trucking Show (GATS), the line between work and play is intentionally blurred. It’s an industry trade show dressed up like a carnival. There are seminars and country music, entertainment and opportunity. You can look for new equipment or a new job, or you can look at all the tricked-out trucks and pretty girls. On Friday, August 25, the second day of this year’s GATS, while the action on the convention floor was in full swing, a conference room one flight below was packed with GATS attendees who took time from the frivolity for some serious business. A contingent from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration  was conducting a listening session. Three days earlier, the FMCSA had announced it was issuing an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) as the first step toward possibly making changes to the Hours of Service regulations, and it was opening a 30-day comment period for all interested parties to voice their thoughts and opinions and to share with the agency any relevant data on how revisions to the current regulations could alleviate unnecessary constraints on drivers while maintaining or even possibly improving safety. The session at GATS was the first of a series of planned in-person forums on the matter. FMCSA Administrator Ray Martinez came out to lead the session. A few hours prior to the session, he spoke with reporters about the ANPRM and his intention to keep this on the fast track. “One of the things this agency has been accused of, and other federal agencies have been accused of, is moving at a snail’s pace, at a glacier’s pace,” Martinez said. “We want to move this along on a fast track. I think we’re at a critical moment here. It’s been 15 years since Hours of Service has been seriously addressed. This is a critical, possibly pivotal moment.” The conditions under which drivers operate have changed since HOS was introduced, Martinez explained. Highway congestion has increased, but at the same time the push is on for ever-faster delivery. “It’s also a very healthy time for the industry,” he said, and there’s a need to make sure drivers’ time can be utilized both safely and efficiently. In his first six months on the job, he said, if he had to boil down what he’s heard so far into a single message, it’s that HOS is an extremely important issue to everyone in the industry, and the most important aspect of HOS that needs to be addressed is “flexibility, flexibility, flexibility.” The ANPRM lays out possible changes to four areas of HOS: Expanding the current 100 air-mile “short-haul” exemption from 12 hours on-duty to 14 hours on-duty, in order to be consistent with the rules for long-haul truck drivers; Extending the current 14-hour, on-duty limitation by up to two hours when a truck driver encounters adverse driving conditions; Revising the current mandatory 30-minute break for truck drivers after 8 hours of continuous driving; and Reinstating the option for splitting up the required 10-hour off-duty rest break for drivers operating trucks that are equipped with a sleeper-berth compartment. “These are the things we’re hearing when talking with drivers and carriers,” Martinez said. The ANPRM also seeks feedback on two recently submitted petitions requesting regulatory relief from HOS rules pertaining to the 14-hour on-duty limitation and pertaining to the 10-hour off-duty requirement. What’s important at this stage, Martinez said, is that the agency gets the feedback it needs to move forward. “Give us the information you think would be relevant to making a decision – and this is critical – whether we move forward with this ANPRM. And if we do, what we would include in it and why.” Martinez emphasized the word “whether,” he explained, because he wants to make sure people don’t assume that now that the process has begun that these changes are a done deal. “It only happens if there’s participation and good information is provided,” he said. As much as everyone would like to see changes as quickly as possible, he said, there is no “magic wand” for government regulations. There’s a step-by-step process. “It starts by listening informally and then taking it through the regulatory process,” he said. In particular, he said, last year’s runup to the ELD mandate put HOS under a more intense microscope, and the hope is that carriers, associations or universities that have compiled data that can shed some light on these particular issues will share it. From the FMCSA’s perspective, he said, the key to considering making these changes to HOS must be done “through the lens of safety.” “This is a great opportunity to leverage what you’re getting,” he said. “Anything that can educate us about this would be helpful. “I say ‘educate.’ Obviously, we’re familiar with the issues, but this is the opportunity for the broader public to comment.” Martinez said he came to this session in part because he likes to hear directly from the people he serves. But he also wanted to emphasize the agency is committed to moving on this as quickly as the process will allow, and that FMCSA is genuinely interested in hearing from as wide a swath of the trucking community as possible. The conference room at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center could barely contain the sampling of the trucking community who wanted to sit in on this initial listening session, which lasted about 90 minutes with nearly two dozen getting up to say their piece before the FMCSA panel. FMCSA expects to have three more listening sessions. The first will be held September 14 at Department of Transportation headquarters in Washington, D.C. Others are tentatively planned to take place on the West Coast and southern East Coast. The ANPRM can also be viewed and comments left at https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/regulations/hours-service-advanced-notice-proposed-rulemaking As of Wednesday morning, the site had received more than 900 comments.

Rules are rules, but for every rule there are exceptions, and that’s when things can get murky. That’s certainly been the case ever since the ELD mandate went in to effect. Dec. 18, 2017, was just another day for those who’d been using ELDs for years. But for other drivers and carriers who want to operate within the regulations but hadn’t necessarily always been worried about the fine details, it was the start of an age of anxiety, knowing that every little move and non-move was on the record. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration recently tried to provide clarity to two areas of most concern and confusion: personal conveyance and the agricultural exemption, by providing their official definitions and some regulatory counsel for each. But there are so many “what if” questions around both categories, not to mention many drivers with questions not only how to follow the regulations but to show they’ve been followed on the official log. In order to clear the air a little more on these issues, ELD manufacturer EROADS conducted a webinar July 24, cohosted by Joe DeLorenzo, FMCSA’s director of enforcement and compliance, and Soona Lee, EROAD’s director of regulatory compliance, explaining how and when these rules apply and how to record them. DeLorenzo opened by acknowledging that determining when driving can be considered personal conveyance can seem tricky. The way to simplify it is to ask yourself two questions, he said: First, is the driver released from duty and second, is the driving for personal purposes only? There are several hard and firm rules within FMCSA guidelines about what definitely is and isn’t allowed, DeLorenzo said. But if you keep those two guidelines in mind, it starts to get clearer whether the personal conveyance rule applies or not. “I think it’s important to talk about personal conveyance for what it really is,” DeLorenzo said. “It’s an off-duty status. That’s where the whole consideration of whether something is personal conveyance starts.” The original personal conveyance guidance was written in 1998. Since then, a lot of people have come up with creative and convenient interpretations of the rules that may be well-intentioned but not strictly accurate. Take commuting, DeLorenzo said, “This one can get people a little tripped up.” Commuting between home and a terminal or work sites using a CMV is considered personal conveyance, he said. “Where this one gets trickier is where the driver is under dispatch when they leave the house,” DeLorenzo said. If a driver loads up before going home anticipating he’ll hit the road first thing in the morning, or if the driver gets up and heads straight to a pick-up, that changes things because the driver is then “under the direction of a carrier.” Another common question is when a driver stops at a rest stop for the night then wants to go get something to eat. That drive to the restaurant is personal conveyance. But if along the way you stop somewhere to fill up the gas tank, that would be considered work-related, so the trip would no longer qualify as personal conveyance. “It’s the intent of the driving that matters,” DeLorenzo said. It doesn’t matter whether you’re laden, or even if you’re bobtailing. Are you off duty and is the movement strictly for personal reasons? DeLorenzo illustrated his point using another common scenario. Suppose it takes longer than planned to load up and you’re running out of hours to find a safe, legal place to park. That extra time beyond your 14 hours that it will take find a place for the night would fall under personal conveyance. The same would be true if you stop somewhere and a law enforcement officer tells you that you have to move on. “There’s no reason why your 10 hours should get broken up over that,” DeLorenzo said. “This is where you put an annotation in, you put a note in that says what happened and why.” It doesn’t matter if looking for a place to stop happens to bring you a little closer to your destination, DeLorenzo said. But if you stretch that search out, skipping past rest stops in order to get a little further down the road, then it’s a problem. The key to personal conveyance is documentation, Lee said. ELDs include a “personal conveyance” duty-status option. The thing to remember is whenever that status is engaged off-duty personal conveyance time will be noted and an explanation for the mileage must be entered into the log. Another option, Lee said, is to remain logged out during the personal conveyance and, again, have that written explanation to account for the miles driven. Keep in mind, she added, that carriers can establish their own limits about personal conveyance that are tighter than the actual regulation, so drivers need to know what their carrier’s rules are. DeLorenzo joined Lee in stressing that personal conveyance time is off-duty time, but drivers must stick to the same safety standards they always drive by. And while there are no regulations about how much time a driver can spend on personal conveyance, it is important to use enough of those 10 hours of down time to get adequate rest. The agricultural exemption makes the time a driver spends within a 150-air-mile radius of the source of an agricultural commodity exempt from counting toward Hours of Service. Much of the uncertainty about this exemption has to do with definitions, DeLorenzo said. “A lot of people get confused over the term ‘agricultural commodity.”’ An agricultural commodity is any “nonprocessed food, feed, fiber or livestock,” DeLorenzo said. “Nonprocessed,” he added, means it can be packaged, but it has to still be in its original form. “As long as it’s still a head of lettuce, it’s fine. If it’s in a bag of mixed greens, well, it’s not an agricultural commodity anymore.” Another word that hangs up a lot of people is “source,” DeLorenzo said. The source can be an original source, like a farm or ranch, or an intermediate facility, such as a grain elevator or sale barn. How the exemption works, DeLorenzo explained, is to put a circle with a radius of 150 miles around the source.  “If you’re operating within 150 air miles of the source, then the Hours of Service regulations do not apply.” The clock stops the moment you enter the circle on your way to the source. Loading up, traveling to other stops to load or unload, then heading off to the drop-off location, none of that goes toward HOS. The clock starts as soon as you leave the circle. If that destination is 300 miles away, you could cover half of that before the clock starts toward HOS, DeLorenzo explained. DeLorenzo clarified a few points. If loading occurs at more than one site, the ag exemption radius for the entire job is based on the location of the first loading point. You can’t create a string of exempt zones. If you drive out of the circle and the clock starts, then your route brings you back into the circle, then the clock stops again, DeLorenzo said. A trip could spend three hours inside the circle. Then you could drive outside the circle five hours, spend three at the destination, drive five hours on the return, reach the radius, then drive two hours more to get home. That trip took 18 hours, but the first three hours and last two hours were within the 150-mile radius. Outside the radius, there were 10 hours driving, 13 hours total counting toward HOS, so it’s all good. Obviously, it’s important to log the ag exemption properly, Lee said, and there are three options. The first is to simply not log in until you reach the 150-mile radius. All the driving that had been done would show as “unidentified driving.” You then reject those unidentified miles and annotate that time was ag exempt, then begin normal recording. Option two is to log in at the beginning then annotate the exempt and nonexempt time later, Lee said. “You could also use the personal conveyance option to separate that time you’re ag exempt. That’s kind of a tidy little option, just because it puts everything in the off-duty line.” Lee and DeLorenzo noted that the key thing they wanted to get across is that a driver’s log doesn’t begin and end with the ELD. “Everybody thinks there’s this magic thing that says, ‘hi, you’re in violation’ and spits out a ticket,” DeLorenzo said. “But what the law enforcement officer gets is your full ELD record including the annotations. “The ELD device is not ultimately making the decision whether you’re compliant or not. That’s the law enforcement officer’s job, and they’re going to review those annotations.” To watch the webinar in its entirety, click here.

On-highway diesel prices slipped ever-so-slightly downward for the week ending Aug. 13, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). The average price nationwide fell by $0.006 to $3.217, exactly where it stood July 23 and only $0.002 above the price on June 25. The national average diesel price has stayed within the same 5-cent range since June 11, following a steady spring climb. Although the price drop for the past week was miniscule, it was shared in every region across the country. The Midwest was the only region to record a price drop of more than a penny, with a decrease of $0.012 to 3.139. California saw the smallest, change, with a drop of just $0.001 to $3.942, which is still the highest price for diesel in the country, by over 50 cents more than the rest of the West Coast and more than 55 cents more than the Central Atlantic region. The West Coast minus California and the Central Atlantic regions experienced two of the larger price drops this week, at $0.007 and $0.006, respectively. The Gulf Coast region, where the price of diesel dropped by $0.005 over the past week, continues to be the only region where diesel goes for less than $3 per gallon. It currently stands at $2.990. Nationwide, the price of diesel is currently $0.619 higher than it was a year ago. California has experienced the largest year-to-year gain, at $0.9993, while the Lower Atlantic has seen the smallest year-to-year gain, $0.564 per gallon. Oil futures declined Aug. 13, with the U.S. benchmark falling by 43 cents to close at $67.20 a barrel, while Brent crude slipped by 20 cents to finish at $72.61 a barrel on London’s ICE exchange. Click here for a complete list of average prices by region for the past three weeks.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression. That old chestnut could have served as the title to Stay Metrics’ latest white paper. Instead, the analytics firm, which specializes in driver retention, engagement and training, went with a couple of cover-page questions: “Is Early Turnover Damaging the Business? How and What Can We do to Stop it?” The report, released July 13, is based on a statistical premise that would come as a surprise to no one in trucking: the industry has a turnover problem. It reached a “historic high” of 95 percent in the third quarter of 2017, the report says in its opening statement. It’s also isn’t exactly a revelation that most of that turnover – 72.6 percent – occurs within the first year, with almost half of those in and out the door in three months or less. “Considering the costs of recruitment and retention,” the report states, “one may wonder, what do we know about the leavers and what can we do to stop them from leaving?” A research team led by Stay Metrics Chief Science Officer Timothy Judge set out to determine whether early-stage job leavers share any common characteristics, and if they do can that be used to prevent some of the turnover. The team combined data from previous research with results obtained from Stay Metrics’ orientation surveys, which have been given to 62,000 drivers at seven days and 45 days into their employment; and its in-depth Annual Driver Survey, as well as driver turnover data provided by its 100-plus clients. Some interesting patterns emerged from the data, said Stay Metrics Chief Executive Officer Tim Hindes. “Every carrier’s different in terms of what the issues are, but there are some common issues,” Hindes said. “and what the hope is, is that the carriers glean through this and that they understand things like recruiter satisfaction and what that has to do with retention.” One finding that may at first seem to fly in the face of logic is that drivers who quit in three months or less, called “early leavers” in the report, are actually more likely to recommend that company to another driver than those who depart later. Among early leavers, 52 percent reported a positive attitude toward the company. This can be attributed what is known as the honeymoon period, Hindes said. When people start a new job, they approach everything with a positive attitude. Even if they decided to leave, it’s with more of a “no hard feelings” attitude, Hindes said. “It’s so early they’re willing to give the benefit of the doubt, a bit, to the company that some of it might be on them.” The Stay Metrics team also looked at which drivers tend to be early leavers. Specifically, they looked at whether age could be a predicter. Hindes said that even before this project began, he and Judge had talked about the supposed millennial problem, the popular dogma being that today’s young adults don’t have a strong enough work ethic or sense of loyalty. “The reality is there really isn’t much difference,” Hindes said. They broke early leavers into five-year age groups. Millennials, baby boomers and every group in between were within just a few percentage points of one another in their likeliness to leave within the first year. They also looked at whether industry experience made a difference. The study showed that veteran drivers – with “veteran” defined as a driver with more than one year’s worth of experience – were slightly more likely to be early leavers than rookies. “The experienced driver can smell the disconnect a lot quicker,” Hindes said. If they’ve been burned before, they’re apt to come in with an eye out for red flags. If a brand-new driver senses a problem, they can’t tell off the bat if it’s a problem with the company or the whole industry. They might even wonder if they’re the one with the problem. “The more experienced driver will be quicker to say, ‘yup, I’m cutting bait, I’m leaving,’” Hindes said. The study concluded that driver dissatisfaction can start practically out of the gate, and that a driver’s attitude toward their recruiter and their dispatcher by their 45th day of employment are a strong signal of whether that driver will be an early leaver. The recruiter’s role in shaping a driver’s opinion of a new company is especially crucial, Hindes said. According to the study, drivers who expressed high satisfaction with their recruiter have a 22 percent lower turnover rate in the first three months compared to those with low satisfaction. The importance of dispatcher satisfaction is nearly as pronounced. There was nearly a 16 percent lower turnover rate in the first three months among drivers who expressed high dispatcher satisfaction. The reasons for the influence of dispatcher and recruiter satisfaction on drivers’ attitudes are different, Hindes explained. Once a driver is on the road, the dispatcher is their most frequent connection to the company, and they remain an important influence throughout the driver’s employment. Data shows employees are much more likely to stay at companies where they have friends. While the dispatcher doesn’t have to be the driver’s best buddy, it makes a world of difference if they are at least work-friends. “One of things Stay Metrics does with its clients is gauge driver satisfaction levels with dispatchers so carriers can work with dispatchers who need to up their game,” Hindes said. “What we suggest on the dispatch side is using a psychometric tool, that you can actually pair a driver with the right dispatcher.” While the relationship with the dispatcher may be key to a driver’s long-term satisfaction, it’s the recruiter who makes that all-important first impression.  At first, that person is the face of the company to that driver, and they set the tone for everything that follows, starting with orientation. “A lot of carriers have underestimated the value of the first impression,” Hindes said. “A lot of carriers need to stop and ask, when was the last time they looked at their orientation process. Most of them are cookie-cutter, they’re orientating their drivers the same way they were 12, 15 years ago. “I tell carriers the most critical call a driver is going to make is the first call at break, when they’re out in the parking lot, they pick up the phone and they’re calling home. And they’re answering the most obvious question: ‘How do you like it? Did you choose the right company?’ At that point they only got experience with the recruiter, and about three hours with other people.” Orientation, Hindes said, is where the first impression with the recruiter is tested. One of the most important things that’s going to factor into that impression is whether the driver believes the recruiter has been honest. Are the things they’re hearing at orientation matching up with what they were told when they signed on? Something happened to driver recruiting, Hindes said, and he thinks it goes all the way back to when the CDL laws came into being in the mid-’80s. “We’ve stopped the traditional process of screening and hiring drivers,” he said. Instead, “some carriers are almost like used car salesmen. You look at some of the marketing literature out there, some of the billboards.” Carriers need to bear in mind that many drivers have been burned by falsehoods and misrepresentations at former jobs. You can’t even get cute with the truth, Hindes said. If they were told at recruitment they’d be driving a new truck, then at orientation they hear, “Yeah, you’re going to get a new truck, but that only kicks in after you’ve been here nine months,” drivers aren’t going to take that as a half-truth; that was a lie. They have to hear the same thing at recruitment that they hear at orientation, Hindes said, and then that better be the way it is once they get out there. While this report does not delve directly into the honesty-in-recruitment issue, Hindes believes the implications of the study bear out what he’s saying. “We as an industry have to be much more transparent with drivers,” he said. “We have to stop marketing practices that are misleading, because they’re not helping you. They’re actually hurting you. That’s the biggest takeaway I’d like to see come out of this.” To obtain a free copy of Stay Metrics’ new whitepaper, “Is Early Turnover Damaging the Business? How and What Can We Do to Stop It?” visit staymetrics.com.

On-highway diesel prices continued to fluctuate by the smallest of amounts from week to week, rising to a national average of $3.22 as of July 30, an increase of only $0.006 from a week earlier and exactly 1 cent above where it was June 25, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). The national average diesel price has teetered like an anemic seesaw for 13 weeks now, rising seven times and falling six in that span, working out to a net gain of 5 cents since May 7. The price changed by less than 3 cents in 11 of those 13 weeks. In this past week, every region except the Rocky Mountain region experienced a small price increase, with the Midwest region having the only changed of more than a penny, rising by $0.014. The Lower Atlantic region saw a gain of $0.009. They were the only two regions that finished with a larger gain than the national average. Diesel prices on the West Coast were at a virtual standstill, rising by $0.002. Taking away California, the rise was only $0.001. The drop-off in the Rocky Mountain region was $0.008, leaving it at $3.361. The region’s year-to-year increase stands at $0.746, the highest outside the West Coast region, including California. Despite a gain of $0.004, the Gulf Coast region, is for the second straight week the only region where diesel prices stand below $3. The price for a gallon of diesel there is $2.997. Oil futures rose July 30 with the U.S. benchmark closed at $70.13, finishing above $70 for the first time since July 10. Brent crude rose 68 cents to $74.97 a barrel on London’s ICE exchange. Click here for a complete list of average prices by region for the past three weeks.

There’s a lot of concern these days about the growing driver shortage. And it’s a valid concern. But there is another area where the supply of qualified labor looks to be falling behind the growing demand that also has fleet executives worried. As much as drivers are needed to keep the wheels turning, those wheels won’t even get out on the road without technicians. Back in March, Mobil Delvac held its 2018 Fleet Maintenance Forum in Louisville, Kentucky, the evening before the start of the Mid-America Trucking Show. The panel discussion was led by George Arrants, director of training and recruitment for the WheelTime Network and chairman  of the American Trucking Associations’ Technology and Maintenance Council Super Tech Competition and the Future Technicians Skills Competition. The discussion was titled, “Facing the Technician Shortage: How to Recruit and Retain Top Talent.” Arrants opened the discussion by challenging the premise that there truly is a technician shortage, showing that the raw numbers don’t bear that out. A 2014 survey showed there were 263,900 diesel technicians at the time and projected that by 2024 the industry will need to have 291,500. Allowing for the number of technicians expected to leave the profession for one reason or another, it’s estimated the industry will need to come up with 76,900 new technicians in that 10-year span. Meanwhile, technician programs at public and private schools are churning out an average of 10,700 graduates a year. “Do the math,” Arrants said — there shouldn’t be a shortage. So, what’s the problem? He and his fellow panelists proposed there isn’t so much a shortage of technicians as much as they are being squandered. Arrants said at events like this he likes to ask fleet representatives if it is really a shortage of applicants that’s the problem or of qualified applicants. “And nearly 90 percent of them say, ‘we have a shortage of qualified applicants,’” he said. He and his fellow panelists suggested that fleets need to look at their definition of “qualified,” and how they determine who meets that definition. Too many companies have come to rely on formulas and computerized algorithms in the application process, Arrants said. Panelist Mike Morvilius, vice president of maintenance for Moore Transport, agreed. When Moore Transport opened, he had no problem finding people, he said. But when he started to have to replace a few, he could place an ad and after a month he wouldn’t see a single candidate. He went down to the human resources department and found out that, yes, there had been applicants, but they’d all been rejected for not meeting the hiring criteria. “I’ve never been a big fan of ‘criteria,’” Morvilius said — very few of us go through life with a spotless record. From that point on, he insisted all applications have to cross his desk. Since then he’s hired some of his best people. Arrants suggested fleet executives submit their own resumés to see if they could get hired at their own companies, and “if you can’t even get out of the system, there’s a problem.” Speaking of criteria, Arrants added, if you’re the type who insists on years of experience, consider this: “If you start with entry-level technicians, the only bad habits they’ll have are the ones you teach them.” One of the most common comebacks Arrants hears is these new guys come out of the schools knowing nothing except how to rebuild engines. That’s a valid complaint, he said. “I’m sorry, but there’s not a company I know that’s going to let a 19-year-old work on a $60,000 engine.” ExxonMobil CVL applications engineer Paul Cigala works with fleets across the country to develop their maintenance programs, and hears the same complaint. “You have your entry level who’s probably changing oil, greasing, maybe some lighting/electrical work.” But too many entry-level technicians are coming out of school untrained in these areas. This is a national problem with a local solution, Arrants said. And that local solution, Mr. and Ms. Fleet Owner, is you. If you don’t like what the technician programs at your local schools are churning out, let them know what skills you need and offer your expertise and assistance. “You have to get involved,” Arrants said. “Industry has to drive the train.” Panelist Jerry Clemons, automotive and diesel technology program coordinator at Elizabethtown (Kentucky) Community and Technical College, can hold up is school as an example. “We have a very strong relationship with industry and have had for many years,” he said. The school conducts advisory committee meetings twice a year in which members of the industry are invited to provide feedback about the program. Local companies also help with donations of components, and even trucks and trailers. The curriculum is set up to give the students a wide range of knowledge, Clemons said. “Our students are in high demand and we don’t get any feedback that they are not ready for the industry teaching them what we teach,” Clemons said. More schools and companies are developing internships programs as part of their relationships, Clemons said. He’s also found local employers will hire promising students part-time while they’re finishing school. “The companies that are doing that are not having a problem,” Arrants said. They’re getting first crack at the best prospects before they graduate. But as so many trucking companies know all too well, getting employees in the door is one thing, holding onto them is another. This is particularly true with entry-level employees, Arrants added. “I tell people, we eat our young,” he said. “We take them out, first day on the job, throw them out in the shop and expect them to be productive. “Sometimes we’ll ask these kids to do a job, and they do it different than we do it. Then we think it’s wrong and we call them idiots or say, ‘I can’t believe you graduated from this school’ or whatever,” and so a lot of them quit. Older generations like to complain that millennials are too sensitive, they feel entitled, they’re lazy. But “we created them,” Arrants said, “We’ve been giving them trophies for coming in last place since they were 6 years old when we should have been saying, ‘pick another sport.’” But if you take this generation at face value and work with them, and you might be pleasantly surprised, he added. “We forget, at one point we were ‘those darned teenagers,’” Arrants said, and just like our parents’ generation found out, there comes a time when youth must be served. In 2000, baby boomers represented nearly half of the nation’s workforce. Today, baby boomers and Generation Xers combined make up less than half the workforce. Generation Y, the millennials — they’re the majority of your workforce now. Arrants advises his fellow “gray hairs or no hairs” to accept that today’s young adults didn’t have the experiences his generation did growing up. “We turned wrenches as a kid,” Arrants said. Guys grew up in the driveway, working on their bikes, then on some beater of a car. Not anymore. “When I taught 20 years ago, a kid knew what a Phillips screwdriver was, or a straight blade or whatever. Nowadays, we have to teach these kids what a screwdriver is, and that a torque bit is not a ‘star thing.’” There’s nothing you can assume they know, Arrants said. But don’t assume they can’t learn it. As always, it’s a matter of knowing how to motivate employees. When it comes to employee satisfaction, the whole work-life balance equation has changed, Arrants said, and that applies to time on the clock, as well. “One of my quotes is, do you treat your employees like your children or like your grandchildren?” he said. Fewer kids grow up in traditional, stable homes these days, Arrants said. Young workers value a clean, safe work environment and a sense that they’re part of a work family. Creating this sense of inclusion needs to start right at the beginning, Arrants said. He strongly suggests companies have designated mentors to show new people the ropes, both on the job and within the company culture. If the new technicians coming out of school seem a bit deficient, the panelists suggested, bear in mind that with the speed at which trucking technology is evolving, so is the definition of “qualified applicant.” The kids coming out of school today are generally a lot faster adopting new technology than their graybeard counterparts, Arrants said. “These kids have great skills,” he said. They may not be the skills of 20 or 30 years ago but that may be a good thing. While your older workers may have to show the newbies the right wrench to use, these kids may help demystify the latest electronic innovations to reluctant old-timers. As technology changes, so does the definition of “qualified,” Cigala pointed out. The training never really ends for technicians to keep up with changing times. “Some people think, ‘if you train them, they will leave,’” Arrants said. “But if you don’t train them, they may stay. Think about that.”

 Trucking Moves America Forward is getting its message seen across the country on 186 truck wraps, each seen by an estimated 16 million people a year. Quick quiz:  We’ve all heard of the company IBM, but do you know what the letters stand for? How about CBS? Or CVS, as in CVS Pharmacy? Chances are good you didn’t know all three. Over time some entities become so well-known by their acronym that it replaces the full name – KFC, anyone? In a few rare cases, the alphabet can disappear altogether and a logo becomes all a company needs to be identified, like those golden arches you see hovering over the next off-ramp. In Trucking Moves America Forward’s case, the name is the logo. But more people in trucking are starting to recognize “TMAF” and what it stands for, and that’s good enough for TMAF co-chairman Kevin Burch and executive committee member Elisabeth Barna. “The branding has been established, and now it’s starting to resonate to the point that people understand what we are doing,” Barna said at the Mid-American Trucking Show in late March. It was four years earlier at MATS that TMAF was born, created to accentuate and project a positive image of the trucking industry. Every year when MATS rolls around, TMAF marks its unofficial birthday by releasing their annual report, which this year was titled “The Many Faces of Trucking.” Prior to MATS, Burch, Barna and other TMAF officials held a press teleconference to highlight some of last year’s successes. They pointed to the organization’s trailer wrap program, which spreads positive images and information about the trucking industry on the sides of tractor-trailers around the country. It grew to 184 trucks in 2017. Each truck is seen by an estimated 16 million sets of eyes on the highway. The wraps, Barna said, “they’re like rolling billboards.” An actual billboard campaign during National Truck Driver Awareness Week generated another estimated 17.4 million impressions. TMAF’s presence on social media grew in 2017, they reported. The group’s Facebook page now has over 13,500 followers, a 17 percent growth. Twitter followers rose by 32 percent, LinkedIn followers rose 39 percent, and Instagram followers more than doubled. TMAF also launched a blog on Medium, an online publishing forum, which is already closing in on 100 followers. TMAF’s profile got a big boost when Burch and others from the group were part of a contingent headed by the American Trucking Associations that visited the White House last spring and invited President Donald Trump to climb up inside a cab to see what today’s truck looks like. And, of course, 2017 saw the debut of Safety Sammy, TMAF’s mascot and goodwill ambassador. Officially named at last year’s Great American Trucking Show in Dallas, the anthropomorphic truck has been touring the country, drawing attention to TMAF and its mission. About midway through MATS, Burch and Barna sat down to talk about how far TMAF has come in raising its profile and getting out its message. “It’s amazing to think of how much progress we have made,” Burch said.  Both he and Barna acknowledged that when TMAF began they knew that improving trucking’s image was going to take time. “Let’s face it, we didn’t get to this situation overnight,” Burch said. Trucking’s lived with an image problem for decades. He recounted an incident 15 years ago when that was made bluntly clear to him. He’d been asked to speak at a high school career day. Two days before the event, he got a call from the principal, who apologized and told him that several of the parents had looked at the list of scheduled presenters and asked that both trucking and tool and die be pulled from the career day itinerary. A big part of trucking’s problem is that much of the public’s perception is frozen in some decades-old stereotype. This is why so much of TMAF’s strategy to improve trucking’s image is with imagery, they explained. TMAF conducts polls on a regular basis, Barna said. They have found that the more someone knows somebody in the trucking industry, the better their perception of the industry is.  But even if it’s just on a billboard or truck wrap, adding a picture of a truck driver, especially with their family, up there with a few bullet points improves viewer response. The same study that determined every trailer wrap generates 16 million views also found that 97.5 percent of vewers were left with a positive impression of the industry. The expansion of the visual campaign and the increased social media presence give TMAF officials reason to celebrate because it indicates the organization has entered a new phase in its long-term strategy. From the beginning, Barna said, the belief has been that the best way to improve trucking’s image is to first improve its self-image.  That’s why for the first few years of its existence TMAF focused most of its efforts within the industry. “There are so many times, you’ll hear someone say, ‘well, I’m just a truck driver,’” Barna said. “Just a truck driver? Do you know how important you are to everyone’s everyday lives? It goes back to having respect for what you do yourself, and then you gain respect from everyone else. “If you’re proud of what you do and you gain respect for that, you’re a much better driver and a much better ambassador for the industry.” Every year TMAF does a callout, asking people in trucking to send in photos of themselves and their trucks. The response grows every year. “It’s exciting to see people that want to get involved,” Barna said. Having a good feeling about the trucking profession – this is where Safety Sammy comes in. Burch recalled he was at the National Truck Driving Championships a couple years ago and noticed they had a big duck mascot. He started thinking, “Why don’t we have a mascot?” Sports teams have them, and they become symbols for fans to rally around. Sammy presents the friendliest of images for trucking. And, of course, he’s a kid magnet, which hopefully will have long-term benefits. The industry is going to need a million new drivers in the next 10 years, Burch said. It will be a lot easier to convince young people to consider a career in trucking if they have a positive impression of the industry from a young age. In the shorter term, TMAF is doing what it can to show people who are already driving age that trucking is a lot more appealing than those old stereotypes. Truck drivers today might be your next-door neighbor. They’re raising families, going to your church. They sleep in the same bed every night, Barna quipped, the only difference is that bed moves around the country. Burch pointed out another facet of improving the image of trucking is to improve the image of trucks. That White House visit was a great example of how people react when they see a modern, well-maintained cab. “The president wanted to get up into one of the trucks,” Burch recalled. He said when Trump climbed in with an instructor, he shut the door behind him, much to the dismay of the Secret Service. Later, the instructor said the president asked him about the all new safety technology he’d been hearing about. That’s pretty typical, Burch said. Whether it’s a congressman or your average citizen, “when they look inside the reaction is, ’Whoa! This isn’t what I thought it looked like.’” “The comfort area has drastically changed, just like the way cars are today compared to like in the ’60s and ’70s,” Burch added. And then when you start explaining all the safety technology: lane departure, anti-rollover, etc., younger people especially are impressed. “We’re safer today than we were 20 or 30 years ago,” he said. Of course, not everyone who sees what modern trucks are like is going to run out and get their CDL. But everything that helps show people what trucks and the people who drive them are really like today plays a part in TMAF’s mission. “Telling the story, that’s what it’s really all about,” Barna said. FYI – in case you are still wondering, IBM stands for International Business Machines, CBS was originally the Columbia Broadcasting System, and CVS Pharmacy once went by the name Consumer Value Stores.

Ari Fleischer, who served as press secretary for President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003, assessed the current state of American politics in general and the Donald Trump presidency in particular as the keynote speaker Monday at the 80th annual Truckload Carriers Association Convention (Courtesy: WIKIPEDIA) Statistically, they say, public speaking is the number one fear people have. Ari Fleischer is not among those people. For more than 30 years, high-level communications has been his specialty. Beginning in the mid-1980s, he has served as press secretary for three members of Congress, as well as stints as field-director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, and as spokesman for the House of Representatives’ Ways and Means Committee. He then served as deputy communications director for George H.W. Bush’s 1992 re-election campaign and as communications director for Elizabeth Dole’s presidential campaign in 2000. When Dole dropped out of the race, Fleischer joined George W. Bush’s presidential campaign after Dole dropped out of the race. When Bush was elected, Fleischer was hired on to stand on the loftiest stage on Earth, as White House press secretary. He held the job for two and a half years. His tenure included the always difficult breaking-in period for the new administration, made even more hectic following the protracted 2000 election challenge. He was travelling with Bush on 9-11, and then stood as White House spokesman during the run-up to two wars. So taking the stage Monday as the keynote speaker before a friendly crowd at the Truckload Carriers Association’s 8oth Annual Convention at the Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center in Kissimmee, Florida, was hardly a white-knuckle moment. Like any polished speaker, Fleischer opened with a little ice-breaker. “Now, I realize that this isn’t a religious meeting or a religious event, but I came here to make a confession,” Fleischer said. For a man who’s travelled in the circles he has, there was no telling how big a bombshell this could be. Without hesitation, he spilled it. “I was actually raised as a liberal democrat,” he said. “My parents to this day remain proud principled Democrats who were horrified that I went to work for President George W Bush.” In fact, he said when he left the White House in 2003, when the local newspaper asked his mother about his work there, “she told them that this was a phase I was going through.” “My father told the same little local newspaper that if his son was going to rebel, it’s better I became a Republican than a drug dealer, but not by much.” Fleischer told the crowd his transformation occurred while he was attending Middlebury College in Vermont. He said Jimmy Carter’s presidency turned him from a liberal to a conservative, then Ronald Reagan’s administration inspired him to switch parties. He said it’s possible he’s the only person in the history of Vermont to arrive a liberal and leave a conservative. Fleischer then recalled waiting in Texas as the 2000 election dispute was being sorted out. Bush, who by this point had made Fleischer something of an honorary Texan by nicknaming him Ari-Bob, grew concerned that they were losing time for their transition. He sent Fleischer ahead to Washington. “When I returned to Washington and when I drove past the White House, I averted my gaze,” he said. “I could not bring myself to look at that building” until the election was confirmed and he drove for the first time into the White House grounds. He said a few months later, in April, he got a note saying to meet the president out on the South Lawn for a game of catch. Bush had been asked to go to Milwaukee to throw out the first pitch at the Milwaukee Brewers’ new ballpark. Bush is a competitive guy, Fleischer said, and he wanted to make sure his pitch was a good one. “So at the appointed hour I showed up at 6 o’clock on the South Lawn in a business suit along with the baseball glove I always keep in the trunk of my car. The president had the advantage of living there, he showed up in sweatpants and a bulletproof jacket.” At one point Bush threw one in the dirt and it scooted past Fleischer halfway across the South Lawn. He went after it, threw it back, and as he was jogging back, that’s when he was hit with a, “Wow, look at where I am” moment. “I can’t begin to tell you how much I loved my years at the White House,” Fleischer said. That is the key to being good at the job, he believes. “The heart of that job is to believe, to believe in your boss, to faithfully articulate that what the boss, the president of the United States, is thinking and why. And in that sense, the white house press secretary job as easy job.” It may not have always seemed that way, but he said he loved working with the White House press corp. They were tough and smart. They could be cynical and mean. It was a lot of fun. “I viewed that job as engaging in intellectual chess,” he said. “I knew if I said A that it would prompt them to ask question B. And I already had to be thinking about answer C, knowing that would prompt them to ask question D, and I was already thinking about answer E. Even though that game ended for him nearly 15 years ago, Fleischer keeps close tabs on what’s happening at today’s White House. He can analyze and assess the current White House with a perspective few people have and that he’s happy to share. That was why he was there, he said, to explain how Donald Trump managed to get elected president and how the administration is doing so far. “American politics is going through a massive, massive change,” he said. “Huge trends that we accepted as the norm for decades are in flux and are likely to shatter.” The 2016 election was the first time the country elected a president who had neither a political nor a military background. “We have never elected a pure outsider to the presidency and that in and of itself tells you something about the mood of America,” he said. Trump’s path to victory confounded so many of the experts, Fleischer said, because it was strewn with so many controversial statements, any one of which would have derailed most campaigns. “Those statements didn’t doom him,” Flescher said. “In many ways it propelled him forward.” That’s what the sophisticated, educated experts refused to accept, Fleischer said. “Most Americans just plain don’t like or trust Washington, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is why Donald trump’s statements, particularly the most politically incorrect statements that he made actually define him as just what people were looking for.” Americans were willing to elect an outsider, even if he came with obvious, glaring flaws. Even if his mouth gets him in trouble sometimes. “Think about this, Fleischer added. “the two Republican candidates who did the best in the Republican primaries are the ones that experts hated the most, Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.” This has tremendous implications for the future of the Republican party, Fleischer said. Likewise, in the general election, he beat Hillary Clinton by chipping away at almost every demographic group that had helped push Barack Obama over the top in 2008 and 2012. The largest inroads were with people who make less than $30,000 a year. “These are the people who typically succumb to the notion that Republicans are the party of the rich, that Republicans don’t care about you,” Fleischer said. This points to a sea change occurring in American politics. The two major parties seem to be slowly trading their electoral bases, Fleischer said. “Where previously the Republicans always, always, always won college graduates, Democrats are starting to increasingly become the party that represents college graduates. Where typically Democrats have cleaned the clocks of Republicans along the lower income, blue-collar working people, particularly those with high school degrees, those voters are increasingly becoming Republican.” But now that Trump is president, Fleischer said, he’s finding out how difficult it can be to govern. His favorable rating is almost as high as when he took office, but his unfavorable rating has shot up by 10 points. “The intensity of the opposition to Donald Trump among the Democratic base is fierce,” Fleischer said. And to be honest, he added, Trump brings a lot of that on himself. “If Trump were a balance sheet, the deficit side would lead off with his tweets,” Fleischer said. “There are the meanspirited attacks he’s made on people. His firing of James Comey, his failure to immediately denounce the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis in Charlottesville. The White House staff situation is a mess, and continues to be a mess, and that’s disappointing.” But there are many plusses, Fleischer said. The markets are up, as are consumer confidence and job growth. “At long last he’s freed up the military to fight and to win, which is why Isis has been largely destroyed.” He has stood up to China about intellectual property rights and other issues. At home he’s letting the business community know that they no longer have to fear additional regulations and additional tax hikes. His appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court and conservative judges throughout the judiciary is powerfully important to the future, Fleischer said. There have been ups and downs, Fleischer said, but success for the Trump presidency is going to boil down to the economy, and particularly whether or not blue-collar, working Americans start to see yearly pay raises again. If that happens, “Donald Trump can have a powerful, successful presidency,” Fleischer said. But there are a couple of caveats. One is the Mueller investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia and what comes of that. The other is Trump himself, if he’s made himself so personally unpopular that he will not get credit for the positive things that are happening. “If I were a White House aide today, that would be my biggest worry,” he said. “They don’t need to shake things up. They need to calm things down.” Fleischer pointed out that when the tax reform bill went through, Trump’s popularity and that of congressional Republicans all went up. “There is a clue and a lesson there. Get things done.” Fleischer ended his speech with a final point. In the last election, he said, young voters preferred Clinton, older voters voted for Trump. Single voters went for Clinton, married voters preferred Trump. “So, for my absolutely unbiased, nonideological point of view, I hope that everybody in this room who is young, may you get older. And anybody here who is single, may you find someone at this meeting.”