‘Wireless Roadside Inspection’ inches closer to reality

overdriveonline.com

Story thanks to Todd Dills at overdriveonline.com Link provided:

6/27/2013  Longtime readers may be able to search back in that data bank known as the brain and recall that, in January 2011, as I worked on a series of initialOverdrive featuresabout the then little infant of a program still called CSA 2010 (if my own memory serves and they in fact hadn’t yet dropped the 2010, though I may be wrong), I visited the Greene County, Tenn., scales on I-81 to talk Wireless Roadside Inspection with a state police lieutenant and several inspectors there. (Or, of course, you could click through this link to check out the story I wrote that day, stopping off at a coffeehouse on the way home to Nashville.) It was a memorable day — sometime during the several-hour drive out to the scale I picked up an email from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s public affairs office that the agency was officially proposing to mandate electronic onboard recorders for hours-of-service compliance for the entire industry. Two years later,they’re still in hot pursuit of such a mandate, now with the added support of Congress after the MAP-21 highway bill and time spent addressing the driver-harrassment issue that got the limited mandate thrown out two years ago.

EOBRs are an important part of Wireless Roadside Inspection technology, as their presence in trucks would enable carriers and owner-operators to automatically transmit driver-hours status to inspectors, thus logging any violations or evidence of a clean look in the federal inspection database. Electronic logs were also integral to the similar e-Inspection commercial technology demonstrated by the Drivewyze company with Zonar, PeopleNet and XRS among state partners just last week. I spoke with Drivewyze President Brian Heath following the demonstration about what exactly the company was attempting to show with the demonstration, and what he had to say was interesting in light of FMCSA’s long research-and-design pursuit of Wireless Roadside Inspection technology.

Heath described the demonstration as showing that their e-Inspection process could, with relatively little further investment on the part of federal, state and local governments, allow carriers running EOBRs to opt in to a service that virtually automates what amounts to a CVSA Level 3 driver inspection, down to populating the form required to upload it to the FMCSA’s Motor Carrier Management and Information System (MCMIS) database, where theoretically it could then contribute to the carrier’s CSA profile. “It’s a fantastic opportunity to kill two birds with one stone,” Heath says. “The CSA program has a data sufficiency problem – only a small percentage of carriers have enough data,” as we well know, to populate the Safety Measurement System BASICs with a percentile ranking, or “score.”

Heath adds, “If you could automatically start feeding your CSA profile based on real-time information, you could really help FMCSA out with its data-sufficiency issues.” 

And potentially help your own scores, such as they may exist. As we showed in the CSA’s Data Trail series, independent owner-operators with their own carrier authority are the least likely group of carriers to see actual percentile rankings in their CSA profiles, given the way the system works today. Only 14 percent of active owner-operators showed any score whatsoever in an SMS category (compare that to nearly 100 percent of large carriers being covered). However, independents do happen to be the most frequently inspected, measured per-truck, and owner-operators unlucky enough to show a score are very likely to be well above the intervention, or “alert,” threshold, marking them for further scrutiny. If an e-Inspection or Wireless Roadside Inspection comes to fruition, those weigh station/inspection stops could be further reduced, and it could be a great tool for those with high scores to log more clean inspections, or for carriers without sufficient data (which can also be a problem in dealings with some brokers and shippers) to populate BASICs to get enough inspections to show a very low score. That’s theoretical at this point, of course, and would be dependent on what kind of credit FMCSA would be giving for such wireless inspections.

Heath notes that state agencies are on-board with offering carriers and drivers incentives for sharing more information with inspectors. With Drivewyze’s PreClear bypass service, he says, ”the state agencies are doing their part — if you’ve [opted to share your CDL info with inspectors, they say], ‘I’ll give you a boost in your bypass rate.’ But the federal government plays a big part here — in exchange for logging data, they should” allow some kind of credit in carriers’ CSA profiles. 

FMCSA spokesperson Duane DeBruyne acknowledges that, conceptually, such an e-Inspection might someday contribute to carriers’ CSA profiles, virtually the only incentive carriers would have to opt in to a program that automatically shares such broad information with every functional weigh station or inspection site their trucks pass. “There has been no discussion whatsoever of tying e-Inspection technology to CSA profiles anytime in the near-term future,” DeBruyne said, adding: “That may be realized in the long term, but is a good run down the road.”

Talking to Dr. Cem Hatipoglu, senior specialist in FMCSA’s Technology Division, it sounds like there is indeed a lot of ground to cover before anyone is ready to make that call. Hatipoglu describes the Drivewyze demonstration as an “extended e-screening system,” i.e. not rising quite to the level of an inspection under current definitions, but definitely moving in that direction. “It sounds quite a bit like the Wireless Roadside Inspection program that we’re actively working on,” Hatipoglu adds. “What we’re trying to define is electronic inspection itself — what kind of information quality is needed for a screening versus an inspection.”

He admits that the technologies involved in the Drivewyze demonstration, and “technologies driving mobility” in general, are making deployment and potential uses much cheaper than once conceived. “It is a technology that can be expanded faster not only to weigh stations,” he adds, but to the mobile inspection sites troopers often utilize away from the fixed stations.

But he still believes that e-Inspection, as demonstrated, is “more like e-screening right now.”

Questions about tamper-resistance are key to any system of credit for such inspections, Hatipoglu says. “How do I know, for instance, if a driver knows there is a violation, that they’re not just going to turn that system off.” For him and for the agency, such questions are still unanswered in their WRI initiative.

WRI is looking farther, too, beyond just driver-inspection-type information toward potential wireless transmission of vehicle condition via brake sensors and the like.

For Heath’s part, he says, “I don’t know what FMCSA is going to do with Wireless Roadside Inspection,” ultimately. “My hope is that they get out of the game of trying to develop technology … and they get into the game of trying to develop policy” — to go on already and make that call to tie e-screening — or e-inspection — events to CSA profiles.

http://www.overdriveonline.com/wireless-roadside-inspection-inching-closer-to-reality/

Price of freedom — and a historic smackdown!

overdriveonline.com

Happy July 4th!  Good piece thanks to and written by Wendy Parker at Overdriveonline.com from last year. Link provided below:

It’s hard to believe we’ll be celebrating Independence Day this coming week. Wasn't it just Easter? I’m pretty sure I haven’t even changed over to a white purse yet, and now I’ll have to dig out the red, white, and blue scarf to go with it. Dang.

Somewhere between June 11th and 28th , 1776, Thomas Jefferson sat down and wrote a letter to King George III that basically opened a can of whoop-ass all over him. He was mad and tired of housing a bunch of piggy soldiers in his duplex for free. He made a list of grievances, and talked about a lot of stuff, but I think the line that really made the King puff up was, “A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

Snap. (What an awesome line, I wish I had written it.)

Anyway, Mr. Jefferson carried his letter with him to General Congress, and had John Hancock and a bunch of other guys sign it with him, and then they went off to have a beer at Samuel Adams’ house. Since UPS hadn’t been invented yet, and the Pony Express was ineffective over large bodies of water, the letter took some time to get to the King, but as soon as it did, people started paying for freedom, and they have been ever since.

Freedom isn’t free. According to my personal calculations, it costs somewhere around forty-seven million dollars a pound. My calculations are clearly not used by NASA. I understand the sacrifice and dedication that has been required to keep this a free country, and I’m thankful for it. Political climates ebb and flow, things seem bad sometimes, but we’re still free to make decisions and attempt to change things we don’t like about those climates. A Declaration, written to a King almost 250 years ago, began the quest and has stood the test of time.

Happy Fourth. Be safe out there.

TEXT OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE:

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

**He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
**He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
**He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
**He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
**He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
**He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
**He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
**He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
**He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
**He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
**He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
**He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
**He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
**For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
**For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
**For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
**For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
**For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
**For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
**For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
**For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
**For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
**He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
**He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
**He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
**He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
**He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpation, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

http://www.overdriveonline.com/price-of-freedom-and-a-historic-smackdown/

When Minutes Count

fleetowner.com

Good piece thanks to Jim Park and truckinginfo.com Link provided:

June 20,2013 Could someone please explain how electronic on-board recorders/electronic logging devices might work to the drivers' advantage? With the new HOS rules just over a week away, and FMCSA's proposed EOBR/ELD rule bubbling up through the regulatory morass in Washington, I can see drivers spending a lot more time away from home -- with no extra compensation.

A few weeks ago I got an email from a driver who'd been pinched in a logbook blitz a few hours from where he lived. He and legions of other drivers were on their way home for the Memorial Day long weekend. Cottages scheduled to be opened, boats ready for the waves, campsites booked, and kids -- lots of kids -- expecting Daddy home for the fun.

But Daddy had been put out of service at a scale southern Michigan.

DOT officers were diligently digging their way through fuel receipts and other bits of evidence to uncover the ugly truth: drivers were cheating on their logs in order to get home for the weekend.

So, as a responsible editor, I wrote back to the driver, explaining that DOT/CVSA has a duty to keep the roads safe for all users, and that turning a blind eye to HOS compliance wasn't a good idea at any time, even if a lot of holiday plans hung in the balance.

That was the official response. Of course my true feelings rested with the driver and his mighty unhappy offspring. I've been there too, and truthfully, would be reluctant to let something like a logbook stand in the way of my vacation plans. 

When you're under pressure -- whether it's the cops, the boss, or the kids -- most of us will weigh the likelihood of getting caught against the wrath yet to be incurred for failing to deliver.

It's not enough to simply say to a driver -- and by extension, his or her family -- "you lose" when something out of the ordinary threatens to wreck long-made plans.

A one-hour delay on a Monday can compromise an entire week's work, what with missed appointments, altered schedules, limited windows of opportunity, etc. A driver who makes minor but necessary adjustments to the logbook isn't the biggest problem here. It's rules that are written for some hard-wired interpretation that enforcement people can use, and later, lawyers can use against us.

A few stolen minutes here and there don't make a driver a threat to society. And neither do the administrative violations. An owner-operator who greases the truck on a day off, but fails to log it on-duty, is not a safety risk. But it's a violation. Period.

Fudging the logbook isn't always about gaining some competitive advantage -- though I'll admit those guys are out there. The violations that come from the minor adjustments that are often needed to keep things on track are about positioning, scheduling, and doing the best you can under the circumstances to keep everybody happy: customers, dispatchers, enforcement -- and the family.

No Grey Area

The problem with HOS is there's no legal grey area, and there really needs to be some neutral ground there. I fear that electronic on-board recorders will eliminate what little flexibility we have, leaving drivers stranded a few short hours away from a delivery – or a long weekend with the kids.

Drivers have been making minor adjustments to their logs for years -- and we've got a high number of violations to show for it -- but there's little to link those numbers to the relatively small number of truly fatigue-induced accidents.

A case in point is the backyard, Saturday afternoon mechanic, or for the driver that neglects to fill in the license number on his log sheet. Those infractions all wind up on the same rap sheet, but has safety been compromised?

I can see where black boxes could make a driver's life better, too, given the ability to track wasted time. I'm sure they'd help build a better case for billing that time to the offending party, but who do you bill for a border delay or a traffic jam? We do know who gets the bill for a forfeited houseboat rental.

FMCSA has steadfastly refused to allow a little flexibility into its HOS rules under the unbelievably lame and frankly unacceptable excuse that it can't figure out a way to do it that won't be subject to abuse. Well Ms Ferro and company, here's a suggestion: Give me an extra hour or two today to make a deadline and I'll give it back to you tomorrow -- or after my weekend at home.

Simply, let me make the necessary adjustments to the workday on the day I need it, and I will work that many fewer hours tomorrow. I know I'm not getting away with anything, and the payback comes with a potential penalty, so I'll have to use it with discretion.

I can't imagine an easier way to track such adjustments than with an electronic logging device. It's had to pull the wool over an EOBR's eyes. You're going to get your EOBR mandate, now, give a little something back to the drivers who have so much to lose with the limited flexibility.  

If somebody can show me that EOBRs will improve the lives of drivers and their families, I'm all for them. If they'll put more money in drivers' pockets by ensuring they're paid for all the work they do, or getting drivers home for special days, I say bring 'em on. If EOBRs are about improving safety, please show me the numbers that prove the assertion. But if EOBRs are nothing more than a tool to make the cops' jobs easier, or to limit liability, I suggest there are less intrusive ways of doing that. I'm open to persuasion.

http://www.truckinginfo.com/blog/on-the-road/story/2013/06/when-minutes-count.aspx?utm_campaign=Headline-News-20130621&utm_source=Email&utm_medium=Enewsletter

Trucker Survives 50-Foot Drop Off I-75 Bridge

thetruckersreport.com

Story thanks to thetruckersreport.com  Link provided:

A local firefighter in Hillsborough County, Florida was driving to his second job after finishing an overnight shift. The firefighter, John Fragomeni, was driving down I-75, about to pass over a bridge when a he saw a flatbed truck suddenly lose control and slam into the guardrail, and fall 50 feet to the ground below.

The flatbed had been hauling a bulldozer until, for reasons unknown, the whole truck started to come apart. Later, when Fragomeni spoke with the driver, he said the driver recounted the incident saying, “”He was like I don’t know what happened. It felt like the truck was coming apart while I was driving.”

“When he hit [the guardrail], I could barely see anything there was so much smoke… and the tractor disappeared,” recalls Fragomeni. He immediately pulled over to see if he could help. When he looked over the edge of the bridge, he saw that the cab had separated from the flatbed and that the bulldozer had flown completely off and come to rest some distance away.

Fragomeni rushed down the embankment to the crash to see if there was anything they could do. To his great surprise, when he approached the cab, the driver was alive.

“The guy pokes his head out of the roof of the truck. Right then, I was breathless. I was so happy to see he was alive.”

Thanks to Fragomeni, a nearby Sheriff’s Deputy, and a nearby fisherman who carried the driver on his boat to a nearby dock where an ambulance was waiting, the driver survived. Matt Cook, the 29-year-old driver was transported to Tampa General Hospital in serious condition. Investigators currently believe that the steering on his truck failed and are investigating the cause.

http://www.thetruckersreport.com/trucker-survives-50-foot-drop-off-i-75-bridge/?utm_source=The+TruckersReport+Weekly+Newsletter+Recipients&utm_campaign=714aa6a40d-Weekly_Newsletter_Test_Campaign1_25_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_de09ecb18a-714aa6a40d-38416925

6 Things You Didn't Know About Airstream Trailers

airstream.com

Article thanks to Seth Porgis and Forbes.com Link provided:

To some folks, Airstream’s aluminum trailers are peculiar structures that warrant little more than a glance. But look a little closer, and you’ll find a perpetually futuristic vehicle that has been used by NASA to shuttle astronauts, the Air Force to move high-ranking officials, and by millions of superfans to simply get out of town.

To chat about the iconic silver trailer’s most unusual history, I caught up caught up with Tara Cox, former editor-in-chief of RVLivingmagazine and author of the upcoming book Airstream: The Silver RV. 

1) The Origin Of That Design
If Airstream trailers are known for anything, it’s their distinctive silver shape. But the company wasn’t the first to make a streamlined silver trailer. The design actually originated with William Hawley Bowlus, a veteran designer who had previously worked on Charles Lindburgh’s Spirit of St. Louis plane. Bowlus took inspiration from his work with airplanes to create a silver trailer called the Bowlus Road Chief. “The company went under in 1935, but was actually revived this year by a fan of that trailer,” Cox says.

Another fun fact: Early Airstream models were actually made out of wood, before the shiny silver became company standard.

2) The Plans Used To Be Sold In The Back Of Magazines
“Airstream founder Wally Byam originally sold plans on how to build a trailer in your backyard in the back of Popular Mechanics magazine,” Cox says. ”The oldest existing Airstream trailer was built by its owner from these plans.”

3) Just How Light They Are
In the 1940s, Airstream commissioned publicity photos that showed a cyclist pulling a trailer with his bike. The goal: To show off just how lightweight the trailers were.

4) There Were Almost Colored Airstreams“Wally Byam planned on making colored Airstreams to match the pastel schemes of the cars of the 1950s,” Cox says. “After experimenting with his own gold Airstream, he abandoned the idea.”

5) NASA Used ThemNeil, Buzz, and Michael’s first stop when they got back to Earth: A modified Airstream. “NASA used an Airstream motorhome called the Astrovan to bring astronauts to the launchpad,” Cox says.  ”Apollo 11 astronauts were quarantined in an Airstream until they were clear of feared ‘moon germs. In fact, Nixon interviewed them through the trailer.”

For decades, NASA also used an Airstream (or Astrovan, as they called it in the ’80s) to shuttle astronauts to the launchpad in style.

6) The Military Loves ThemWhat’s the best way for the Air Force to transport VIPs to far-flung locations? Via Airstream, of course. As part of its “Silver Bullet” program, the Air Force Research Laboratories transformed a series of Airstream trailers into mobile communications modules. The trailers, which are outfitted with at-home luxuries such as comfy couches and TVs, as well as a load of communications gear, are designed to fit inside Air Force cargo planes such as the C-17. Past and current Defense Secretaries Leon Panetta and Chuck Hagel have both served as passengers in these flying trailers.

#####
Seth Porges is a writer and co-creator of Cloth for iOS. For more fun,  follow Seth on Twitter at @sethporges, or subscribe to him on Facebook or Google+.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/sethporges/2013/05/29/6-things-you-didnt-know-about-airstream-trailers/