Self-Driving Truck Loses Its Remote Connection, But Not Its Shot at Milestone Achievement

Starsky Robotics

Article thanks to Pete Bigelow and caranddriver.com. Links provided:

March, 2018  From his vantage point in a car a few dozen feet in front of a 20,000-pound big rig barreling along a Florida highway without anyone behind its wheel, Stefan Seltz-Axmacher felt like everything was going according to plan.

As the founder of self-driving-truck startup Starsky Robotics, he had spent more than two years building to this moment, when a truck with no human sitting in the front seat, no safety driver waiting in the sleeper berth, no human anywhere on board, would trundle along a public road. Now, watching the first two miles of the groundbreaking journey from a lead car riding in front of the tractor-trailer, he confessed that it all felt routine. Maybe even, like the reality of so much of current autonomous-vehicle testing, boring.

And that’s precisely when the truck inexplicably slowed and stopped in the middle of the road.

“I’m thinking, ‘This is not planned,’ ” Seltz-Axmacher said. “And so we get out and turn off the engine and start investigating.”

Starsky Robotics engineers tested and developed the autonomous-driving system, which has been installed in the Freightliner Cascadia for more than a year, and had spent a full week conducting dry runs on the stretch of County Road 833 in southern Florida, just north of the Everglades. They had plotted every conceivable contingency and every imaginable edge-case scenario.

In doing so, they illustrated one of the more vexing aspects of automated driving not just for themselves, but for every company that is developing self-driving technology: For all the tens of thousands of scenarios gathered through millions of miles of testing, it’s the unforeseen outlier that looms as the one of the most complicated challenges in deploying a self-driving vehicle.

On this highly anticipated mid-February afternoon, during the most important test to date, that outlier was the improbable circumstance that the building housing the company’s remote operations team in Plantation, Florida, lost power. When the truck lost its signal from the teleoperations center, dozens of miles away from the test road, it immediately went into a safe mode and came to a gradual stop in its lane of travel.

Far from what was expected, but for Seltz-Axmacher and his team, it was reassuring to see the truck proved it could handle the unexpected.

“Of all the different flaws that could have happened, all those things we tested and expected, we never tested shutting down the power to the building,” he said. “But by having this safety architecture in place, you are able to be confident that if a failure happens, even weird failures that have never happened to us before, we will catch them. If we catch them, we will come to a stop.”

Taking Driverless to New Levels

Once the issue was identified and power restored, the company continued the fully driverless journey and completed five more miles of testing along the intended route. One day later, Starsky Robotics completed the entire seven-mile stretch along County Road 833 without a human aboard, and without incident.

Among companies developing self-driving-truck technology, it’s believed that this was the first fully driverless test on a public road with no human safety driver aboard. In October 2016, Otto, a self-driving truck subsidiary of Uber, conducted a 120-mile test along Interstate 25 between Fort Collins and Colorado Springs, Colorado, but it had a human safety driver monitoring the test from the bunk. Since then, Otto has been folded into a unit of the company now known as Uber Freight.

Both tests were highly structured, in that local officials and law enforcement had shut down the roads temporarily or worked to separate the test trucks from regular traffic. But for Seltz-Axmacher, last month’s test, conducted at a maximum speed of 35 miles per hour, was another milepost in the race to deploy autonomous trucks.

“It’s a huge deal for us, and a really big sign of how serious we are,” he said. “The other teams have not done that. We can test all day long with someone behind the wheel and everyone could just focus on testing reliability and growing a feature set of what their system can do. They can make each thing reliable enough that it doesn’t fail often—but if it does, it can be controlled by the person behind the wheel.

“But the problem we’re trying to solve is the person in the truck. It’s time to do unmanned testing.”

Eleven months ago, Starsky Robotics started using self-driving trucks to haul commercial freight, and it fine-tuned its system in truck yards, hauling everything from 5000 pounds of milk crates to 40,000 pounds of tile. Last fall, a truck hauled bottled water to Florida residents affected by Hurricane Irma. It traveled a 68-mile stretch of Interstate 75 between Fort Myers and Miami under control of its self-driving system without requiring any intervention from its human safety driver.

Starsky’s steady progression has brought the notice of venture-capital firms. On Thursday, the company announced that Shasta Ventures has led a funding round that has collectively raised $16.5 million. Other investors include Y Combinator, Trucks Venture Capital, Fifty Years, and 9Point Ventures.

Over the remainder of 2018, Seltz-Axmacher said, the company intends to up the frequency of its unmanned testing runs, which will include freight hauls at some point. Florida is the current location for testing, but Starsky likely will expand to other states by year’s end.

Remote Connections Grow in Importance

Although based in the Bay Area, the company cannot test in its home state because California prohibits automated testing of vehicles that weigh 10,001 pounds or more. But the California Department of Motor Vehicles and others may nonetheless want to pay close attention to the company and its experience with teleoperations, a slice of autonomous operations that’s increasing in importance.

In late February, the California DMV finalized revised statewide regulations that govern autonomous testing which permit the testing of fully driverless vehicles with no safety drivers aboard, as long as the cars can be controlled through remote operations.

In Starsky’s case, cameras installed in the cab and around the truck give remote operators a bird’s-eye view around the truck. These operators can take control and remotely guide the truck through situations that its self-driving systems can’t comprehend on their own. For example, one of the company’s trucks approached an intersection where a fire truck was parked near the shoulder of the road and a firefighter was standing in the middle of the road directing traffic. Although a safety driver was aboard the test truck, remote operators guided the truck through the intersection.

“If a vehicle in front of the truck slams on its brakes, that’s a safety-critical decision that’s handled by the truck itself,” Seltz-Axmacher said. “Decisions where teleoperations are involved take five to 15 seconds to make; they’re not safety critical. It’s ‘I’m stuck behind a slow-moving vehicle. Should I pass or not?’ ” Those kinds of decisions are easy to make in the office.”

And when the office unexpectedly closes down, the trucks make the safest decision of all:  simply stop.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a19177797/self-driving-truck-loses-its-remote-connection-but-not-its-shot-at-milestone-achievement/?fbclid=IwAR0wpV1TnLW5c7l2OrnBbIGzkh_Fk50wQjU_s1cyxABrgUIvmxOgyoUqApg

Railroads have spent a lot of money the last 10 years, and customers have barely benefitted: FTR speaker

Article thanks to John Kingston and freightwaves.com. Links provided:

After spending plenty of money on investment in the last 10-plus years, the nation's class 1 railroads are basically standing still.

That was the sobering view presented by John Schmitter, a former railroad executive who now heads his own consultancy, KEP LLC. Addressing the 2018 FTR Transportation Conference in Indiana, his subject's title--"How Technology will Change Rail Economics"--reviewed how technology has made those changes, and yet has provided little shift in overall network velocity and essentially no increase in capacity since 2005.

All of that came to a head last year, Schmitter noted, with the rapid deterioration of rail service, a downward shift severe enough to have the Surface Transportation Board put the class 1 railroads under review.

With the failure to invest in more capacity, Schmitter said, "there's not much system resiliency or flexibility on most railroads. Rapid unexpected volume increases have and will result in congestion and service deterioration that can last months." And that's what happened in 2017, running into 2018.

If there's a culprit in all this, Schmitter said, it's the investment community. "If the railroads invested in too much capacity, Wall Street would kill them," Schmitter said. The lack of resiliency in the system, Schmitter said, "is a management a decision."

"A few railroads invested more than half their operating cash flow back into the systems," according to Schmitter, "but if it gets out of line and Wall Street finds they overinvested in capacity, they'll find some new management."

And when spending is undertaken to make needed fixes, it's too late. "The investments that are being made now are being done to handle the volume that showed up in 2017," he said.

Citing the weather for the 2017-2018 is misplaced, Schmitter said. "The reason was rapid unexpected increases in volumes, because the system by design is capacity constrained."

Schmitter asked the meeting's attendees in the room how many of them were rail customers, and how many had suffered disruptions during the recent disturbance. Of the hands that went up the first time, most of them stayed up when the second question was asked. But when Schmitter asked how many had changed carriers or moved that business over to trucks, virtually all hands went down. "So there's no penalty," Schmitter said.

Schmitter noted that the class 1 railroad competitive market basically boiled down to--though he did not mention the companies by name--BNSF vs. Union Pacific (NYSE: UNP) in the West, CSX (NYSE: CSX) vs. Norfolk Southern (NYSE: NSC) in the east, with Canadian Pacific (NYSE: CP) and Canadian National (NYSE: CNI) in Canada with their systems extending into the U.S. (He did not mention Kansas City Southern (NYSE: KSC), but they view themselves as the "NAFTA railroad" into Mexico.) With that minimal level of rail competition, most locations have only one option on the rails, with a duopoly at best. Asked if that situation inspires companies to innovate, Schmitter said he questioned "that it's any one's goal to be better than the other guy. It's not really a competitive marketplace like you would experience in trucking."

The lack of capacity is stopping railroads from aggressively grabbing freight from a driver- and capacity-squeezed trucking market. "They haven't been able to take advantage of all the problems with trucking, and technology is not going to make it happen," Schmitter said. "This is a management issue, a strategic issue and a cultural issue." The goal, he said, needs to change company operations to ensure that "the shipments will be there when they are promised."

The reduction in capacity combined with the rise in demand for that capacity means that on multiple occasions in recent years, traffic on the rails has approached capacity. "Capacity on class 1 railroads is now closely matched to projected volume," Schmitter said. Echoing what he heard a rail CEO say about the capacity crunch, Schmitter exclaimed: "It's five minutes to midnight."

The lack of significant progress since 2005 is in stark contrast to the gains made between 1980 and that year. The start of that stretch, in 1980, is significant because it marks the year of the Staggers Act, which deregulated the U.S. rail industry. Not all of the gains in efficiency were because of technology, Schmitter said; some of it was just simply the abandonment of unnecessary capacity. But during that 25-year stretch, the productivity of employees and the network rose significantly, with volume up 84% while capacity has had no significant increase. The average freight per train is up 63%, according to Schmitter.

But now, Schmitter was mostly pessimistic: "I think things will get more efficient and safer, and there will be a good impact on the (operating ratio). But I don't see technology providing more capacity or to do much more for service."

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/railroads-spending-ftr-conference?utm_source=FreightWaves+Daily+Newsletter+Subscribers&utm_campaign=82a03fff01-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_09_12_04_47&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6b16748ce6-82a03fff01-96725731

Semis involved in fatal collision shouldn't have been on road: Driver trainer

Article thanks to Jason Warick and cbc.ca. Links provided:

Saskatchewan semi drivers are required to pass a road test, but hundreds have passed without any training

Originally Published Nov. 26, 2018  The three semi-trailers connected to the death of a Rosetown firefighter should not have been on the road that morning, says one of Saskatchewan's most experienced driving trainers.

"What were those trucks doing on the highway?" said Reg Lewis. "I don't care whose load was on those trucks. I would never have left Rosetown."

Lewis, a certified semi driving instructor for the past 22 years, was in Rosetown Wednesday morning. He was supposed to take a student for his semi road test. But Lewis postponed the test after seeing the thick fog and icy conditions.

"You couldn't see a block down the street in town. I never left until 1:00," he said.

According to RCMP, at 9:00 a.m. Wednesday, two semi-trailers collided on Highway 4 roughly 20 kilometres north of Rosetown. One semi was attempting to come on to the highway when it was struck by the other.

No one was seriously injured, but Rosetown volunteer firefighter Darrell James Morrison was killed after arriving at the scene to help. He was struck by a third semi and died shortly after being transported to Rosetown hospital.

Lewis, whose own parents were killed in a collision with a semi, said mandatory, extensive training is the key.

Saskatchewan semi drivers are required to pass a road test, but hundreds have passed without any training. Lewis said mandatory training time on the road with a certified instructor will save lives.

"I don't believe any of these trucks is doing anything on purpose. I do believe that it's inexperience and not thinking far enough ahead," he said.

Lewis noted that another Saskatchewan man was killed in a semi collision Wednesday morning just one hour earlier near Wakaw.

A semi hauling crusher dust collided with a car just outside Wakaw. The semi driver was uninjured but the man in the car was declared dead at the scene. His name has not been released.

RCMP said Friday there is no new information on either fatality and both investigations are ongoing.

Lewis and others have been vocal advocates for mandatory semi driver training since 16 people aboard the Humboldt Broncos team bus were killed in a collision with a semi April 6. They say mandatory training would save lives.

Ontario is the only province with mandatory training, but Alberta and other provinces have set time frames to make training mandatory. Saskatchewan officials announced a mandatory training course in the weeks following the Broncos crash, but then reversed their position the same day. They've said things need to improve and they're looking at all options.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/semis-involved-fatal-collision-shouldn-t-have-been-on-road-driving-trainer-1.4920052?fbclid=IwAR3do8AdfAmhMw88dtQRoiBka9mcaSiv11qavdoBjYvTQY9pTbxA5UjVhio

Could a Verdict in Arkansas Transform Driver Pay?

istockphoto.com

Article thanks to truckinginfo.com. Links provided:

Oct. 22, 2018  A federal court in Arkansas ruled that drivers are entitled to earn minimum wage for all hours worked – even during waiting periods officially entered as "off duty" in log books – in a case that could eventually have national implications.

According to various news sources, including Business Insider, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas, Fayetteville division, on Oct. 19 ruled again Tontitown, Arkansas-based PAM Transport, in a class action suit for alleged violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act. 

The court denied PAM's motions to dismiss the claims of the three truck drivers who sued PAM in 2016 and the nearly 3,000 drivers who joined the class action suit. The decision means, in essence, that the court has decided that the time a driver spends waiting in his truck in the sleeper birth still constitutes work — even though the driver may log that time as "off-duty."

According to Justin Swindler, the attorney representing the drivers in the class action suit, the Arkansas decision suggests that drivers are entitled to minimum wage for 16 hours per workday — every hour spent in the truck save for eight hours of sleep time. Because the carrier has hired the employee with the knowledge that part of their job duties are waiting, the Supreme Court has argued that those employees should be paid even though they are not actively carrying out a work task.

As District Court Judge Timothy Brooks wrote in his Oct. 19 memorandum on the PAM case:

There is no ambiguity here, then, as to whether an employer must count as hours worked the time that an employee spends riding in a commercial truck while neither sleeping nor eating: time thus spent "is working" and "any work" performed "while traveling must... be counted as hours worked."

The judge also said that the DOT hours of service regulations "have little, if any, bearing on the matter at hand."

"It's worth noting the case only stands for the proposition that carriers must pay their drivers $7.25 per hour," Swidler told Business Insider. "Under the FLSA, hourly wages are considered over the course of a whole workweek. This means that while carriers nationwide should understand their minimum wage exposure, companies which pay reasonable wages to their drivers have no reason for concern."

The payout for this case hasn't been determined yet, Swidler added. In 2015, PAM paid truckers $3.45 million in a similar settlement concerning a class action suit by employees who alleged PAM didn't pay them minimum wage.

The Arkansas decision echoes other recent lawsuits around the country that have found in favor of drivers. Last year, a Nebraska court decided that Werner Enterprises must pay $780,000 to 52,000 student truck drivers for alleged pay practice violations. Another major carrier, C.R. England, paid $2.35 million in back wages to more than 6,000 drivers in 2016.

https://www.truckinginfo.com/317276/could-a-verdict-in-arkansas-last-week-transform-driver-pay

Officials scrambling for solution as truckers refuse to use Indiana toll roads following truck-only toll increase

Article thanks to Wimberly Patton and livetrucking.com. Links provided:

Citizens living off of these backroad highways have been noticing the traffic increase and are urging officials to do more than just post “no through trucks signs.”

Oct 18, 2018  The recent 35% increase in truck only tolls on roadways in Indiana has led to some unintended consequences – truckers are now avoiding the toll roads altogether and are instead using back roads not meant for large commercial vehicles.

The toll increase went into effect on October 5th of this year as part of a $1 billion infrastructure plan by Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb, who claims that the 35% truck-only toll increase is fair because of the damage large trucks do to roadways, despite the fact that much of the money raised by the tolls will be used for improving the state’s railroads, airports, ship ports, walking and biking trails, and even broadband internet – none of which have to do with the roadways truckers are now paying heavily to use.

Now that the increase has been in effect for several weeks, state officials who previously ignored naysayers who advised that the toll hike would deter truckers entirely are noticing a decrease in toll road users and an increase in commercial truck’s usage of back roads such as US Highway 30, US Highway 6, and US Highway 331, reported ABC 57.

“I think that with the regular increases that we’ve had here and then seeing a 35 percent increase again I think you’ll find a lot of traffic is going to leave those [toll] lanes,” explained Chief Strategy Officer of Holver Lines, Carl Svendsen.

“They may make the decision to go on a different highway and that highway may not be designed to handle truck traffic in significant volumes,” he continued – and that’s exactly what is happening.

Citizens living off of these backroad highways have been noticing the traffic increase and are urging officials to do more than just post “no through trucks signs.”

“This is a main through fair for the shortcut from Bremen down to US30 so everybody takes this versus 331 a lot to save them several miles,” said Patrick Walters, who has been living on Fir Road off of US 30 for 25 years.

“[No through trucks] is posted on both ends of Fir Road that we don’t allow trucks, but they’re still using them [the road],” Walters said.

“Have them [police] start issuing tickets to people that are speeding, also the truck traffic,” he suggested.

Because of all this, the state will vote on an ordinance that may allow for clearer enforcement regarding the use of county roads in November but until then, trucking companies warn that drivers will likely continue to avoid the toll roads and that the cost of shipping goods through Indiana may spike if drivers and their companies are forced into paying tolls.

http://livetrucking.com/officials-scrambling-for-solution-as-truckers-refuse-to-use-indiana-toll-roads-following-truck-only-toll-increase/?fbclid=IwAR1rNvfS3lFVFfV64ECEONKaP2zE3RYACM6s7WMmsN82Yq5i6UYJ1RWc2jw

'Lives are hanging in the balance': Why some newly licensed truckers aren't ready for the road

This report from north of the border thanks to Eric Szeto, David Common, Vincent LeClair · CBC News · Links provided:

Oct 12, 2018  Undercover novice trucker earns his licence in Saskatchewan but fails Marketplace road test in Ontario

Tractor-trailers can measure up to 23 metres long carry 30-tonne loads and barrel down the highway at high speeds, but in some provinces you need more training to give a haircut than to haul freight.

A hidden-camera investigation by CBC's Marketplace reveals how Canada's patchwork training and testing system leaves some new truck drivers ill-prepared to operate big rigs — the giants of the road that are involved in about 20 per cent of deadly crashes in this country.

Truck driver testing standards vary from province to province, but perhaps even more dramatic is the disparity in training standards. Many Canadians might be shocked to learn Ontario is the only province that currently has any truck driver training requirements at all.

That means depending on where a truck driver is based, they may have had more than 100 hours of in-class and on-the-road training before getting their licence — or none at all.

"I am completely on board with saying that seems crazy," said Carole Dore, an instructor at the Ontario Truck Driving School in London.

To test those disparities, Marketplace sent an undercover student, equipped with a hidden camera, to a truck driving school in Saskatoon, where he completed 16 hours of training before passing a 45-minute provincial road test to earn his Class 1 commercial driver's licence.

The newly licensed truck driver, a 51-year-old Saskatoon business owner named Heath Muggli, then underwent a series of skill-testing challenges at the Ontario Truck Driving School, which participated in Marketplace's experiment. The evaluation included an unofficial road test led by Dore.

The goal was to have Muggli demonstrate the skills necessary to earn his Class 1 licence in Ontario, where drivers are required to complete more than 103 hours of instruction before they can even take the test.

Muggli failed almost every challenge, including one of the most basic tasks required of any trucker: properly connecting a trailer to the truck.

"It's plainly not safe to be on the road," Dore said. "Just because he has his licence doesn't mean he's ready."

Canada's trucking safety standards came under intense scrutiny last spring after the horrific crash in Saskatchewan involving a tractor-trailer and a bus carrying the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team that killed 16 people.

The truck driver, Jaskirat Singh Sidhu, 29, of Calgary, had reportedly only completed two weeks of training before getting his commercial licence. And two different Humboldt families told Marketplace that the RCMP informed them Sidhu was making his first trip alone as a professional.

He is awaiting trial on 16 counts of dangerous driving causing death and 13 counts of dangerous driving causing bodily injury.

Once someone gets a Class 1 licence in Canada, they are able to drive trucks of virtually any size anywhere in North America. (Drivers of trucks with an air or air-over-hydraulic brake system may have to pass additional tests to obtain the required endorsement on their licence.)  

So, despite having tougher training and testing standards for truck drivers, Ontario's roads aren't necessarily safer than those of other provinces.

The number of truck crashes has gone down in recent years, but there are still tens of thousands of collisions leading to hundreds of deaths in Canada each year.

Saskatchewan vs. Ontario

Marketplace enlisted Muggli to go undercover at Maximum Training in Saskatoon. His week of training included a total of 16 hours of training, 12 of which were behind the wheel.

While Muggli learned many of the skills necessary to drive a truck safely, some important lessons weren't covered, including how to couple a trailer and how to back in to a loading dock.

The skills he wasn't taught weren't part of the test — although they are in Ontario. And much of the route he drove during training was part of the provincial road test.

He passed, but earned five demerits for making a wide turn.

• Owner of trucking company involved in Humboldt crash charged

• 'It's still the Wild West out there,' father of Humboldt crash victim says after charges laid

As Maximum Training owner Earle Driedger explained, the training is geared around what's required to get a Class 1 licence in Saskatchewan.

"If a client only takes a one-week course, we have to show them as much as we can in a short period of time," he said in an email after Marketplace shared the findings of its investigation.

In Saskatchewan, the examiner can be an employee of Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI), the province's public insurer, or an instructor at a certified school.

In Muggli's case, his instructor was also his examiner.

"Road tests need to be made more challenging," Driedger said. "Testing should only be done by third-party examiners … We are in full support of mandatory training, but it has fallen on deaf ears."

Stephen Laskowski, president of the Canadian Trucking Alliance, the country's largest trucking industry group, agrees the testing standards in Saskatchewan are not tough enough.

"The test is not reflective of the occupational requirements to drive a truck, which it always should be."

'Humbling' experience

To see how ready Muggli was to operate a big rig, the Ontario Truck Driving School worked with Marketplace to stage a professional trucking test similar to what a company would ask a potential employee to complete before getting hired.

The test was based on Ontario's revamped test for commercial truck drivers.

It included doing a pre-trip inspection, coupling and uncoupling the trailer, emergency procedure preparedness, and a road test with a partially loaded trailer.

Muggli made extra wide turns that led to close calls with other vehicles. At one point, instructor Carole Dore had to pull the emergency brake because Muggli was about to run a red light into oncoming traffic.

She said Muggli failed the test before leaving the parking lot.

Muggli called the experience "humbling."

"I wouldn't say that I was overconfident, but I thought, 'OK, I'm somewhat comfortable doing this,' and it was a terrific illustration today of how unready I am."

Stephen Laskowski of the Canadian Trucking Alliance said the vast majority of trucking companies would never hire someone with Muggli's experience and skill level in the first place.

But "the frightening thing," he said, is the "bottom-feeders" just might, which puts Canadians at risk.

Driver shortage

Canada is facing a severe driver shortage and needs tens of thousands of new truckers to replace those who are retiring.

The combination of the driver shortage and the added costs associated with mandatory training for students could be one reason provinces have been reluctant to impose tougher standards, Laskowski said.

• 'He loved the farm': A bitter harvest for family of youngest Humboldt Broncos victim

Since Ontario introduced its mandatory entry-level training requirements in 2017, only Alberta has committed to introducing its own version in 2019. Saskatchewan and Manitoba are considering changes but have not provided timelines.

"We know improvements are required," Joe Hargrave, the Saskatchewan minister responsible for SGI, said in a statement. "SGI officials have been working since last summer with industry and stakeholders to improve and standardize a training program for Class 1 drivers."

'Needs to be much stricter training'

Pattie Babij of Falkland, B.C., isn't willing to wait for the provinces to catch up.

She plans to present Transportation Minister Marc Garneau with a petition asking for a federal licensing program that would include mandatory training.

Her husband, Stephen Babij, was killed in 2017 after a semi crossed into his lane and collided head-on with his semi on a mountain road near near Revelstoke, B.C. The driver of the other truck was fined $2,000 for careless driving.​

Babij has since had to sell their farm and move to Alberta, she said.

"Why does a hairstylist require more training than a professional driver pulling, you know, just under 40,000 kilograms?" she said.

"There needs to be a much stricter training component. I really, really want it to be done federally."

Driver training and licensing is traditionally a responsibility of the provinces, but the federal government does have the authority to impose rules for commercial drivers who cross provincial borders.

Transport Canada already regulates how long truckers can be on the road without rest and will be making electronic logbooks mandatory as of 2020.

The Saskatchewan government told Marketplace it would be "in favour of uniform standards across the country" imposed by the federal government.

Garneau said he will encourage each province to adopt their own minimum entry-level training standards at the annual Council of Ministers Responsible for Transportation and Highway Safety in January.

When asked whether he would impose federal standards if the provinces fail to act, Garneau replied: "It's a bridge I'll cross when it gets to that."

'Political posturing'

Russell Herold, whose 16-year-old son Adam was killed in the Humboldt Broncos tragedy in April, called the minister's message "political posturing."

"Lives are hanging in the balance and we're talking about timelines and hoping provinces jump on board," he said. "It just makes me angry."

Over the summer, Herold launched a lawsuit against the truck driver, his employer, and the manufacturer of the bus.

He said he hopes the lawsuit will help force the industry to change its ways, but the federal government should take action immediately.

"Make this a priority. Make saving lives a priority," he said. "Why would we wait until somebody else dies on the highway?"

Data analysis by Vincent LeClair, Roberto Rocha, Kirthana Sasitharan, David McKie. Additional research by CBC reference librarians Patrick Mooney, Ginny Oakley, Cathy Ross, Diana Redegeld and Kate Zieman.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-truck-drivers-training-testing-1.4858940

Independent Contractor Case Heard By The Supreme Court

trucks.com

Article thanks to ocj.com and gobytrucknews.com. Links provided:

Oct 16, 2018  On Oct. 3, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in New Prime v. Oliveira, No. 17-340.

New Prime, Inc. is a national trucking company that recruits and trains new drivers through an apprenticeship program. Student apprentices participating in this program are unpaid, except during one phase of the program when they receive 14 cents per mile driven. New Prime waives the tuition of student apprentices who agree to work for New Prime for one year after completing the program.

After Dominic Oliveira successfully completed the apprenticeship program, New Prime encouraged him to become an independent contractor and referred him to other entities with offices in the same building and owned by the same company as New Prime to help him form a limited liability company and to secure a truck. Oliveira then signed an Independent Contractor Agreement with New Prime. The contract specified that there was no employer-employee relationship between Oliveira and New Prime, and that Oliveira was an independent contractor. The contract also contained an arbitration clause.

Oliveira alleges New Prime underpaid him and exercised such control over him that he was unable to work for other companies. He stopped driving for New Prime as an independent contractor. He did, however, later rejoin New Prime as a company driver. Dissatisfied with the pay as a company driver as well, Oliveira sued New Prime in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts in a putative class action proceeding. Oliveira alleged that New Prime had failed to pay minimum wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Missouri minimum wage statute. He also claimed breach of contract or unjust enrichment. New Prime insisted that Oliveira arbitrate his claim.

Oliveira has mostly prevailed with his claims in the lower courts. When oral arguments were heard by the Supreme Court, only eight justices were sitting, and since Oliveira prevailed in the lower court, he only needs four votes to tip the scales of justice in his favor.

If the Supreme Court rules in Oliveira’s favor, trucking companies might have more difficulty labeling drivers as independent contractors. Companies might also be prohibited from requiring independent contractors to settle issues via arbitration. Those drivers could sue in court, and the cases could even involve class actions.

https://www.gobytrucknews.com/independent-contractor-sc/123

Longtime Truck Driver Reflects on Being a Woman on the Road

Article thanks to Deborah Lockridge and truckinginfo.com. Links provided: 

Aug 27, 2018:  When Stephanie Klang’s then-husband taught her to drive a truck in 1980, allowing her to escape the poverty she grew up in, she never expected that one day her likeness would be one of four women drivers featured on a special CFI tractor.

This month, Joplin, Missouri-based truckload carrier CFI unveiled several custom-designed, large-format truck wraps. While four recognized the company’s military veterans, one was a “She Drives CFI” theme, honoring four of the company’s longest-tenured women drivers. The “She Drives CFI” truck will be a working rig, but will also attend events where it may especially resonate, such as a “Run Like a Girl” 5k race or a Girl Scouts or Women in Trucking event.  

The four professional CFI women drivers pictured on the “She Drives CFI” truck wrap are Stephanie Klang, Joplin, Missouri; Alisha Slaughter, El Paso, Texas; Tanya Lateyice, Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Jemcia Turner, Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Klang may be the most well known, having been one of the few women to be an America’s Road Team captain for the American Trucking Associations as well as through her work with the Women in Trucking organization. When Scott Darling was administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Administration, WIT organized an educational ride-along with Klang at the wheel.

With 3 million safe miles under her belt, Klang retired earlier this year to spend more time with her second husband and her cats, enjoying Zumba and yoga classes at the Y and some part-time work doing community outreach with CFI.

Trucking out of Poverty

“We have a happy home,” Klang said in an interview with HDT. “One of the reasons I got on the truck in the first place, I did not have a happy home life growing up – I wanted away. I was raised by a single mother on a welfare check, and she worked so hard to make ends meet. Back then in ‘70s, the welfare system just beat you down. I got a job as a high school student making $30 a month, and when social services found out about it, they reduced my mother’s check by $30.”

So she started driving team with her husband in 1980. The two changed jobs about every two years, until in 1987, “we came to CFI and I said, this was it.” Eventually she and her husband parted ways, and in 1995, he took his truck and left, while Klang stayed on and hit the road with her tomcat as a solo driver for CFI. “I traded my husband for a job,” she said, laughing in a CFI video. “It was a good choice.”

The best part about the transition? “I got to do everything my way,” she told HDT. “I loved the fact that I could sleep sitting still. Of course, if anything had to be done, I had to do it, but that was no trouble, if a trailer had to be cleaned up and boards pulled, I could do that. I did learn a lot more about pre trips and inspecting equipment. I chained up a few times. It was a small price to pay for getting to do everything my way.”

In 2006, she married another CFI driver, but they stayed in separate trucks, coordinating their time off at home. “People assumed we would drive team, and I was like, are you kidding me? I’m not sharing this living space!”

 Facing Sexual Harassment as a Female Truck Driver

As a woman driver, Klang admitted, she did face some sexual harassment, especially when she was younger.

“Some of it was bad, but it never crossed over to physical harassment; it was just words,” she said. “The way I dealt with it was I just acted like I didn’t hear them. They got no reaction.”

Klang recalls in her early 20s walking through warehouses to get to the shipping office to sign papers and enduring catcalls from the warehouse workers. “Then I’d go out to the truck and cry. But you get a tougher skin. I’ve never felt threatened physically. There’s been some stupid men out there. But I think you find stupid men in every field.”

Sometimes she’s had a smart comeback. Klang recalled the time she was driving down I-44 a few miles from home and heard some chatter on the CB as two trucks passed her, along the lines of, “I’d sure like to spend some time with that gal.”

“I couldn’t help it, sometimes I’m witty, and I got on the CB and said, ‘Just get off here and park at my house – I have a whole bunch of yard work to do and we’ll spend some time together!’ And they ran off like scalded dogs. The last thing I heard was, ‘Oh no, that sounds like living in mom’s house, no way.’”

When we asked Klang what about CFI makes it a good fit for women drivers, why she’s stayed with the company for so long, she talked about the same types of things that make fleets appealing to any driver. Back in 1987 when she started, they ran legal – no forcing drivers to falsify their logbooks. Reliable equipment keeps you rolling and earning. If you were doing a drop and hook and the trailer had a mechanical issue, she said, they would fix it right away. Good communication. She’s never had a paycheck screw-up in 31 years. “It’s a trucking company, so the miles go up and down, but there was a good average. And when you hit Joplin [CFI headquarters], the people are friendly.”

And, Clang said, CFI is a big supporter of the Women in Trucking association.

They must be doing something right, because out of CFI’s 2,000-driver workforce, 14% are women, which is well above the industry average. WIT/National Transportation Institute research found that women made up 7.89% of over-the-road drivers at the end of 2017.

Trucking has given Klang confidence and independence, helped her discover herself, gotten her out of poverty, paid for her home, and allowed her to help her family. In fact, she told HDT, she finds it pretty ironic that the little girl raised on a welfare check now has a financial advisor to help her invest her money wisely.

“The advice I would tell my younger self is not to sell yourself short,” Klang said. “To believe in myself more, to believe I’m more capable than I thought I was ... because I am.”

For more information about CFI career opportunities for women, visit here.

QOTD: The State of a Scarlet Letter?

Article thanks to Corey Lewis and thetruthaboutcars.com. Links provided:

Aug 22, 2018  The plate in question is the mustard yellow one seen above. It looks nothing like the other license plates of Ohio, and that’s because it’s only available to a particular type of criminal offender. Introduced back in 1967, Ohio’s OVI (Operating a Vehicle Impaired) plates were designed as a scarlet letter for those convicted of OVI offenses.

Though they create a way to identify offenders in everyday traffic, use of the plates remained fairly limited for decades. Plates were assigned individually, and only at the discretion of a judge. The state of Ohio took notice, deciding it wanted to see expanded use of the special plates, and on January 1st, 2014, it altered the OVI legislation. Plates became mandatory for OVI offenders on their second occurrence, and also in instances where an offender’s BAC was over two times the legal driving limit.

After the OVI conviction, a driver can apply for a restricted driver’s license that requires use of the yellow OVI plate, commonly called “party plates,” within the state. The standard time requirement for carrying the plates is six months to a year. Ohio is unique in this special plate usage. While two other states (Georgia and Minnesota) can add an additional letter to an OVI offender’s plate, Ohio is the only one with an entirely different OVI plate design.

Those in favor of the special plate argue the pressure and embarrassment achieved by its usage is a good deterrent for OVI offenders, who are very inclined to become repeat offenders. The plates identify drivers who need to be watched in traffic by other motorists and police.

Those against the plate argue they unfairly shame offenders for past crimes, make them a target for police on the road, and an outcast in the employee parking lot. The plate punishes repeat offenders the same as severe first-time offenders. There’s also some collateral damage, in the shaming of passengers in a car wearing OVI plates.

As mentioned, Ohio is out there on their own on this one — no other states have followed Ohio’s example in over 50 years. As a resident of Ohio, I’ve seen these plates in use on many occasions. They’re pretty noticeable. Are these special OVI plates something other states would do well to mimic, or is Ohio off the rails on this one?

Off to you, B&B.

https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2018/08/qotd-the-state-of-a-scarlet-letter/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TheTruthAboutCars.com_new-content-unsold&utm_source=TheTruthAboutCars.com20180822

Apology issued for Chicago bait truck

Article thanks to Tom Quimby and hardworkingtrucks.com. Links provided:

Score one for justice? Really?

Aug 19, 2018  Sting operations in Chicago designed to curtail rising cargo thefts took a big hit recently as Norfolk Southern Railway buckled under pressure, apologized for leading an undercover bait truck operation and vowed never to use the same tactic again.

That’s great news for cargo thieves including three men who were facing felony charges for breaking into the trailer of a truck that Norfolk had parked in Englewood, an impoverished suburb of the city where cargo heists have been an ongoing problem.

Theft charges for all three men were dropped following outcries of injustice from some notable mouthpieces including the American Civil Liberties Union and former head of the Chicago Police Board, Lori Lightfood, who’s currently running for mayor against embattled Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

When pressed for an explanation as to why the charges were dropped, a representative with the Cook County State Attorney’s Office told the Chicago Tribune that “it was in the interest of justice.”

The interest of justice? That’s an interesting take on justice. How about justice for all the victims that have been robbed and shot by criminals that gained access to dozens of firearms that were stolen last October from a rail car in Chicago? How about justice for truck drivers and companies that fall victim to cargo theft?

As it turns out, Chicago police were hoping that ‘Operation Trailer Trap’ would lead to more information concerning that theft of 104 firearms. After all, it didn’t take long for those guns to show up at crime scenes around the city which continues to generate more and more headlines reporting on deadly violence. Less than a dozen of those guns have been recovered.

But apparently politics trumps property rights and public safety. Between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, 23 people were shot, two fatally including a 26-year-old man in Englewood. The tragic irony here is that Chicago has some of the toughest anti-gun laws in the nation.

And it’s also soft on criminals at a time when people need tougher law enforcement the most.

https://www.hardworkingtrucks.com/apology-issued-for-chicago-bait-truck/?utm_source=hwt&utm_medium=email&utm_content=08-20-2018&utm_campaign=Hard%20Working%20Trucks&ust_id=ac3913ef69635b68afde05f06de0a439

Q&A: Finn Murphy, Truck Owner-Operator and Author of 'The Long Haul'

Article thanks to Jack Roberts and truckinginfo.com. Links provided:

Aug 16, 2018  Finn Murphy has been around trucking and the moving van business since he was a teenager in Greenwich, Connecticut, in the 1970s. As soon as he was able, he was behind the wheel of a tractor-trailer relocating families all across the United States. He’s seen a lot of changes in his three decades behind the wheel. And a few years back, he decided to write a book about his experiences.

The Long Haul is the result of that decision, a gritty look at trucking and “bed bugging” that earned positive reviews from the New York Times and USA Today, among other publications. The book is partly a nostalgic memoir, partly a honest look at the hard lives truckers lead, and partly a commentary on a society and economy that either marginalize or ostracize the men and women that literally keep America rolling.

HDT recently caught up with Murphy in between trips to talk about his book, technology, and the state of trucking in the modern age.

HDT: What made you decide to write a book about your experiences as a trucker?

Murphy: It all started back in the 1980s. I carried this little cassette tape recorder around with me, and I started relaying interesting things that happened to me during the day as a kind of stress reliever. And then I started talking into it while I was driving. And eventually I was recording my interactions with shippers and my helpers. And one winter, I took a break and had all of these recordings transcribed. And I ended up with about 700 pages of stuff. And I started looking through it and realized I had a lot of good material for a book about life on the road. So I started writing.

HDT: When it was done and time to shop it around, was there interest in a mainstream book on trucking?

Murphy: I got an agent, and initially, he wasn’t interested. But after a lot of back and forth, I finally convinced him to shop it around. He pitched it to six different publishers – and they all wanted it! So that was nice. We finally went with Norton in New York. They put their top editor on the manuscript. Plus, they paid me in advance and set me up on a book tour. So it was nice.

HDT: What’s a book tour for a trucking book like?

Murphy: It was actually two book tours. We did the first one like you’d expect: Flying around the country, doing radio interviews and signing books. But then I had an idea: We covered my trailer with a vinyl wrap of my book cover and I went on a driving tour across the country for three months promoting the book in the usual way and at truck stops. And that was great because I got to talk to a lot of different people – but also more truck drivers.

HDT: After 30-plus years in this industry, what are your thoughts on where trucking has come from, and where it is today?

Murphy: Ah, man – that’s a huge question that we could talk about all day! But, the first thing I’d say is that trucking used to be a middle-class profession. That was the case when I started in 1980. And the industry was generally populated by men from the South and the Midwest who either grew up in towns with manufacturing jobs that didn’t pay very well, or on farms. In many cases, they grew up in trucking families. But they knew they didn’t want to work on a farm or in a factory and they saw trucking as a good way to support their families.

That’s one part of it. Then, things kind of get mythologized a bit. You had a two-tier industry in those days – regulated freight haulers, and unregulated ag haulers. And most of the ag haulers were owner-operators. So this trucking culture grew up based on those guys and the wildcat drivers in the 1940s and 1950s. They created this “Cowboy” myth of the American trucker. They hit the road, made decent money, supported their families and got to see the country.

Today, the average age of a long-haul driver is 55 years old. Very few young people want into trucking. To them, it just looks like a bad job. And the problem is, they’re right. Most truckers today make between $36,000 and $42,000 a year. Which is nothing. Moreover, most of them get paid by the mile. So they’re not getting paid waiting around truck stops for a load, waiting around a loading dock for freight, or when they’re sitting in traffic. All told, you’ve got drivers today who really work something like 3,000 to 4,000 hours a year. And when you break it down, that’s not even $15 an hour.

HDT: You’ve driven a lot of trucks in your career. What do you drive these days?

Murphy: I’m driving a new, 2018 Freightliner Cascadia Evolution with a 436-cubic-inch Detroit under the hood. I’ve got a double-loft sleeper, ‘fridge, microwave oven, Bluetooth – lots of little tweaks to make my life as comfortable as possible while I’m out. The Cascadia is a nice workhorse of a truck. If you’re a driver in business for yourself, it’s a great truck. Other companies build great trucks – they all do. But I’m not interested in paying for chrome and lights and things like that. I run household goods. So I’m usually running about 70,000 lbs. So I’m not super heavy. I do a lot of mountain driving, and that Detroit will take me right up those steep mountain grades at 55 mph without any trouble. I don’t speed. I don’t get paid by the mile, so I don’t need to. I haven’t had a ticket in 30 years.

HDT: What about fuel economy and safety features?

Murphy: I buy my own fuel. So fuel economy is important to me. My last truck got about 5.5 mpg. This Cascadia gets 7.7 mpg. So that’s a nice break. And I like all the safety features on the truck. Drivers don’t talk much about safety. But to tell the truth, I get scared out there a lot between sudden rainstorms, mountain grades, other cars and so forth. When I was on my book tour, I met this retired Walmart driver. He had 5 million accident-free miles. I asked him how he accomplished that. He said he always went slow and tried to anticipate what was going to happen around him, and what could go wrong if it did. I think that’s good advice for any driver.

HDT: What do you think about all the technology that’s coming into trucking now?

Murphy: I was talking to the safety director at the company I’m contracted to now, and he said that when the first GPS navigation systems came along, his drivers got lost three times more often than they did using a road atlas. And they got into more trouble too, going down one-way streets or getting caught in low overpasses – because they weren’t internalizing routes or really even paying attention. They were just following instructions. So technology can cut both ways, if you’re not careful. For me, those systems are incredibly valuable, because I go to private residences, and not just terminal to terminal.

HDT: What about autonomous vehicles – self-driving trucks?

Murphy: I talk to guys all the time who tell me it’ll never happen – or it’s 20 years down the way, or something. But I see Apple, Tesla, GM, Ford, Toyota and all these other companies spending billions of dollars and racing each other to be first with autonomous technology – there’s no it’s not going to happen. People don’t know it, but they’ve logged more than 22 million road miles on Class 8 trucks under autonomous control in this country already. So I think it’s imminent. I think we’ll start seeing the first models in under three years. I mean, we have 41,000 people killed in road accidents every year. And doesn’t include injuries and property damage. I think my grandkids will look back on us in amazement that we were allowed to drive automobiles and trucks. They will probably live in a world where it’s illegal to drive an automobile because they’re so dangerous. They’ll look at driving a car the way we look at driving a horse and buggy, or something.

HDT: What about electric trucks?

Murphy: I thought the Tesla Semi launch was pretty amusing. [Elon] Musk said he was directing that truck at owner-operators. And that’s hilarious: First, off they aren’t any owner-operators left. And among those that are still out there, who’s got $380,000 to buy a truck? And if you don’t have a fleet terminal to go to every night, where are you going to plug the thing in?

HDT: In your book I found your description of the little cliques and hierarchy that drivers have to be pretty interesting. For example, you’re a “bed bugger…”

Murphy: I was having a bit of fun with that. It’s not serious. But I get ribbed for being a “bed bugger,” and I’ll say that freight haulers just sit in truck stops and drink coffee all day. It’s fun. Humans in general have always sort of established hierarchies in groups. But if it’s 3 a.m. in the mountains and we’re on the side of the road thawing our brakes out with flares or trying to get chains on our tires, we’re all brothers.

HDT: Truck driver is the number one job in many states today. So many families depend on trucking for their livelihood, and the country depends on trucking to keep the economy going. And yet, truckers get no respect. Why do you think that is?

Murphy: Somebody said something the other day that really resonated with me: If you don’t like all these trucks crowding around you on the road, stop buying stuff! But you know, I wish people were more thoughtful about truck drivers. Every one of us represents the driving community out there. So if there’s a cowboy running loose out there, it reflects on all of us. But most of us aren’t like that. We’re just Americans with family lives, emotional lives and aspirations, just like anyone else. We want to be part of the economy. We’re not a bunch of crazy cowboys. We’re hard-working Americans doing a tough job – and many of us are making shit money for doing it.

HDT: What’s next for you?

Murphy: I’m writing another book. So that’s interesting. And I’m at home today in Colorado – but I’m out the door tomorrow; back out on the road on another trip.

https://www.truckinginfo.com/311066/qa-finn-murphy-author-of-the-long-haul?utm_source=email&utm_medium=enewsletter&utm_campaign=20180820-NL-HDT-HeadlineNews-BOBCD180814003&omdt=NL-HDT-HeadlineNews&omid=1000129208