Jim Palmer Trucking to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy
A Missoula, MT, trucking company with more than 400 employees planned to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Monday, July 14. Jim Palmer Trucking operates using both company drivers and owner-operators.
The Associated Press quoted lawyers for Jim Palmer Trucking as saying a poor economy and high fuel prices have left the company as much as $2 million behind in repaying loans and other debts. The president of the 44-year-old company says he’s just looking for a little “breathing room” and fully intends to continue operating.
Just a month ago, it was reported that the Canadian billboard company ActionView planned to buy Jim Palmer Trucking, but the deal fell through at the last minute.

Overweight trucks fined as much as $10,000 at NYC bridges, tunnels
Truckers hauling overweight loads are risking heavy fines if they try to cross New York City’s bridges and tunnels.
Officials with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Bridges and Tunnels division said truck drivers carrying more than 80,000 pounds can be fined as much as $10,000 each for crossing MTA facilities.
MTA Bridges and Tunnels facilities are the Bronx-Whitestone, Cross Bay Veterans Memorial, Henry Hudson, Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial, Throgs Neck, Triborough and Verrazano-Narrows bridges, and the Brooklyn-Battery and Queens Midtown tunnels.
The Bridges and Tunnels Division officials said they have recently issued more than 100 summonses per month to overweight trucks, some as heavy as 200,000 pounds. The truckers were fined and told to turn around.
Courtesy of LandLine Magazine

FMCSA silent on Arizona enforcement of TV reg on laptops
Officials with the FMCSA won’t say whether the agency has told Arizona to stop citing drivers with laptops in their cabs, more than a month after the state requested guidance from the federal agency.
The issue has the potential to affect thousands of truckers who have computers, GPS devices or other technology in their cabs to track hours of service and use mapping technology.
In May, OOIDA received calls from members who had been cited or warned at the San Simon port of entry weigh station for having a laptop either mounted near their driver’s seat or sitting in the passenger seat.
However, FMCSA spokesman Duane DeBruyne told Land Line that Section 393.88 wouldn’t cover laptop computers.
Following the inquiries by Land Line Magazine in early June, the Arizona Department of Transportation suspended writing citations for drivers with laptops in their cabs.
Officials with the state DOT requested an interpretation on Section 393.88 of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, which bans screens capable of receiving a television broadcast from being within view of commercial drivers.
Kristin Schrader, a spokeswoman for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration told Land Line this week the agency has no comment regarding the status of Arizona’s request.
Gerald Cook, an OOIDA member from Amarillo, TX, was cited in late May and told by an Arizona DOT officer the ticket could cost him $450. Cook has pleaded not guilty and is fighting the citation in court.
The story sparked outcry among OOIDA members and Land Line readers, many of whom use laptops for mapping and logbook software, including voice-activated mapping software.
The laptop issue is not likely to go away soon.
Members of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance were scheduled to address the issue of laptop computers in cabs of big trucks at their September conference in Winnipeg. But the Arizona DOT’s request for a legal interpretation and other confusion about the rule has magnified the importance of the issue, CVSA Executive Director Stephen Campbell told Land Line in June.
Arizona DOT spokeswoman Cydney DeModica didn’t return recent phone calls by Land Line. In previous interviews, DeModica said Arizona DOT enforcement officers said they had seen drivers typing and using computers for chat sessions.
Courtesy of LandLine Magazine

$40 million in grants for CA Emissions Reduction Program

$40 million in grants available for drivers operating in

CA trade corridors
Posted on Sunday, July 20 @ 10:50:51 EDT by Admin
Thousands of owner-operators who run through California’s four major trade corridors may be eligible for a diesel engine grant program that’s part of the state’s billion dollar Goods Movement Emission Reduction Program.
The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District will accept applications from now until early September for a $40.5 million wave of grants to replace trucks, replace engines and retrofit engines with a diesel particulate filter.
Several categories of funding are available, including:
$50,000 to replace 2003 or older trucks with new trucks that meet 2007 emissions standard;
$20,000 to replace a 2003 or older engine with a new engine that meets 2007 standards; or
$5,000 to retrofit a 2006 or older truck with an ARB-verified level 3 diesel particulate filter.
Applications must come from truck operators who are registered in California, who drive exclusively in California and have spent at least 50 percent of their miles traveling on the state’s four trade corridors during the past two years, including the Central Valley, the Bay Area, the Los Angeles/Inland Empire or the San Diego/border corridors.
“With 95 million miles traveled each day through the Valley, mainly along Highway 99 and Interstate 5 corridors, these funds will serve a much-needed purpose in helping clean up diesel exhaust emissions,” said Seyed Sadredin, the Air District’s executive director and air pollution control officer.
For more information on the incentive program and program applications, visit the “grants and Incentives” section at www.valleyair.org or email weberip@valleyair.org, or contact the Emission Reduction Incentive Program at 800-SMOG-INFO (800-766-4463).
Todd DeYoung, the air district’s supervising air quality specialist, told both Land Line and Land Line Now that the air quality district understands that older trucks run in the Golden State belong to small businesses and owner operators rather than large fleets.
“One of our main missions is to target owner operators and small businesses,” DeYoung said. “We’ve been focusing a lot of our marketing toward small-business operations.”
DeYoung said the district did not necessarily target owner-operators. Publicity for the applications was generated by trade publications and meetings with truck dealerships who have brought in applicants.
The Air Quality District recently published a list of about 70 $50,000 truck replacement grants and nearly 400 $5,000 diesel engine retrofit grants conditionally approved under California’s early diesel emission reduction program. CARB did not require the early grants to be handed out through an open application process, and DeYoung said the air district relied on applications left over from previous grants.
Both programs rate truck engines by oxides of nitrogen and diesel particulate combined with miles driven. The air district judges each individual truck based on its own merit, DeYoung said, no matter how many trucks a given company applies for.
The district understands that large truck fleets typically replace trucks on a shorter cycle than smaller companies, he said.
“One of the main tenets of the program was to ensure the single owner operators had an equal footing, and had an equal opportunity to fund these programs,” DeYoung told Land Line. “Because it’s looked at on a truck-by-truck basis, it really evens the playing field. If they’re keeping their trucks only four and five years, they’re not going to score as high. Even if they run a lot more miles, they’re generally not going to score as high as an earlier model, or an old truck that runs even a minimal amount of miles.”
Courtesy of LandLine Magazine

Preachers vs Truckers

Three preachers died and went to heaven. While waiting for St. Peter to let them in a SWIFT and J.B. HUNT driver show up and St. Peter makes the preachers step aside. This baffled the preachers so they asked. " We've been preaching the good word our whole life, and you make us step aside and let these truckers in before us?" St. Peter replied, "In their first year of driving they have scared "the hell" out of more people then you ever preached to."

Dispatchers in Heaven??

An old trucker that died and went to heaven was standing at the pearly gates with Saint Peter and there sat the prettiest fleet of Petes that he had ever seen. He asked how do you get to drive one of them petes?
Saint Peter says we dont run them we get all kinds of drivers but we haven't got the first dispatcher.

The Presidential Candidates and Thier Stand on the Transportation Industy

I decided today to check out the internet to see if I could find anything about what the presidential candidates are saying about the transportation industry and how the economy is being affected by the high cost of fuel.

Here is what I found from Barack Obama:

NOTHING!!!

But I did however find this interesting stand that he is taking....

Phase out Traditional Inefficient Light Bulbs: For over 125 years, Americans have used the same incandescent light bulb technology, which consumes much more energy for the same results as newer lighting technologies. Barack Obama supports the effort led by Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) to update federal lighting efficiency standards to ensure that new lighting technologies are phased into the marketplace. As president, Obama will implement legislation that phases out traditional incandescent light bulbs by 2014. This measure alone will save American consumers $6 billion per year on monthly electricity bills and will save 88 billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year. By 2030, this change will result in greenhouse gas reductions of nearly 28 million tons of carbon.

Now what good will that do when fuel costs are so high that the shippers can't get the light bulbs to the stores...or the people can't afford the gas to go to the store and spend thier money on $10 light bulbs when the cost of groceries continues to climb???

And this is what John McCain had to say:

John McCain Will Help Americans Hurting From High Gasoline And Food Costs. Americans need relief right now from high gas prices. John McCain will act immediately to reduce the pain of high gas prices.

Isn't that a relief!!! A presidential candidate saying that they are going to do something....but what???? Maybe he will offer free public transportation and a tax rebate so we can all go and buy light bulbs from Barack Obama!!!

Coming Soon...National Truck Driver Appreciation Week

Iowa truck stop restroom finalist for best in nation

WALCOTT, Iowa — It stands to reason: The world’s largest truck stop also has a pretty good restroom.In fact, it has two outstanding places for when nature calls and you’re on Interstate 80 near the Quad-Cities.At least, that is according to a national contest now in progress. The Iowa 80 TruckStop in Walcott is among 10 finalists in “America’s Best Public Restroom Contest.” The competition is sponsored by Cincinnati-based Cintas Corp., which makes restroom supplies and other products.“The men’s room features nostalgic signs of oil companies, tires, a gas station-type feel,” said Heather DeBaillie, marketing manager at the truck stop.The women’s restroom plays off the World’s Largest Truckstop theme. “It features big custom artwork, little factoids, like the most expensive pair of jeans or the world’s largest purse,” she said.People can vote online. The deadline is July 31.“We are anxiously awaiting the winner to be announced in August,” DeBaillie said. “It’s really been fun. It is a fun competition. We’re excited to be nominated. We are very proud, honored.”DeBaillie said Cintas had open nominations in February from the general public and several people nominated Iowa 80. Then, a couple of weeks ago, Cintas advised the truckstop that it was in the Top 10 field.Other finalists offer such features as a mirrored waterfall with a built-in television, one-way mirrors facing the urinals, and screens with traveling images of eyes built into a mirror. The Brio Restaurant in Rockford, Ill., offers a women’s restroom themed as heaven and a men’s restroom themed as hell.Cintas is a major player in the corporate identity uniform industry. The company provides services to businesses of all types throughout North America. Cintas designs, manufactures and implements corporate identity uniform programs, and provides entrance mats, restroom supplies, promotional products, first aid and safety products, fire protection services and document management services to approximately 800,000 businesses.More than 5,000 people per day visit the Iowa 80 Truck Stop, DeBaillie said.She said the truck stop offer hundreds of amenities, from fuel, food, truck washes, a truck museum, a dentist, among other services and stores.Last July, the facility underwent a makeover. Changes included expansion of the food court, where Taco Bell and Pizza Hut restaurants were added to the existing Dairy Queen and Wendy’s, she said. In addition, she said the gift store was expanded and a super truck showroom with more than 50,000 items that people can purchase for semi-trailers was added. The showroom features three real semis, including one on a turntable, she said.At the same time, the owners decided to redo the two main restrooms. “They were just regular restrooms, no particular design or decor,” she said. “So, we thought it was time to expand the restrooms and we said, ‘Let’s make this more than boring tile.’ ”But it’s not just about the design, which she said they are very proud of.“They keep them clean. Every half-hour they clean them, which is almost constant. So, hats off to our cleaning staff. We have 25 housekeepers on staff.”

Your vote countsTo vote for America’s Best Public Restroom, go to bestrestroom.com. Deadline for voting is July 31