Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/949884
10 commercial carrier journal | march 2018 JOURNAL NEWS • Uber and Google last month agreed to end their ongoing court standoff that revolved around autonomous truck and car products and alleged theft of trade secrets. Google agreed to accept a fraction of a percent of ownership of Uber — worth $245 million — to end its lawsuit against the ridesharing company. Google's parent company, Alphabet, alleged that Uber stole thousands of documents from Alphabet's autonomous vehicle development subsid- iary, Waymo. • The U.S. Department of Transportation's Office of Inspector General concluded that time spent detained at shipper and receiver facilities cuts truck driver pay by between $1.1 billion and $1.3 billion annually, in addition to crimping industry safety. An extra 15 minutes spent detained beyond the standard two-hour window causes industry crash risk to climb 6.2 per- cent, DOT OIG estimated. That's an average of about 6,500 additional crashes annually, the report notes. Drivers see an average annual pay loss of between $1,281 and $1,534 due to detention time, and carrier income is cut by between $250 million and $300 million annually, DOT found. • The Truck Renting and Leasing Association was granted its request for a 90-day waiver from the electronic logging device mandate until April 19. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's extension published in the Federal Register in late January applies to short-term rental trucks, defined as 30 days or less. TRALA also announced it has filed a petition for an exemption from the ELD mandate through the end of 2018 due to compliance com- plexities for its truck rental company mem- bers regarding incompatible ELDs. • Raymond P. Martinez, President Trump's choice to head FMCSA, was confirmed last month by the U.S. Senate as administrator of the federal government's trucking regu- latory body. Trump last September nomi- nated Martinez, who since 2010 has run the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission. • Daimler Trucks North America was granted an exemption that will allow the truck manufacturer to mount a camera equipped with vehicle safety technolo- gies lower on a windshield than currently allowed by federal regulations. The exemption was published Jan. 31 in the Federal Register and is good for five years. Regulations require such technologies to be mounted no more than 4 inches below the upper edge of the area swept by windshield wipers. DTNA will be allowed to mount its camera with the bottom about 8.5 inches below the upper edge. • SikhsPAC and a group representing Punjabis,with roots in northern India,in late January petitioned FMCSAfor a delay in ELD compliance for small business trucker members andmembers who haul agricultural products. • Wastequip, a manufacturer of waste equipment with brands that include Wastequip, Toter, Galbreath, Pioneer, Mountain Tarp, Cusco, Go To Parts and Accurate, was acquired byH.I.G. Capital, a global private equity investment firm; terms were not released. Wastequip had been owned by Centerbridge Partners since 2012. • PS Logistics announced that one of its subsidiaries acquired Shelton Trucking Services, a 225-truck flatbed fleet based in Altha, Fla.; terms were not disclosed. The deal includes Shelton's terminals in Jacksonville, Fla., and Mobile, Ala., and continues PS Logistics' strategy of buy- ing smaller flatbed fleets. Since 2007, PS Logistics has acquired 11 trucking and brokerage operations. • A bill introduced in late January in the Washington State House would codify a late-model truck engine policy that the Northwest Seaport Alliance – a partnership between the ports of Seattle, Tacoma and Vancouver – has attempted to institute and enforce at alliance-member high-traffic container terminals. The bill, if passed, would require all drayage trucks moving into and out of the Seattle and Tacoma ports to be of 2007 and newer model- year engines by Jan. 1, 2019. Also under the terms of the bill, "by January 1, 2035, all drayage trucks delivering goods to or receiving goods from a high-volume port must be zero-emissions vehicles." • Mark Hazelwood, who served as presi- dent of Pilot Flying J when the truck stop company's sales staff allegedly defrauded fleets out of millions of dollars in owed fuel rebate checks, was found guilty of fraud and conspiracy charges related to the scheme. Heather Jones, an assistant of Hazelwood's, also was found guilty of fraud and conspiracy charges by a jury in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Sentencing for both was set for June 27. INBRIEF 3/18 Many fl eets are switching to 10W-30 engine oils from traditional 15W-40 oils. The reason is fuel economy. Thinner viscosities mean the engine doesn't have to work as hard and uses less fuel. Think of it like swimming through honey vs. water. Honey is thicker than water, so more energy is used to move through it. The same goes for an engine's moving parts. A 15W-40 oil requires more energy to move through it whereas 10W-30 oil produces less drag on your engine. But can a 10W-30 protect as well as a 15W- 40? You bet. It comes down to quality additives and composition of base oil. In fact, Shell ROTELLA ® T5 10W-30 can protect as well or better than industry-standard 15W-40 oils. Give it a shot in your fl eet. To learn more go to ROTELLA.com/products ROTELLA ROUNDUP The 411on10W-30 By Dan Arcy, Shell Lubricants Comments, questions or ideas? Email us at RotellaRoundup@JWT.com 1151572_SB01_ROTroundup_2_25x9_5 f.indd 1 6/15/17 1:49 PM