Archive for July, 2009

By now you may have heard that the Lonestar from International won top honors in the first Commercial Truck of the Year competition in the U.S. Europe has had a Truck of the Year award for many years. It was easy to make that distinction overseas, where truck manufacturing has long been vertically integrated. That means that not only are the cab and chassis made by the truck builder, but so are the engines, transmissions, axles and other major components. On this side of the …

With the high volume of traffic on roadways these days, more stress is being added to a mature infrastructure system that is in need of regular repair, rehabilitation and reconstruction. Summer is prime time for maintenance and repairs, as anyone who has tried to navigate a route without hitting construction delays can attest. One solution is to drive off hours. Yet, in an effort to reduce traffic congestion and travel delays, an increasing amount of roadway work is being done at night. This i…

We’re continually hearing about freight being off, trucking operations laying off workers, businesses closing and firms going into bankruptcy. Even trucking companies with years of strong performance are failing. All too often, trucking companies — especially the larger ones — deliver bad news that affects their employees via email, paycheck stuffers, recorded phone message or some other impersonal means. Often, they choose those methods so company officials can avoid having …

It’s been a very long time since my boot camp days, and all I can recall of that time is running sprints, doing push-ups, struggling over obstacle courses and bearing the brunt of instructors getting in my face bellowing commands. So when I got the call to report to UPS Feeder Driver Training School (DTS), a boot camp of sorts for truckers, I was anxious. Having been issued a set of “browns,” the UPS uniform, I packed my bags and headed off to the DTS in South Holland, Ill. T…