Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/667099
COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL | APRIL 2016 19 JOURNAL NEWS • The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation approved T.F. Scott Darling III's nomination to be the next administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, sending the nomination to the full Senate floor for confirmation. Darling has headed FMCSA since August 2014, fol- lowing the resignation of then-Administrator Anne Ferro. He was nominated by President Obama in August and underwent Senate confirmation hearings in January. • The American Transportation Research Institute launched a data collection initiative to create a database of motor carrier crash costs by crash type and severity. ATRI said the data collection will populate research designed to enable carriers to make better informed decisions regarding onboard safety system deployment. Carriers interested in supporting the research can go to atri-online. org/2016/03/01/crash-cost-data-request. • The court overseeing the criminal trials of former Pilot Flying J employees and their alleged involvement in the widespread fuel rebate fraud case issued an order requiring prosecutors to disclose to defendants and their attorneys all of the evidence gathered against them in the April 2013 raids on Pilot Flying J offices. That evidence could include, according to court documents, "hundreds of millions of pages" of documents, along with more than 200 hours of recordings produced by FBI informants working at Pilot during the federal investigation. • A federal advisory committee says ports would increase efficiency by implementing on-demand container systems, improving chassis supply and decreasing truck turn times. The Advisory Committee on Supply Chain Competitiveness last month presented a report to U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker on ways to cut congestion at seaports and connecting inland infrastructure. • Despite improvements to more than 2,500 bridges in the United States last year over 2014, there remain more than 58,500 bridges on the structurally deficient list, according to the American Road & Transportation Builders Association. ARTBA found that about 9.5 percent of America's 610,000 bridges are classified as structurally deficient, yet these bridges are crossed nearly 204 million times each day. • The Mexican trucking industry, roughly a 10th the size of its U.S. counterpart, reported 1,087 cargo theft incidents in 2015 – a 73 percent increase over the prior year – compared to 754 in the United States, according to FreightWatch International. According to Armstrong & Associates, Mexico had a $68 billion trucking industry in 2013, while U.S. trucking revenue topped $700 billion in 2014, according to the American Trucking Associations. • Verisk Analytics announced an alliance between its CargoNet business and the Florida Trucking Association to help members reduce cargo theft risk and lobby for stricter penalties and more public resources. CargoNet will assist FTA to collect, aggregate and analyze cargo theft data to aid law enforcement with recoveries and identify trends to help the state better understand the poten- tial damages of intrastate cargo theft. INBRIEF 4/16 Call today to join: 888-361-7277 | PrePassNow.com THE PROVEN SOLUTION FOR BYPASSING AND TOLLS YESTERDAY, TODAY & BEYOND WE SUPPORT: