NEW TAMPA AGENT

Have you deadheaded out of Southern Florida lately because there isn’t enough freight to choose from?  When you take a Florida load, do you automatically add the d/h miles to it, knowing you will have to bounce somewhere to get a load?  Do you pass good loads going to Florida assuming you can’t get out?  Now, you may have to reconsider.

Recently, Jonathan Smith became our new Tampa agent.  He has been very busy the past few weeks making a lot of sales calls to create some new business for us throughout the Southern Florida area, and he is having some success.

I will say that he does not have an easy task.  Rates are very competitive in this area, and he will have to be aggressive to acquire new accounts.  The only thing we ask is to give him a chance.  Take a look at the Tampa board before you bounce north.  You may be able to save yourself some empty miles.

CSA 2010 POINTS SYSTEM

Thursday, I spent most of my afternoon watching an online webcast about CSA 2010.  I know that we have blogged you to death about this deal, and it looks like I have several months to continue to do so.

The webcast was hosted by J.J. Keller, which has a ton of information on there website at http://www.jjkeller.com/CSA_2010/csa2010.htm.

The biggest surprise for me about this whole program is the points system.  I can’t remember if I have linked this before, but here is the link to the CSA 2010 Safety Measurement System (SMS) http://csa2010.fmcsa.dot.gov/Documents/SMSMethodology.pdf (need Adobe reader to view).  It is a must read, because it will show you every point value for any possible violation.

The method of figuring the total points for a violation surprised me a bit.  As you look through the SMS, you can see point values for every violation.  What you may not realize is that point value will not be the total points assessed to you.  For example:  Say you get hit with a False Log violation on your inspection report.  The point value for “False report of drivers record of duty status” (395.8e) is 7 points.  Take the 7 point penalty, and add 2 more points for being shut down OOS.  So now you have 9 points.  The 9 points are then multiplied by 1, 2, or 3, depending on the time frame in which the violation occurred.  If the violation occurred within 0-12 months ago, then it is multiplied by 3, 12-24 months is multiplied by 2, and 24-36 months is multiplied by 1.  So if this violation just occurred, you will multiply 9 by 3, and be assessed 27 points!  Your score will decrease by this scale as time goes on, until 36 months passes, and it comes off of your record.  If you look at the SMS, you will see how quickly points can accumulate.

Len has some extremely helpful tips on how to reduce your daily risk.  Read back on some of our earlier posts here, if you haven’t already.  Any other questions, look for my email on the right side of the blog page.  Stay safe!

NEW WWP T-SHIRTS

Hot off the presses, we have new Mercer/Wounded Warrior Project shirts in stock in the company store.  They are black with khaki writing, and let me just say that they look great!  I am going to buy me one today, and I will get a picture of them on here soon.  They cost $12.00, and all proceeds go to WWP!

CARGO THEFT ON THE RISE

We really need to be aware of the steep rise in cargo theft lately.  Just last year $487 million of goods were stolen, which was a 67% increase over 2008 ($290 million).  I heard just this morning that a truck, trailer, and a load of copper disappeared in the Dallas area (not a Mercer truck).

Thieves are targeting everything.  They are also staying close to plants that trucks are loading at, and following those trucks to see if they can get a chance to hijack the load.  So try to be cautious of those around you.

Drivers need to be very cautious as they leave their equipment unattended, no matter where the location is.  If you drop your trailer, be sure it is at a secure location.  An unattended trailer is the easiest target.

The most popular states for theft right now are California, Florida, Texas, Georgia, Illinois, and New Jersey.  Just about every state has reported an increase though.  So don’t assume that anywhere is safe.

Be safe everyone, and have a great day!

IDLE AIRE CLOSES OPERATIONS

Just received an email stating that IdleAire has shut down operations.  They cited lower freight volumes which led to reduced truck traffic, and the mild weather, across the nation last summer, as the main problems.  I know a lot of you utilized their services.  Looks like the bad economy isn’t nearly done taking it’s toll on trucking industry businesses yet.  Have a good weekend everyone!

They also stated this on the email:

If your drivers need a receipt for prior visits, please have them send an email to receipts@idleaire.com by Thursday, February 4. They must include their IdleAire Member #, their name and the timeframe for their visit(s). We will not be able to respond to their requests after that date

Here’s the link to the IdleAire website, which shows the official statement. http://www.idleaire.com/?utm_source=Fleet+Customers+Newsletter&utm_campaign=2f8fb00aa1-Fleet_Customer_Newsletter_1_12_15_2009&utm_medium=email

EMAIL ALERT

Look to the right of the screen, and you will see where you can sign up to be emailed every time I create a new post on the blog!  You will not get a bunch of junk mail from doing this, and people like J.P. will no longer have to visit the site 45 times a day to see the latest post!

STAYING UNDER THE CSA 2010 RADAR

Judging from the calls I get and the large number of drivers who have stopped by my office, more folks are taking the time to educate themselves about CSA 2010 and adjust their driving habits to effectively operate within this new reality. Those who don’t, or won’t, will be out of the industry.  I think everyone is starting to figure that out.  Here are a few more thoughts to share:

First, CSA 2010 will have absolutely no effect on 42% of Mercer drivers. These ladies and gentlemen go about their business every day without tickets, accidents or DOT violation writeups. Talk about low profile, these drivers have it figured out and are already dealing with it effectively.  They are going to be fine.

For everybody else, there are some common sense things that can be done to minimize the likelihood of having a bad encounter with CSA 2010 on the roadside. First, don’t speed. The majority of our inspections come from a driver being pulled over for speeding. Under CSA 2010, 55mph doesn’t mean 59mph, or 62mph. It means 55mph. The same with 65mph. It is not 68mph, or 73mph. It means 65mph. You don’t “get” 5mph anymore, or 7mph, or 1mph. The speed limit means what it says as far as commercial drivers are concerned. Going “with the flow of traffic” no longer cuts it. If you just can’t keep your foot out of it, I strongly suggest you go by your dealer and have it speed-governed at 65mph. That’s how important not getting a “speeding” writeup is going to be. Remember, it’s the writeup, not whether or not you get a ticket.

Wear your seatbelt. Cops look for that. Under CSA 2010, it also counts. If the officer can’t see that it is being worn properly, the unit has just become an inspection target. I’d stick an orange piece of reflective tape on it so there wouldn’t be any doubt. Seriously.  Get the dark tint off your windows. That  counts on CSA 2010 scores. Trucks with dark window tint aren’t cool, they are targets for law enforcement. We don’t need targets at Mercer. That’s a hint. Keep your log current to the last duty change. That means start your day. Don’t count on getting a green on PrePass. They shut them off to keep drivers honest. If you can’t resist the temptation to gamble with it, I suggest you turn in your PrePass.

On a sunny day, the dirty truck always gets looked at first. Especially the wheels. Dirty engines get more attention than clean engines.  Dirty straps get added attention. Clean straps don’t. Dunnage across the landing gear always gets a special look, as does the first pallet or bundle on the load. No matter how legal you think you got it, my advice is to put one more on the front. Always. No matter what.  At night, a burnt out or non-functioning light is screaming, “Please inspect me!” Straps with cuts are junk. Missing retroreflective tape is a cop magnet.

The three most frequent writeups at Mercer are speeding, defective or missing load securement, and logs not current. Law enforcement knows this about our fleet because they have access to it just like we do.  When they see a Mercer unit, they know that statistically there is a good chance that they can write one of those violations. Avoid those three, don’t draw attention with window tint, no seatbelt use or defective lighting, and the odds of having a good day increase significantly.  Remember, 42% of our drivers have already figured that out.  It is not impossible. We have folks that do it every day.

RANDOM TUESDAY

We should see an announcement today from the Department of Transportation, about banning texting while driving for all commercial drivers.  We talked about this on the blog previously, and I think that most of you are in favor of this ban.  In fact, I  know that the majority of you don’t even text at all anyway.  The only concern I have is if you are driving past a D.O.T. officer on the highway, and you are dialing someone on your phone, how will the officer be able to tell the difference between dialing and texting.  Best bet to not do either.  With the wonderful new rules of CSA 2010, you really don’t need to give an officer another reason to pull you over.  I’m sure that they will really be enforcing this at first, just to prove a point.  It wouldn’t hurt to use a bluetooth headset, and also use voice activated dialing on your cell phone if it’s capable. It’s official – http://blog.fleetowner.com/trucks_at_work/2010/01/26/banning-trucker-texting/

We have had several issues with the contractor web lately.  The problem occurs when you try to search for freight by an individual state.   The site will either be really slow in displaying the freight available, or it will be completely unresponsive.  We are addressing this issue, and hopefully it will be back to normal very soon.

I know that there has been some confusion about the drayage/flip service in California.  We do have drayage/flip service for our non-compliant trucks in Southern Cal. We are using a couple of different services out there so I don’t know the exact rate to the driver.  It may be different on each load, depending on which company performs the service for us.  Best I can tell you for now, is talk to your coordinator about the container freight that is available, and they will be able to look in the order comments of the load to see what the charge will be.  I would imagine that it will be in the $100-$125 range, but it could change.   I will probably post more on this later, so stay tuned!

News released today that 2009 saw the biggest decrease in goods shipped by truck since 1982!  On the good side of that is that Truck Tonnage reached it’s highest peak in December.  Hopefully, we will continue on the uphill climb!

I-40 ROAD CLOSURE UPDATE

We have received several calls wondering what the status is of the road closure on I-40, at the North Carolina/Tennessee border.  Heidi has searched endlessly on the internet for any news, and the only update we can find is on the Tennessee DOT site.  They say that the road may open on March 1st, 2010, at 5 pm.  I will update you all if I hear anything else.

ALABAMA COIL CERTIFICATION COST INCREASE

Looks like the Alabama Coil Certification test has increased in price.  It went up from $15 to $25.  We do get a discount through Indiana Motor Truck Association, and it is now $15 with the discount.  If you still need this test, I suggest you get it.  A lot of guys call in wanting to take the test right away so they can accept a load.  Call me or email me if you have any questions on how to get the discounted price if you want to take the test.  Also, you can look to the right side of the blog page, and click on Coil Certification, to see previous posts on this topic!

While I am on this topic, for those of you that do have Alabama Coil Certification, or intend to get it…The Birmingham office has the opportunity to book as many as 30 loads of coils per day to various destinations!  Help is needed!

CONTAINER DRAYAGE/FLIP SERVICE

Port of Long Beach/Port of Los Angeles

Truck Restrictions

The Port of Los Angeles, and the Port of Long Beach’s Clean Truck Program is completely changing the way we do business, and how we move freight in and out of these ports. This year, these ports have continued with their truck banning schedule, by denying entry to tractors that have a 2003 or older engine. There is a modification, that drivers can have performed on their engine, that will allow access to the ports. That retrofit is for 1994-2003 engines, and I have not seen it any cheaper than $10,000 for the change. I can’t see many of our contractors willing to spend that much money. Below is a list of the Clean Truck Program truck banning schedule:

Truck Banning Schedule

October 1, 2008 – All pre-1989 engines were banned from entering ports

January 1, 2010 – All 1989-1993 engines are banned, and 1994-2003 non-retrofitted engines are banned as well.

January 1, 2012 – All engines must be 2007 or newer to access ports.

As of January 1, 2010, we only have about 22% of our entire fleet that have compliant trucks to enter the ports. We have come up with a solution for our Owner-Operators that no longer have compliant equipment. We interviewed several drayage companies that could go into the port for us, load our containers on a chassis, bring them back to their facility, and then flip the cans onto our trailers.  We have decided on a company to provide us with this service.

All coordinators need to be aware of what units on their board are compliant or not. Speak with your coordinator and tell them what year engine you have in your tractor. We can’t just go by what year of tractor that we have in the computer, because it is not uncommon for the model year of a tractor, and it’s engine to be different. For example: A 2004 truck may be equipped with a 2003 engine, which would make it non-compliant. Or a 1999 truck could have had an engine replaced, and it may have a 2006 engine, which would make it compliant.

If your truck is compliant (2004 or newer), then you are free to accept anything that loads/unloads in these ports. The truck will be able to enter the port, same as it always has.

If your truck is not compliant (2003 or older), then you can still accept freight the same as always. If you do accept a load that loads out of the port, then the we will have to deduct a portion of the charge from the rate of the load for the drayage, and flip service. ATO will continue to enter these loads into the computer at the normal rate, because they will not know until the load is accepted, if they will have a compliant truck, or a non-compliant truck picking it up. It will say in the order “NONCOMPLIANT TRUCK WILL HAVE TO PAY DRAY FEE OF $??? FOR PICKUP”. The $??? is part of the drayage/flip charge that Mercer is splitting with the driver. Once you accept the load, call ATO office, and let them know that the truck you accepted on the load is a non-compliant truck. You will notice that ATO will put a “D” at the end of the trip number, indicating that we have to “dray” the container. The drayage service will then go pick up the container, and take it to their facility. You will go to the drayage service, and have the container flipped onto your trailer.

A TWIC card will no longer be needed for pickup on these loads if they are picking up at the drayage facility, unless the TWIC is needed at the delivery end.

I know that I have talked to some drivers that think that the charge to the driver is not the best deal.   I agree.  It is costly.   Keep in mind that we talked to several different drayage companies, and this was the best deal we could work out for our contractors. Mercer and the ATO office are also eating some of the total cost as well. We could have had no solution at all, and just not given anyone an option to load container freight.   Looking at the ATO screen today, shows me that there is a lot of container freight in the system out there. I think that we will get an increase in container freight because the other companies that move long-haul cans out of the ports didn’t pursue this option. We will now get their freight, because they can’t cover it.

The downside is the charge.   I think that Mercer is providing a good solution for contractors that just can’t afford to spend thousands of dollars to upgrade their equipment. Also, I know a lot of drivers that will be happy not to have to go into the ports to wait on a container anymore. Have a great day everyone!

MORE ON CSA 2010

I’m sure everyone is just as sick of reading about CSA 2010 as I am of writing about it. Unfortunately, a lot of folks just do not fully grasp the effect that this thing is going to have on drivers and motor carriers. Some have read about it and are beginning to get their arms around it. Many drivers (and motor carriers) are still just trucking along oblivious to it until it finally goes into effect later this year and hits them like a ton of bricks.

The main thing is that you don’t want anything other than “no violations” noted on an inspection report. Nothing, zip, zero, nada. Any violation noted has a point value that counts against the carrier’s safety rating, the driver’s individual safety rating, or both. Anything counts, everything counts. There are something like 3500+ individual violations from which an officer can choose.

I recently retained one of the CSA 2010 pilot program vendors to place Mercer’s SafeStat data into the CSA 2010 format so I could get an idea what we looked like in that environment.  All in all, we have a great bunch of drivers who are better than most. To put this in perspective, out of more than 1,800 qualified drivers at Mercer, I currently have twelve……twelve on probation for moving violations and/or preventable accidents. That is 0.0067% of our drivers. A pretty safe bunch. Or at least I thought so.

Here’s the shocker……under the 2010 format, I have at least one hundred drivers who potentially could have problems. Not with tickets, not with accidents, but with DOT writeups for “speeding” on their inspection sheets. Or log violations. Or securement violations. Those count. And they count big time. No ticket, not even a warning, not OOS, but just the writeup. The bad thing is, all of this started being compiled in January, 2009. Folks with clean inspections are in good shape. Folks who have been written up for anything in the past year, anything, will be starting out with a problem when CSA 2010 goes live later this year.

Drivers who look to me as those who will be most at risk will be receiving a letter from me within the next couple of months. You will be “invited” to come in, spend some “quality time” with me and look at what I’m seeing, and what the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is seeing, concerning your driving record and safety fitness. We will discuss an appropriate strategy for improving your record and will set a timetable for that to happen. Improvement will not be optional.

The bottom line is this: you need to have clean inspections, period. Out of service or not is no longer the issue. Warning versus ticket is no longer the issue. “No Violations” is the issue. This is a big deal and it is going to change our industry. I encourage everyone to read about this as much as they can and redouble their efforts to run 100% legal at all times. That is the standard of CSA 2010. That is the standard to which we will all be held. That is our new reality.

WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT TRUCK DECAL

It’s finally here.  The WWP truck decals are in stock in the Mercer company store.  They will sell for $10 a piece, and all proceeds will be directly donated to the WWP.  The decals are only available in black right now.  We hope to get some white ones ordered for those of you that have dark colored tractors.  Everything in white is going to be clear.

CLEAN TRUCK PROGRAM UPDATE UPDATE

Looks like we have an agreement with a company to flip our containers for non-compliant trucks in the Port of Long Beach, and Port of Los Angeles.  I will have more information soon…hopefully tomorrow!

WWP BOWLING TOURNAMENT

Mark your calenders for Saturday, Feb. 6th, 2010.  We will hold a bowling tournament to benefit the Wounded Warrior Project.  The price per person will be $20, and that will include 2 hours of bowling, and your shoe rental.  All other proceeds will go directly to the WWP.  The price does not include entries to any other jackpots we have during the event.  Please contact Libby Fagan at lfagan@mercer-trans.com, if you are interested in attending.  The event will be held at Strike and Spare Family Fun Center, 6220 Shepherdsville Road, Louisvllle, KY, at 6:30pm.