Cat Scale

Posts Tagged ‘May-2009’

It’s a Date

Is a new time for driver appreciation cause for concern?

Have you heard? The American Trucking Associations is shifting National Truck Driver Appreciation Week to later in the year. In case you aren’t aware, the observance — a national effort to acknowledge the contributions of truck drivers to the nation’s economic survival — has been moved to November. The week had always been celebrated in mid-August. This year, the nationwide pat on the back for America’s more than 3.5 million professional truck drivers will take pla…

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Audiobooks

Hating the Yankees is as time-honored a tradition among baseball fans as wolfing down hot dogs and Cracker Jack. But it’s awfully hard to aim bad feelings toward easygoing manager Joe Torre, who arrived to extremely low expectations and then led the New York team to multiple championships in his 12 years at the helm. He’s a reasonable and calming background presence in this audiobook, read by Spo…

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Making the Grade

A Mack Titan earns extra credit on its test drive

Big! That was my first impression when Dave McKenna, Mack Trucks’ manager of powertrain sales and marketing, brought us into the yard at Orlando Mack Sales where the Titan was waiting. Dave was to be my tour guide and navigator for the test drive. The Titan, built to do big jobs requiring big power, is a big truck. It was originally developed to run the Australian Outback, where triple trailers are all full size, and the roads are often rough and unimproved. The Titan is tall, raised to p…

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Living Large

The Iowa 80 TA Truckstop gives drivers a big welcome

Talk to most people and they’ve likely never heard of Walcott, Iowa. Talk to a truck driver and, even if they’ve never stopped by, they know the tiny town that is home to the world’s largest truckstop. And that’s just how the Iowa 80 TA wants it. “We think it’s great that travelers stop in and tour buses come through. But that’s not who built us,” says Heather DeBaillie, marketing manager for the Iowa 80 Group. “Truck drivers are the reason …

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Inside Moves

How safe is the interior of your cab?

We hear, and more often, see a great deal about workplace safety. We attend safety meetings. We hear about driving in construction zones, driving at the speed vehicles around you drive and proper use of lanes. We see workers wearing hard hats, safety glasses, orange and lime green vests with reflective stripes and protective gloves. But what about safety in our own workplace?I’m not talking about the open road or city streets. I refer to that little “office” where you spend s…

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