Truckload Authority - Summer 2015

est fleets to drive for seminar | clare c. casey safety award | tmaf update
O F F I C I A L P U B L I C A T I O N o f t h e T r U C k L O A d C a r r i e r s A s s O C I A T I O N
SUMMER 2015
Singing
Trucking’s
Praises
with Highway Angel Spokesperson
Lindsay Lawler
In this issue:
Get in the game
with Chairman Keith Tuttle
Autonomomentous
The next great hope or just hype?
Game Changer: Part III
The challenge with cameras in trucks

SUMMER | TCA 2015
President’s Purview
Making the Most
of Membership
When I took the position as your Truckload Carriers Association President in October
2014, my goal was to make a smooth transition from working in the private sector to running a
nonprofit trade association. In theory, I understood every trade association had been created for
the same reason: A group of people discovered that there were some things of value and worth that
they could do better together than alone. I felt like I could turn that theory into practice because
I had been active in what I perceived to be the strength of this organization — our committee
structure.
Each of TCA’s committees focuses on a unique aspect of the benefits offered to our membership.
These groups bring you the most current and cutting edge information possible and are
co-chaired by a mix of association professionals and partners who volunteer their time to serve
as a resource and sounding board for TCA.
By engaging these thought leaders at the committee or task force level, TCA can move our
strategic plan forward and develop new campaigns. Committee members provide clarity and
consensus on the outcomes to be achieved, allowing TCA to rationally determine what work
needs be done, who should be doing what, or whether what we are doing is working.
Members of TCA’s staff serve as committee liaisons, and the person who handles the most is
Debbie Sparks, our vice president of development. Debbie is profiled in this issue’s Inside Out
column, which was designed to give Truckload Authority readers a behind-the-scenes look at the
people leading TCA.
Brad Bentley
President
Truckload Carriers Association
bbentley@truckload.org
Debbie lives in a world of conference calls and committee meetings, where she oversees
TCA’s membership, image, benchmarking, and education programs. Debbie epitomizes the TCA
staff, which strives to create a sense of community to enhance the membership experience.
Rest assured, there are no magic tricks or elaborate props that ensure TCA’s success. It takes
hard work and long days by many people, and I am excited that other valuable team members
will be spotlighted in future issues of Truckload Authority.
In the meantime, let me remind you that TCA is a member-driven organization and we want
your participation. The committees are always looking for new, innovative thoughts from the
membership and they are one of many great ways to get involved with TCA.
Brad Bentley
Grow America
Funding the revitalization of America’s
infrastructure should be a top priority.
Page 6
PRESIDENT’S PICKS
Inside Out Featuring Debbie Sparks
Get to know TCA Vice President of
Development Debbie Sparks.
Page 38
SMALLTALK
A QUICK LOOK AT IMPORTANT TCA NEWS
SMALL
A QUICK LOOK AT
IMPORTANT TCA NEWS
TALK
Get Your TCA News Fix
Many great things are happening. Get
involved and help us make a difference.
Page 42
TCA 2015 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority

Summer 2015
555 E. Braddock Road, Alexandria, VA 22314
www.Truckload.org
T h e r o a d m a p
President’s Purview
Making the Most of Membership by Brad Bentley | 3
LegisLative Look-in
Grow America | 6
Capitol Recap | 10
nationaL news maker sponsored by The Trucker news org.
Singing Trucking’s Praises with Lindsay Lawler | 14
a Chat with the Chairman sponsored by McLeod sofTware
Get in the Game with Keith Tuttle | 20
traCking the trends sponsored by skybiTz
Diesel Dominance? | 26
Autonomomentous | 29
Game Changer, Part III - The Challenge | 32
Truckload Trendlines | 36
member maiLroom
Association Activities | 37
taLking tCa
Inside Out with Debbie Sparks | 38
Small Talk | 42
Mark Your Calendar | 46
REACHING TRUCKING’S
TOP EXECUTIVES
Chairman of the board
Keith Tuttle
Founder & President, Motor Carrier Service, LLC.
President
Brad Bentley
bbentley@truckload.org
viCe President – deveLoPment
Debbie Sparks
dsparks@truckload.org
direCtor of eduCation
Ron Goode
rgoode@truckload.org
seCond viCe Chair
Daniel Doran
President
Ace Doran Hauling & Rigging
seCretary
Aaron Tennant
CEO & President
Tennant Truck Lines, Inc.
exeCutive viCe President
William Giroux
wgiroux@truckload.org
direCtor, safety & PoLiCy
Dave Heller
dheller@truckload.org
first viCe Chair
Russell Stubbs
CEO & President, FFE Holdings Corp.
treasurer
Rob Penner
Executive Vice President & COO
Bison Transport
immediate Past Chair
Shepard Dunn
CEO & President
Bestway Express, Inc.
The viewpoints and opinions of those quoted in articles in this
publication are not necessarily those of TCA.
PubLisher + generaL mgr.
Micah Jackson
publisher@thetrucker.com
administrator
Leah M. Birdsong
leahb@thetrucker.com
ProduCtion + art direCtor
Rob Nelson
robn@thetrucker.com
Creative direCtor
Raelee Toye Jackson
raeleet@thetrucker.com
In exclusive partnership with:
1123 S. University Ave., Ste 320, Little Rock, AR 72204
www.TheTrucker.com
viCe President
Ed Leader
edl@thetrucker.com
editor
Lyndon Finney
editor@thetrucker.com
assoCiate editor
Dorothy Cox
dlcox@thetrucker.com
sPeCiaL CorresPondent
Cliff Abbott
cliffa@thetrucker.com
adverTising and MarkeTing deparTMenT
saLes direCtor
Raelee Toye Jackson
raeleet@thetrucker.com
TRUCKLOAD AUTHORIT Y IS
UNSURPASSED.
-ROBERT LOW, FOUNDER & CEO, PRIME INC.
nationaL marketing ConsuLtant
Kurtis Denton
kurtisd@thetrucker.com
nationaL marketing ConsuLtant
Kelly Brooke Drier
kellydr@thetrucker.com
© 2015 Trucker Publications Inc., all rights reserved. Reproduction without written permission
prohibited. The publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material. All advertisements
and editorial materials are accepted and published by Truckload Authority and its exclusive partner,
Trucker Publications, on the representation that the advertiser, its advertising company and/
or the supplier of editorial materials are authorized to publish the entire contents and subject
matter thereof. The publisher reserves the right to accept or reject any art from client. Such entities
and/or their agents will defend, indemnify and hold Truckload Authority, Truckload Carriers
Association, Target Media Partners, and its subsidiaries included, by not limited to, Trucker
Publications Inc., harmless from and against any loss, expense, or other liability resulting from
any claims or suits for libel, violations of privacy, plagiarism, copyright or trademark infringement
and any other claims or suits that may rise out of publication of such advertisements and/or
editorial materials. Press releases are expressly covered within the definition of editorial materials.
T R U C K I N G’S
M O S T E N T E R TA I N I N G
E X E C U T I V E P U B L I C AT I O N
Cover Photo by Jeremy Ryan Creatives
Additional magazine
photography courtesy of:
Daimler Trucks N. America: p. 29, 30
Debbie Sparks: p. 41
FotoSearch: p. 6, 8
Jeremy Ryan Creatives: p. 14, 16
Love is Greater: p. 20, 21, 22, 25
TCA: p. 3, 16, 18, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44
The Trucker News Org.: p. 6, 8, 26, 33
4
Truckload
Truckload
auThoriTy
Authority
|
| www.Truckload.org
www.Truckload.org Tca
TCA
2015
2015

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SUMMER | TCA 2015
Legislative Look-In
G row America
By Cliff Abbott
No one disputes the need to repair America’s crumbling
infrastructure. In fact, politicians from every pane of the
ideological kaleidoscope are weighing in on the issue. Unfortunately,
most of the rhetoric is carefully crafted to adhere to
party lines rather than offering a concrete, long-term solution
to the country’s infrastructure woes.
The Obama administration’s current transportation proposal
has the cumbersome name of the “Generating Renewal,
Opportunity, and Work with Accelerated Mobility, Efficiency,
and Rebuilding of Infrastructure and Communities throughout
America” Act, cleverly forming the acronym, “GROW
AMERICA.”
Politically, it’s a great name. After all, who wants to be
seen as opposing growth for America? In typical Obama
fashion, the president has bypassed a Congressional battle,
instead putting his case before the public. U.S. Secretary of
Transportation Anthony Foxx was dispatched in the “GROW
AMERICA” express bus, decorated with program logos, to
visit supporters in several cities that were sure to generate
photo ops and favorable media coverage.
“It’s a big bill designed to solve some of our big problems
in transportation,” goes the Foxx mantra. “I just think we
need to get out of this box of rooting against ourselves as a
country,” he adds.
The GROW AMERICA Act is a six-year proposal with a
price tag of $478 billion. After years without a long-term
transportation plan, the administration hopes that more consistent
federal funding will encourage more states to begin
building programs. In concept, it seems like a great idea.
Unfortunately, the GROW AMERICA Act contains some
pitfalls that concern lawmakers. As a result, committee meetings
and negotiations continue as an up or down vote is
delayed. A two-month extension of the current highway bill,
scheduled to have expired on May 31, was recently passed
by Congress and signed by the president.
The first and most glaring deficiency of the GROW AMER-
ICA Act is its funding. While sponsors of the bill tout the
“transportation funding certainty” it is supposed to provide
over the next six years, the reality is something different.
The bill offers no changes to current infrastructure funding
methods except for a one-time, 14 percent “transition tax”
on foreign corporate earnings. The hitch, of course, is that

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there is no guarantee that any of those foreign earnings will be brought
back into the U.S., where they would be subject to the tax. Republicans
in Congress predictably oppose the funding plan as a way for Democrats
to introduce another new tax. The parties disagree on whether “repatriating”
overseas earnings and paying the tax should be optional or mandatory.
About the funding concern, Foxx said, “We’ve always been very clear
that we’re willing to listen to any ideas that emerge from Congress.”
Another point of contention is that the act provides no new funding
sources beyond its six-year term. Fuel taxes remain as they are despite
mandated improvements in fuel mileage, virtually guaranteeing a funding
shortfall when the act expires. A long-term solution to infrastructure
funding is effectively delayed for a future administration and a future
Congress.
The contents of the bill are another cause for contention. Although
Foxx frequently cites the need for repairs to the country’s crumbling
infrastructure, less than two thirds (66.3 percent or $317 billion) of the
funding is earmarked for “highway system and road safety.”
Of that amount, $10 billion goes to the National Highway Transportation
Safety Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
for safety improvements, including changes to automotive recall
requirements.
Then, there’s $369 million for workforce development, which the text
of the act says is “to enhance the size, diversity and skills of our nation’s
construction and transportation workforce.”
Then $7.5 billion is earmarked for the TIGER competitive grant program,
a carryover from the economic stimulus program of the recent
recession, with $6 billion embedded in the highway and transit requests
for a competitive grant program called Fixing and Accelerating Surface
Transportation (or “FAST”). The grant programs are part of an effort to
divert funding into “discretionary” accounts under the controlling federal
and local agencies.
GROW AMERICA also calls for $28.6 billion for high performance and
Five Things to Know About
America’s Roadways
1. There are 4.1 million miles of paved highway in
the U.S., containing 8.6 million miles of paved
lanes. Interstate highways account for nearly
220,000 miles of pavement. (DOT, FHWA)
2. In 2013, nearly 20 percent of U.S. Interstate
highway miles scored higher than 95 on the
International Roughness Index. (IRI) (DOT, FHWA)
3. 24.3 percent of the nation’s 608,000 bridges
are either structurally deficient (10.4 percent) or
functionally obsolete (13.9 percent). (DOT, BTS)
4. Trucking freight totaled more than 2.6 million
ton-miles in 2011, 44.8 percent of the U.S. total
and more than air, rail, and waterways combined.
5. Delay on the Interstate Highway System
during weekdays in 2013 totaled over 141
million hours, which equated to $9.209 billion
in increased operational costs for the trucking
industry. (ATRI)
passenger rail programs “with a focus on improving the connections between
key regional city pairs.”
Other provisions that don’t specifically call for funding are still worrisome
to the trucking industry. In a move guaranteed to raise the ire of
industry executives, the act calls for an end to the current ban on tolling
interstate highway lanes.
Another proposal that could have a serious impact on carrier operations
is the clause that grants the Secretary of Transportation power to
mandate that drivers be paid at least the current federal minimum wage
for time spent performing non-driving duties.
Undoubtedly, the country’s transportation needs going forward include
non-highway methods of moving people and goods. Much of the
opposition, however, stems from the discretionary nature of some of the
spending. Opponents fear that funds for repairing highways and bridges
will be used instead on projects like pedestrian and bicycle paths that
have more to do with providing recreational opportunities than solving
transportation issues.
With airlines servicing most population centers, many question the
need for more spending on high-performance rail programs. It’s no secret
that Amtrak, perhaps the nation’s most well known long-distance
passenger rail service, has had operational losses along with consumption
of billions of taxpayer dollars. Proposals for “bullet” trains and other
passenger options haven’t adequately demonstrated a need or a public
desire for the products.
The proposal for changes to the way drivers are paid is seen by some
as an attempt to circumvent the lawmaking process, granting the Secretary
of Transportation jurisdiction over an issue that rightfully concerns
employment labor.
Transportation employees have traditionally been exempt from the
Fair Labor Standards Act, originally passed in 1938 as one part of Franklin
D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. A change in the way drivers are compensated
could reverberate throughout the economy, causing changes in
freight rates and ultimately, prices charged to consumers.
The proposal to lift the ban on interstate lane tolling, however, brings
the argument back to funding. Generally, interstate highway building
projects represent a partnership between federal, state and sometimes
local governments. Each entity funds its share of each project via methods
of its own choosing. In recent years, however, more and more states
have proposed funding repairs of existing interstate highways with the
installation of toll booths. Like the federal government, many jurisdictions
have siphoned off money collected from fuel taxes, using them for
other needs.
In the meantime, the Obama administration wants to allow states to
charge tolls to fund their portion of interstate highway construction but
has failed to propose a long-term method of funding its own portion.
Revenue from the current fuel tax system continues to be eroded as
more fuel-efficient vehicles occupy lanes in increasing numbers. Acceptable
methods of taxing electric vehicles or those that utilize alternative
fuels like natural gas have not yet been employed.
While pay-by-the-mile funding methods have been implemented in Europe,
New Zealand and other locales, none of them have gained large support
in the U.S. Some of these methods involve quarterly mileage reports
similar to those required under IFTA accompanied by appropriate payment.
Others involve fuel pumping equipment that wirelessly communicates with
engine control units, adding highway user fees to the cost of a fill-up.
While the discussion continues, short-term highway funding extensions
provide only a part of the answer as
infrastructure continues to crumble. Soon,
kicking the can down the road might
entail fishing it from a pothole, first.
Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2015

CapItol recap
A review of important news coming out of our nation’s capital.
By Lyndon Finney and Dorothy Cox
HIGHWAY
bILL
If Congress continues to stumble in its ability
to pass a long-term highway bill (translated:
a five- or six-year bill), then it better peel the
labels off a few more green bean cans because
lawmakers kicked another can down the road
late last month when it became apparent that
chances for a long-term bill were about as high
as those for the Chicago Cubs winning the
World Series.
With the May 31 extension deadline looming
and lawmakers anxious to head home for the
Memorial Day recess, both the Senate and the
House in mid-May passed the second extension
of MAP-21, this time through the end of July.
That will give them time to come up with a
long-term solution, which is lying in wait somewhere
in the bowels of the Capitol under the
name GROW AMERICA (the Generating Renewal,
Opportunity, and Work with Accelerated
Mobility, Efficiency, and Rebuilding of Infrastructure
and Communities throughout America Act,
which is the Obama administration’s six-year
transportation plan, but which does not include
any funding mechanism.
Whether or not Congress can effectively
debate and pass GROW AMERICA is … well,
how long has it been since the Cubs won the
World Series … 1908?
At least until July 31, dollars can be had
from the Highway Trust Fund, which, of course,
relies on revenue from the 18.4-cents-a-gallon
federal gasoline tax. But the tax hasn’t been
increased since 1993 and the money it brings in
isn’t enough to cover transportation spending.
However, most lawmakers are reluctant to raise
taxes in any form, fearing anything unpopular
with voters.
Unable to find a politically acceptable solution,
Congress has kept the trust fund teetering
on the edge of insolvency since 2008.
The trucking industry already pays $16.5
billion in federal highway user fees, and has
repeatedly urged Congress to raise the primary
user fee — the fuel tax — in order to fund important
projects to reduce congestion, improve
capacity and efficiency and create jobs.
Several top House and Senate Republicans
have indicated they hope to find enough money
to put an end to the temporary patches as part
of a larger effort to rewrite tax laws. But broad
tax legislation is notoriously difficult to pass
even without the complication of finding a transportation
spending solution.
“If we don’t change something, we’ll be right
back here in July talking to each other” about
another extension, said Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-
N.J., who argued against the extension.
Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., chairman of the
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee
and the bill’s chief sponsor, acknowledged
the two-month extension is less than
ideal, especially since it expires in the middle of
the summer construction season. Uncertainty
over whether they can count on federal aid has
already caused some states to cancel or delay
millions of dollars in construction projects.
Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., urged colleagues
to raise the federal gas tax, saying
14 states have raised theirs since 2013 “and
nobody lost their election because they voted
for a gas tax increase.”
The White House said in a statement that
it wasn’t opposed to the extension, but urged
lawmakers to “use this two-month extension to
make meaningful and demonstrable progress
toward a significant bill.”
GROW AMERICA does have a funding
mechanism, but one that is likely to run afoul of
big business.
A spending increase in GROW AMERICA
would be paid for by closing loopholes that allow
U.S. corporations to avoid paying taxes on
foreign earnings by parking the profits overseas.
The House rejected an effort by Democrats
to add $750 million to the bill to help passenger
railroads install safety technology known as
positive train control, which the National Transportation
Safety Board has said could have
prevented a recent deadly Amtrak derailment in
Philadelphia, had it been in place.
“This really is not the place to address this,”
said Shuster, speaking against adding the additional
money. “We need to pass this [extension]
and get it to the Senate so that we make sure
these vital programs keep people working, keep
[construction] projects moving forward so that
they don’t shut down.”
oBAMACARE
Ah, Obamacare.
Didn’t we warn you a couple of years ago
in this very publication when we outlined the
intended consequences of the Patient Protection
and Affordable Care Act that there would be
unintended consequences?
Well, here’s one, and a big one.
The roughly $6 billion in exchange start-up
costs pale in comparison to the ongoing insurance
overhead that the ACA has added to the
healthcare system — more than a quarter of a
trillion dollars through 2022.
So says Health Affairs, a leading journal of
health policy thought and research.
David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler,
writing a blog for Health Affairs, said that
between 2014 and 2022, the Centers for Medicare
and Medicaid Services (CMS) projects
$2.757 trillion in spending for private insurance
overhead and administering government health
programs (mostly Medicare and Medicaid),
including $273.6 billion in new administrative
costs attributable to Obamacare.
Nearly two-thirds of this new overhead
— $172.2 billion — will go for increased private
insurance overhead.
“Most of this soaring private insurance
overhead is attributable to rising enrollment
in private plans, which carry high costs for
administration and profits,” the writers said. “The
rest reflects the costs of running the exchanges,
which serve as brokers for the new private
coverage and will be funded (after initial startup
costs) by surcharges on exchange plans’ premiums.”
Government programs — primarily Medicaid
— account for the remaining $101.4 billion
increase in overhead.
But even the added dollars to administer
Medicaid will flow mostly to private Medicaid
HMOs, which will account for 59 percent of total
Medicaid administrative costs in 2022.
10 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2015

J. J. KELLER’S ELD INSIGHTS
The subcontracting of Medicaid coverage to private HMOs has nearly
doubled Medicaid’s administrative overhead, which has risen from 5.1
percent of total Medicaid expenditures in 1980 to 9.2 percent this year,
the authors said.
The report comes at a time when Obamacare is the subject of an
expected Supreme Court ruling sometime this month when the justices
rule on a lawsuit seeking to invalidate subsidies to more than 7.5 million
people who bought plans on the federal exchange.
If the Supreme Court upholds the lawsuit, those people will land in
the same boat as their more well-heeled compatriots.
People with individual coverage in 2010 and 2012 who bought silver
and bronze plans on the exchange after the law took effect saw total
premiums and out-of-pocket payments rise an estimated 14 percent
to 28 percent, according to a study last year by the National Bureau of
Economic Research.
“Should subsidies be lost, the formerly subsidized will face premiums
and out-of-pockets that are already a reality for the unsubsidized,” said
Kev Coleman, head of research and data at HealthPocket Inc., a company
that analyzes health-insurance costs across the U.S.
Most experts believe the language of the Obamacare act says it is
illegal to set up a federal exchange, saying that the act requires exchanges
be set up at the state level.
Thirty-seven states never set up an exchange.
But Obamacare proponents say that’s not what Congress intended.
They insist the phrase in question was never intended to restrict subsidies,
and instead amounts to a typo — one that proponents say conservatives
have exploited at the expense of the newly insured.
If the court says federal exchanges are illegal, the more significant
impact comes in two parts, according to a report by Bloomberg.
The first involves the Republican Party’s image: If a consensus forms
that conservatives stripped 8 million people of health insurance because
they insisted on litigating a typo, that plays into the Democratic narrative
of a party that’s poorly attuned to the financial concerns of middle-class
voters.
On the other hand, if Obamacare’s opponents can convince the public
that Democrats brought this on themselves (by trying to coerce state
governments and then changing their story when that approach didn’t
work), those opponents can avoid taking the blame for people losing
their insurance.
RESTART RULE
Chalk this one up as a success by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration, but doing what it was supposed to do has had some less
than pleasant consequences.
“This one” was the controversial 34-hour restart rule implemented
July 1, 2013, but then was suspended by Congress late last year after
the trucking industry set up a louder howl than a wolf bellowing at a full
moon.
Virtually no one in the trucking industry liked the new rule when it was
first introduced in the Hours of Service Notice of Proposed Rulemaking
way back there in 2010, and were still not happy when the Final Rule
was issued late in 2011.
As everyone knows, the July 1 rule allowed drivers to take a restart
only once every 168 hours and required two consecutive 1 a.m. to 5 a.m.
The Surprising ROI
For Implementing ELDs
A common argument against switching to electronic logging devices (ELDs)
has been the cost. However, if you’ve been looking at ELDs only as an expense,
you’ll be surprised to discover the significant opportunities for financial
savings, efficiency gains, and risk reduction.
Operational Efficiencies
When using even a basic compliance system powered by ELDs, you can better
control drivers’ assignments based on back-office visibility to available drive
time. This results in fewer drivers informing dispatch at the last minute that
they don’t have the hours available to complete the trip. Or, worse yet, ending
up with a stranded load, frustrated customer, and an out-of-service violation.
Reduced Paperwork
Paper logs require time for the driver to complete, followed by administrative
time for auditing and filing of the logs. Shuffling papers is not productive and
creates recordkeeping nightmares. With an E-Log, drivers simply “submit” their
electronic log at the end of the workday. Most E-Log systems automatically
audit for form and manner errors, thereby reducing violations and improving
accuracy. And action can be taken immediately with drivers to correct any
problems. If a log must be retrieved later, most back-office systems use a simple
“search and view” option to specify which log you want to view; no searching
through paper files.
Improved Compliance
The most obvious ROI will be the reduction in violations. In a study released by
the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) related to ELDs, fleets
that were equipped with electronic logs experienced a:
• 53% lower driving-related HOS violation rate
• 49% lower non-driving-related HOS violation rate (such as form
and manner).
Fewer Accidents
In the same study, drivers using E-Logs had an 11.7% lower crash rate than
those not using E-Logs. That’s important, because according to the FMCSA,
the average cost of a DOT-recordable accident is between $97,000 and
$511,000. The cost of an injury crash is between $247,000 and $1,200,000.
And fatality crashes were reported to cost between $6,300,000 and $7,600,000.
The elimination of just one accident can be the difference between a year that’s
profitable and one that’s not.
Summing It Up
As you can see, even though we haven’t covered every possible ROI factor —
such as fuel and insurance savings, automated IFTA reporting, and routing
efficiencies — there are a number of positive contributions ELDs can have on
your bottom line.
To download our complete “ELDs: Daily ROI for Compliance and
Operations” whitepaper, visit JJKeller.com/ELDsForCompliance.
To learn about J. J. Keller’s Encompass® ELD and E-Log system,
see the ad in this publication or visit JJKellerELogs.com.
with E-Logs
TCA 2015 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 11

periods, all in the name of encouraging drivers
to get more rest by sleeping during the nighttime
when the body’s natural clock is at its peak
for restful sleep and driving during the day when
they were more alert.
Alas, the new rule worked, but daytime
tow-away and injury crashes in the daytime
increased by a statistically significant number
in the 12 months after the July 1 rule was put in
place.
This is according to the American Transportation
Research Institute (ATRI), which released
a report in mid-May after ATRI completed an
analysis of the safety and operational impacts
from the 34-hour restart provision by comparing
data from the 12 months preceding July
1, 2013, when the less restrictive rule was in
place, and the 12 months after July 1, 2013.
“Essentially, the FMCSA wanted to get truck
drivers sleeping during the night and driving
during the day,” said Dan Murray, ATRI vice
president, research. “They completely ignored
their sister agency’s (National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration) own analysis of truck
crash risk, when you can see in particular that
morning rush hour and the afternoon rush hour
have the greatest crash risk of any day parts.”
The July 1, 2013, rule was also designed to
cut down on fatigued driving, but the agency’s
own study of the impact of the new rule before
it was officially implemented didn’t show any
significant difference between the rule in effect
prior to July 1, 2013, and the post-July 1 rule,
ATRI said in its report.
The pre-July 1 rule, which replaced the suspended
rule late last year, didn’t have the 168-hour
or the two consecutive 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. restrictions.
“So they released that study with some sort of
indication as justification of their rule, and everyone,
particularly ATRI, said there is no documentation
in here to identify a difference between the two
groups,” Murray said.
When Congress suspended the rule at the
behest of trucking, which wasn’t getting any relief
from the FMCSA after showing that the new rule
had cut productivity, lawmakers also told FMCSA
to conduct a study of the pre- and post-July 1 versions
of the rule.
So the agency contracted with the Virginia
Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) to conduct a
field study of both versions, and set out, along with
VTTI, to find drivers to participate in the study.
The agency made more than one plea for
drivers, saying it wanted a good cross section
of the industry, all of which apparently made the
trucking industry skittish, because in May, saying
the FMCSA was “being deliberately selective in
choosing which qualified drivers participate in the
study,” a consortium of 120 transportation stakeholder
organizations called on Congress to support
a stronger version of the bipartisan restart study
requirement Congress approved last December.
The letter highlights the need for Congress
to prevent the FMCSA from skewing results of
its study to fit its own conclusions — conclusions
that the group says run counter to the
12 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2015

industry’s experience under the agency’s “onerous”
restart restrictions.
The stronger language referred to in the letter
is included in the FY2016 appropriations bill for
the Departments of Transportation and Housing
and Urban Development, which President Barack
Obama said he will veto in its present form.
The language in the bill is still before Congress
and says that restart restrictions would
remain suspended until FMCSA’s study can
demonstrate (as reviewed by the Department of
Transportation’s Office of the Inspector General)
“statistically significant improvement in all outcomes
related to safety, operator fatigue, driver
health and longevity and work schedules, in
comparison to commercial motor vehicle drivers
who operated under [the old rules].”
The bill passed last December would in
essence allow the FMCSA to make its own
conclusions about the outcome of the study —
which is supposed to be completed by September
30 — and either reinstate the suspended
rule or permanently replace the suspended rule
with the rule in place now, which is the restart
rule that was in effect prior to July 1, 2013.
“It [the stronger language] would ensure that
FMCSA’s study is representative of all drivers
who use the restart provision and that it considers
the full impact of putting more trucks onto
the road during daytime traffic,” the letter said of
the bill under consideration. “Moreover, the provision
would prevent insignificant results from
being used to justify wide-reaching regulations.”
The language in the bill is needed, the letter
said, because FMCSA “has in the past relied
on research showing trivial, inconsequential
benefits to justify its rules.”
MILEAGE TAX
On July 1, Oregon will launch the nation’s
first pay-by-the-mile tax, or as proponents call it,
a “road usage charge system.”
Oregon officials called it “a huge step for
Oregon and the nation” at the end of April and
announced they had chosen three private partners
with whom drivers can enroll their vehicles
for the program, called OReGO.
Participants are “volunteering” for the
program and will be charged a per-mile fee and
then either receive a credit or a bill for the difference
in gas taxes paid at the pump.
Oregon has already conducted two pilot
projects to test program, which led to the state
Legislature to launch it statewide July 1. So
far, according to The Associated Press, 5,000
volunteers are signed up.
Meanwhile, Washington, California, Idaho,
Colorado and other states are considering a
similar program.
Last year, California Gov. Jerry Brown
signed into law the first test of mileage-based
road taxes in the Golden State. The bill created
a 15-person panel to oversee a pilot of pay-bythe-mile
taxation by 2018.
Many think it’s an idea whose time has
come: exploring how technology can be used
to come up with money to bolster funds from
gasoline taxes which have dwindled because of
more fuel-efficient vehicles.
Oregon’s plan would charge drivers 1.5
cents for every mile they travel in the state by
means of two devices: one in the vehicle and
one in the fuel pumps, themselves.
Backers of Oregon’s plan say program adoption
there has been relatively quick because of
services such as Apple’s iPay and in-car Internet
systems such as General Motor’s OnStar.
State Farm already has a pay-as-you-drive
discount for customers with newer Ford vehicles
with the Sync system that automatically tracks how
far they’ve traveled, according to media reports.
Other states are watching closely and could
jump on the pay-per-mile bandwagon, seeing it
as a ready pot of gold at the end of the rainbow
for financing their infrastructure and patching
their potholes.
But activists across the political spectrum
are complaining about privacy rights, and the
idea of a tax or “charge” on road usage sticks in
many people’s throats.
“It seems absolutely unfair to generate tax
revenue as a reaction to cars becoming more
fuel-efficient,” remarked Karl Brauer, senior
analyst with “Kelley Blue Book.”
And one can’t help but wonder how long
Oregon’s “volunteers” will stay that way and how
many Oregonians will choose to remain aloof
from the program.
As other states adopt the tax as a fund-raising
solution will drivers even have a choice to
volunteer?
That remains to be seen.
HAIR
TESTING
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration (SAMHSA) May 29 in
the Federal Register published a notice requesting
information on the use of hair specimens
for drug testing, according to the Department of
Transportation.
Comments, concerns and statements are
being requested from trucking stakeholders and
the general public.
SAMHSA is an operating division within the
Department of Health and Human Services
(HHS), and its Center for Substance Abuse
Prevention (CSAP) Drug Testing Advisory
Board (DTAB) will be the vehicle to provide
recommendations to the SAMHSA Administrator
for proposed changes to drug-testing rules,
officially known as the Mandatory Guidelines
for Federal Workplace Drug Testing Programs.
In other words, this groundwork must be laid
before DOT could include hair follicle testing as
a viable means of determining an applicant’s or
current driver’s drug use.
The panel must evaluate the “scientific
supportability” of any considered change, DOT
noted.
To assist the DTAB, SAMHSA is soliciting
comments on a variety of issues related to hair
specimen drug testing including the hair specimen
itself, its collection, specimen preparation,
analytes (chemical compounds being targeted),
cut-offs, specimen validity, and initial and confirmatory
testing.
“Because DOT must follow the scientific
guidelines of the HHS for DOT-regulated drug
testing laboratory procedures, participants in
the DOT transportation industry drug testing
program should be aware of the important
issues that HHS is considering regarding the
scientific methodology and forensic defensibility
of hair testing,” the agency said in its release.
“Any notice and subsequent final rule issued
by the HHS regarding hair testing may affect the
DOT testing program under 49 CFR Part 40, but
only after the DOT conducts its own rulemaking.”
All of which means get ready: Allowing hair
follicle testing could soon become a reality. Or,
in light of the federal government’s speed, it’s
coming but probably not soon.
DOT is urging interested persons to read
the HHS document carefully and to provide any
information, relevant studies, and comments
directly to the HHS.
The Request for Information can be viewed
at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2015-05-
29/pdf/2015-12743.pdf.
Comments and information may be submitted
to the docket using this link http://www.reg-
ulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=SAMHSA-
2015-0003-0003.
The docket will be open for 30 days.
TCA 2015 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 13

Brought to you by
with
story by Dorothy Cox | photography by Jeremy Ryan Creatives
As a child,
when Lindsay Lawler was vacationing or at a restaurant
with her parents and they couldn’t find their little girl, she
was one of two places: sitting with someone who was eating
by themselves or singing her heart out for strangers.
“I was always a ham,” said the singer/songwriter
and Truckload Carriers Association Highway Angel
spokesperson. And, she said, to this day she hates to see
someone eating alone and will often approach a trucker by
himself, even if it’s just to ask about his day.
Lawler was born in Oklahoma City but grew up in Texas
(“I’m a Red River girl,” she says) in what she calls a “very
conservative, practical family.” Her dad practiced insurance
law and her mom was in sales but quit early on to raise her
children.
“I was the typical cheerleader,” Lawler told Truckload
Authority. “I thought I would get married and take a normal
path.”
She belonged to a sorority at the University of Oklahoma,
acting as their song leader, but a campus flyer advertising
for a singer to front a rock band caught her eye and thoughts
of a 9-to-5 job went out the window.
“I fell in love with it,” Lawler said of performing live.
Six months later she and the band moved to Los Angeles
but Lawler soon realized country music was more of a fit
for her, artistically and because of her upbringing in Texas
and Oklahoma, both country music strongholds.
At the time, she and her husband were entrenched in
L.A. He was in TV and film and, Lawler said, a move to
14 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2015

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get your daily industry news at thetrucker.com
Nashville didn’t make a lot of sense to him. But he texted her one day
and said, “Let’s go.” So they packed up and headed for Nashville, “a
new town, with no friends. We just showed up.”
Her husband travels and they don’t see each other very much and
— not sounding too different from some trucking couples — she said,
“We say that’s the reason we still like each other.”
Lawler is excited about hitting the road for her third annual
Highway Angel Truck Stop Tour hosted by Travel Centers of America/
Petro Stopping Centers, which has 15 stops this year. And she noted
that trucking has provided her with numerous venues at which to
sing such as the Great American Trucking Show, held in Dallas each
August, Women In Trucking’s “Salute to Women Behind the Wheel”
event each year during the Mid-America Trucking Show in March,
the renaming ceremonies of TAs and Petro Stopping Centers in honor
of Citizen Driver Award winners, and at the wreath laying event at
Arlington National Cemetery as part of Wreaths Across America,
which she called “the most special thing I’ve ever gotten to do.”
“We were in the amphitheater in front of veterans’ mothers, military
personnel and there was a fly-over; it was the most wonderful moment
… . Afterward I wandered around the cemetery and heard people’s
stories. It wasn’t somber; it meant people were still coming there to
remember their loved ones.”
TCA, of course, handles the logistics for supplying the wreaths
every December and recruits carriers to volunteer the trucks and
drivers that make it all possible.
Lawler identifies with truckers in that “our lifestyles are similar,
being out on the road away from families, the loneliness, a new place
every day. And they give me a family community as well.”
Lawler likes the challenge of telling a story and creating a musical
and lyrical picture to fit a specific need. “It’s a fun challenge,” she
said. “It benefits the industry and it gives me an additional purpose.”
Take the case of the moving ballad, “Highway Angel.” It’s told
from the viewpoint of a motorist who has been in a frightening crash
on a dark stretch of highway and rescued by a trucker, a stranger who
didn’t even give his name. “How can I say thank you …” goes part
of the haunting refrain. It led to Lawler being named Highway Angel
spokesperson and to her partnership with TCA.
She wrote the words after reading every Highway Angel rescue
testimony TCA had at the time.
And as much as the storytelling, Lawler loves being a voice for
truckers who many times feel they have no voice.
“At the end of the day my goal is to make a driver smile and forget
about being out on the road alone [and know] that they have a friend.
Being a friend of the driver and their voice, that’s huge for me. That’s
the biggest thing. And giving me a chance to sing? That’s a win/win
for me.”
Knoxville area blogger and marketer Brian Hornback writes that
Lawler has never settled for taking the same route as everybody else,
so it’s no surprise that her new album, “Two Peaches Six Cookies” has
“strayed from the pack” — in a very good way.
It fuses the beat-driven sound of pop artist Rihanna with the sound
of country megastar Reba McEntire and the twang of banjos, steel
guitars and fiddles, Lawler told Truckload Authority, adding that she
calls the new sound “Countrihanna,” because she loves and has been
influenced by both artists.
It features Mark Evitts on fiddle, Kevin Post on steel (Blake
Shelton), and Glen Campbell’s daughter Ashley Campbell on banjo,
and was co-produced by Catch This Music writer Chris Roberts and
engineer Greg Bieck (Destiny’s Child, Lionel Richie, Ricky Martin,
Hall and Oats).
And that leads to conversations about why Lawler is happy she’s
ensconced in the trucking industry.
“Looking back, if I had signed with a major [record] label I
wouldn’t be attached with all these trucking companies. Essentially, I
would be working for someone else … My friends are on major labels
and they’re not doing the music they want.”
Trucking, she said, has become her music label.
As for the quirky title, “Two Peaches Six Cookies,” it comes from
what her grandfather had to have for dessert every night. It couldn’t
be five or seven cookies, she said. It had to be six, served with two
canned peaches.
What message does Lawler have for trucking? “Basically, I can’t
thank them enough,” she said. “This industry has given me a career
and a way to make my biggest dreams come true. They’ve given me a
platform, literally and figuratively.”
16 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2015

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Recording artist and Truckload Carriers Association Highway Angel
spokesperson Lindsay Lawler recently announced the initial tour dates for the third
annual Highway Angel Truck Stop Tour, hosted by TravelCenters of America (TA).
The tour will include a total of 15 TA/Petro locations, with stops in Colorado,
Connecticut, Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Tennessee, Ohio, Missouri, Louisiana,
Illinois, Iowa, Virginia, Florida, Kentucky and Arkansas.
“I started doing the truck stop tour because I wanted to reach the trucking
community and share the music that I created about them and the industry they
so proudly represent,” said Lawler. “We’ve had a lot of fun, learned a few lessons,
and now, getting ready to kick off our third tour, we feel we’ve somewhat mastered
the truck stop tour concept. I am so proud to be the spokesperson for Truckload
Carriers Association’s Highway Angel program and I’m really excited for this tour to
go back to the truck stops.”
Each tour stop includes an hour-long acoustic performance by Lawler from her
flatbed truck stage, with select locations to include live radio coverage.
In addition to hosts TA and TCA, Wholesale Truck and Finance and Schneider are
also returning as sponsors of the event. New to this year’s tour is a sponsorship
from EpicVue — a company that offers in-cab satellite TV packaged specifically for
commercial fleets.
“We are thrilled to have EpicVue join our team of sponsors,” said Lawler. “Drivers
are gone much of the time and don’t always have the time or money to experience
entertainment. We provide free entertainment to drivers through truck stop
performances, while EpicVue makes it possible for drivers to enjoy quality television
in the comfort of their cabs during downtime. They are a perfect fit for us!”
For the performances in San Antonio, as well as Missouri, Illinois, Colorado and
Connecticut, Lawler will serve as musical host for TA’s Citizen Driver Award local
unveiling and reception ceremonies. At each unveiling, the TA or Petro location has
been renamed for one of the five 2015 Citizen Driver honorees and Lawler will
perform for the family, friends and dignitaries present for the unveiling ceremony
and reception that follows.
Citizen Driver is a program launched by TA in 2013 that recognizes hardworking
men and women of trucking that lead exemplary lives, both on and off
the road, with the first honorees announced at the 2014 Mid-America Trucking
Show. Lawler recently penned “I Drive,” a song co-written by her producer Chris
Roberts specifically for the Citizen Driver program, which will be performed at each
ceremony.
“As spokesperson for the Highway Angel program the last several years,” said
Lawler, “I’ve taken a sincere interest in drivers that go above and beyond their daily
call of duty. I’ve met men and women that saved a life on the road, delivered their
load on time, and come home after several days on the road to shovel the driveway
for their elderly neighbor. In my eyes, they’re the rule, not the exception. The Citizen
Driver program is similar to the Highway Angel program in its recognition of these
drivers and I’m thrilled to be including the Citizen Driver component in our first five
stops on this year’s tour.”
To learn more about the 2015 Highway Angel Truck Stop Tour, visit www.
truckstoptour.com.
Join the conversation on social media networks by using #TruckStopTour.
18 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org

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SUMMER | TCA 2015
A Chat With The Chairman
20 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2015

Sponsored by
Get
In
the
Game
Y
Foreword and interview by Micah Jackson
ou eat, sleep and breathe trucking. You proudly extol the virtues of an industry that has an instrumental hand
in feeding, clothing and housing hundreds of millions. Every day you see the good the industry provides to
the economy and the nation. Frustrated by the lack of public education and awareness of such good, and the mounting
governmental pressures and constraints, you often think to yourself, “Can my voice really make a difference? What can
I do to help bring about positive changes?”
In our second “Chat” with TCA Chairman Keith Tuttle, he urges each of us to do more than hope or wish things will
change, but to actually take the necessary steps to improve the state and future of trucking. In fact, Chairman Tuttle
is building his one-year term as chairman on this cause. “Get off the sidelines and get in the game!” is a refrain he employs
to provoke all of us to action. Will you heed the call? Will you intensify your efforts? The issues are many and the
stakes are high. We all have much work ahead if we are to do our part, so let’s get to it.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for sitting down again for the
second “chat” of your chairmanship. One of the things
that you’re building your chairmanship around is that
you’re urging people to get off the sidelines and get into
the game. Tell Truckload Authority readers what that
looks like to you.
As I am finishing this interview, there are 20 of us from
the state of Ohio who are beginning our “Call on Washington.”
This is probably the seventh or eighth time we’ve visited our
representatives and also the Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration. Whether it’s with your township trustees, your
city council members or your mayor, have them out to your
business and develop a relationship with your representatives.
You should also communicate with your delegates on a federal
level, too. Whether you see that person when he or she is back
in their district or when you travel to Washington, D.C., they
want to know about the issues such as CSA, Hours of Service,
infrastructure and a myriad of other subjects affecting your
business and their constituents. They would much rather be
meeting with the folks that are signing the front of the checks
and are employing a lot of people with good-paying jobs than
talking to a paid lobbyist — and they will tell you that when you
come to see them. When we come to Washington, D.C., they
welcome us to their office. One of my favorite sayings is that you
can sit at the table with these people and talk about the issues
or you can be what’s on the menu for dinner. I’m not saying we
should all run for office; I could never do that, but I am saying
that you have to be involved.
Recently revised economic first-quarter numbers were
released and they were quite disappointing as the economy
actually shrank. What is your view of the state of the
trucking industry right now?
We can’t look at this thing on a week-to-week or day-to-day
or even a month-to-month basis. This is a powerful industry and
there will be an ever-increasing demand for quality truckload
carriers who provide value for their customers. Trucking will
continue to grow as the primary means of delivering products to
market, and truckload carriers deliver the great majority of that
freight. We are so good at what we do that we’re sort of taken
for granted. We, as an industry, have done such a fantastic job
of helping this country rebound to where it is now. Think about
it: Just-in-time is now measured in minutes, not in hours or
days. We don’t have warehouses bulging at the seams; that’s
how much the public and shippers have counted on this industry.
The data indicate we’re a little softer than what we were last
year at this time, but overall I would say that the demand for
this industry and what we do will continue to increase for good,
safe truckload carriers.
TCA 2015 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 21

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McLeodSoftware.com | 877.362.5363
You’ve been involved with TCA for a long time. You’ve run and
operated your own business for many years. What do you see as
the biggest challenges facing trucking?
The consensus among my trucking peers is we can solve a multitude of
issues by being more profitable as an industry and getting a better return
on investment dollars. This doesn’t get talked about too much, but for the
tremendous capital involved in this business I believe there’s still too much
risk involved compared to the returns. For truckload versus many of the
shippers we do business with, this industry lags behind a lot of others on
overall return on investment. I’m sure I can share stories along with a lot
of other trucking company owners and executives who sit in boardrooms
and negotiate with shippers. I can remember one contract that we were
negotiating was heavily in favor of the shipper, yet posted right in the
shipper’s boardroom were their
operating ratios of all their different
companies and operating units. As
I compared that to the beat down of
the carriers that they worked with,
it was almost like they didn’t want
us to make as high of an operating
ratio as they had at their own
company. Times have changed a
lot since then, but shippers need to
pay higher rates and need to ensure
the profitability of their carriers so
that we can assure that we can
uphold the service levels that they
demand.
In a hyper-competitive
environment among carriers
how do you drive rates up?
Most of the very good carriers
are walking away from unprofitable
business. And the good shippers will
work in tandem with good truckload
carriers. They will sit down and
mutually agree on profitable pricing.
As this pendulum continues to swing
in favor of good, quality-driven
carriers that bring value to the
shippers, more of us are becoming
a lot smarter about our pricing, and
as more shippers are realizing that,
they’re locking in their capacity with
good carriers because they don’t
want to be left behind. Sure, in the
last month or two, things are soft and
maybe in the next quarter they’ll go
like gangbusters again. Remember,
we have the luxury of being the most
flexible form of transporting freight
in this country and we’ll continue to
get an ever-increasing percentage
of freight hauled as more people
take advantage of that flexibility.
Another major issue vexing
the industry is recruiting and
finding good safe, qualified drivers. We hear a lot about making
the job more livable for drivers. What does that really mean?
The incredible problem we have with our aging workforce is certainly
part of the discussion. ATRI’s study of driver age demographics from 1994
to 2013 showed a tremendously increasing reliance on older drivers and a
dramatic drop-off in younger drivers. It’s startling when I see that there’s
a higher percentage of 65-year-old drivers in trucking than there are
20- to 24-year-olds. According to that report, the percentage of 25- to
30-year-olds has gone down almost 50 percent in the last 20 years, 50
PERCENT!!! All of us are having an issue back-filling, especially our driver
associates. We’re having a huge problem recruiting younger drivers. We
push, push and push when kids are juniors in high school that they must
get a college degree. In many cases, those kids get out with a nonspecific
degree which they don’t use and we have jobs in trucking that are goodpaying
and yet we struggle to push young people into driver positions or
maintenance careers and other jobs in our industry. It’s because there’s
this huge push that everybody’s got to have a four-year degree. By the
time a 23-year-old in this country begins to think about being a truck
driver, it’s probably too late. I know we have increasing government
regulations, but the tough truth about it is that some carriers could do a
better job respecting their driving associates. I wish I had the answer to
this problem, but we are not recruiting or keeping younger drivers in this
industry and that has to be fixed.
What should conscientious, safe, responsible drivers be earning in
this country?
There’s a major retailer who is
saying that first-year drivers can
make between $75,000 and $80,000
and even they can’t find enough OTR
drivers. I’m not sure that it’s just
wages, but that is part of the equation
that includes respect, feeling like part
of a team and being counted on to
make a difference. It’s also the fact
that there really aren’t too many
people out there who want to sleep
three feet behind where they worked
all day or wake up in the morning and
say, “Where do I brush my teeth and
where do I use the bathroom?” It’s
a brutally difficult job and a lot of us
have to figure things out to be able
to fill seats with good safe driving
associates. They need to be paid
for the tremendously challenging,
tough job that they do. Without
our professional driving associates,
nobody else in this business has
a job. My friend Jim Ward, a fellow
TCA officer who runs D.M. Bowman,
recently said that “We need to treat
our driving associates with more
respect.” He’s spot on saying that
even the word “truck driver” shows
a lack of respect — and I had to
agree with him. The guy driving the
train? We don’t call him a train driver,
we call him a locomotive engineer.
The guy driving a plane? He’s not a
plane driver, he’s a pilot. And yet we
have truck drivers and shippers and
carriers and we’re finally waking up to
the brutal fact that, unlike the Doritos
commercial we heard years ago, we
just can’t make more.
Government regulations,
innovations in technology and
customer demands have made
trucking more complex than
many people ever dreamed it
would be. How do smaller companies like an MCS survive, much
less even grow while under the mounting cost of doing business?
Whether you’re a small carrier or a very big carrier, the cream always
rises to the top. Many small- to medium-sized companies that I know
were early adopters of satellite communications, lane departure, rollover,
collision-avoidance and other safety-related systems. A number of us who
are smaller- to medium-sized carriers have cameras in our trucks, now.
We might not be the first company or the ones doing the beta testing
and trials for the manufacturers; but even the small fleets want to be
safer, smarter and embrace change. Technological changes are coming at
a faster rate than any of us comprehend right now, but good companies
are finding out ways to be profitable in this business; they’re learning how
22 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2015

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to be much safer by using this technology and
reaping tremendous benefits.
Let’s get into some single issues, here. Speed
limiters … do you favor mandating them?
Absolutely I do. It is also the opinion of the
Truckload Carriers Association that speed limiters
should be put on trucks. If a truck is set at 65 mph
by the speed limiter, that does not stop a guy from
doing 50 miles an hour in a 35 mph zone, but it
is a start. We all know that a truck operating at
70 or 75 mph requires a longer distance to stop.
It’s tougher on the components, it doesn’t get as
good fuel economy and it’s more of a hazard on
the road than a truck going slower.
The Trucker is reporting that DOT has issued
a news release looking at the possibility
of rewriting their own guidelines to hair
follicle testing and trucking industry
stakeholders are being asked to comment.
My question for you is, what is your
position on mandating hair follicle
testing?
Our members who use hair follicle testing have
proven that it does a much more comprehensive job
of finding drugs in an applicant or
current employee in a random
drug test. TCA’s drug and alcohol
policy supports hair testing as an
alternative method to DOT drug
and alcohol testing protocol. As
a zero tolerance industry, it helps
weed out more of the bad apples
and TCA is for it, which means
I’m for it.
Are the risks and costs
worth the rewards of
deploying cameras in your trucks?
In study after study, between 75 and 80
percent of all highway accidents are attributed
to the car driver. Even AAA, which in a lot of
cases does not support our industry, cites these
stats. In a majority of the accidents, cameras
can be a great asset. On the other hand, if it
is the fault of the truck driver it’s my opinion is
that it’s better to know up front so we can deal
with it. I have talked with numerous carriers
that have put cameras in their trucks and
in the vast majority of cases it has protected
them and saved them a lot more money than
what it would have cost them in terms of atfault
accidents versus accidents that are not the
fault of their driver. In some cases they have
immediately sent the film to the attorney who
is suing that carrier and after they’ve seen the
camera film, the lawsuit goes away. So my
personal opinion is yes, I do support the use of
cameras in trucks.
In your personal negotiations and
involvement in Washington, what do you
think the chances are that the 34-hour
restart suspension becomes a permanent
rollback of the provision?
I think it will take solid data, but I believe
there’s a good chance of it becoming permanent
because we have a lot of drivers now taking part
in the federal restart study. Remember, we are
the industry that spoke loud and clear when it
came to the restart provision. As an industry,
we supplied the agency with over 28,000
comments regarding the most recent Hours of
Service provisions. We operated those rules
daily, which, in my eyes, makes us somewhat
of a leading authority in stating that the restart
did not make sense. Over 28,000 comments,
countless Congressional meetings and testimony
and an industry speaking with one voice got us
to where we are now.
What do you make of the hype surrounding
the autonomous truck?
A lot of people were worried 20 years ago
when we heard about Schneider and other big
carriers having satellite communications in
trucks. I remember our own drivers saying, “If
you ever put those in our trucks, we will walk
away. I do not want Big Brother in my truck;
I don’t want you knowing what I’m doing.” We
were also an early adopter with Qualcomm,
and within a year or two of having satellite
“One of my favorite sayings
is that you can sit at the table
with these people and talk
about the issues or you can be
what’s on the menu for dinner.”
communications our drivers who didn’t have that
in their truck said, “Can I get that?” because
they knew that we knew exactly where they
were if they had a problem. It’s going to be
a long time until we can say trucks don’t need
good safe drivers. And there’s a lot more to
hauling freight than just positioning that truck
going down the road. It gets back to what I
said earlier that they’re not just guys that drive
a truck, they are professional driving associates.
I think Freightliner’s got some incredible ideas,
but it’s going to be years until anything comes
to fruition with the driverless truck.
We all know the Highway Trust Fund is a mess.
The industry does support an increase in fuel
taxes as does TCA to help pay for funding.
That clearly doesn’t seem to be viable in the
current political climate in Washington.
Should trucking continue to push for a
national solution to our infrastructure
problem or focus on a state-by-state
solution? And secondly, should trucking
propose a different way, even if it might be
less efficient, to fund infrastructure?
I’ve been involved in several study groups,
including a task force on how to fund highways.
This has been talked about since SAFETEA-LU
was set to expire. We all know that tolling is by
far the most inefficient way to do this. Such
a high percentage of the cost goes toward
administration. More and more states are
increasing their own fuel taxes because they
know it’s not going to get done on a federal level.
Over and over again, the fuel tax has proven to
be by far the most direct, most efficient way to
fund the Highway Trust Fund and our politicians
need to quit kicking the can down the road and
make the difficult personal choice. For the first
time in I think 22 or 24 years they need to quit
worrying about what their popularity rating is
and if this is going to hurt them in getting reelected.
Let’s look at the cost of fuel … it’s up
a little bit now, but overall it had been down
and it looks like it’s going to stay down, so
now would be the opportune time to increase
the fuel tax. Our politicians need to make an
unpopular decision and that means somebody
needs to take this ball and run with it. A fuel tax
increase has proven to be the most direct and
cost efficient way of funding our infrastructure
and we’ll continue to fight the fight that ends
diversion and directly funds improvements to a
nation’s network of highways and interstates.
Shifting gears a bit, TCA is
sponsoring a Best Fleets to
Drive For benchmarking
Seminar. Tell readers about
this unique opportunity.
TCA continues to produce
extremely relevant webinars,
workshops and other valuable
education events. Ron Goode,
our director of education, has
a workshop called “Inspired to
Excellence, Making the Best
Fleets Great.” It’s at the end of July and I am
a huge supporter of Best Fleets to Drive For.
This event will be held in Chicago, where Ron
will present the survey and all the data collected
during the audit process for the Best Fleets to
Drive For contest because nobody currently
seems to have the formula for solving this
crazy driver dilemma. But the carriers that are
nominated by their own drivers and then named
as Best Fleets to Drive For winners are doing
a lot of things right, and there are some very
large carriers with thousands of trucks and there
are some small and medium-sized carriers, such
as the company I’m with, that are doing things
right. We’re going to talk about breakthrough
ideas for compensation and benefits. We’re
going to talk about strategies that will improve
the driver experience, and what these Best
Fleets are doing to inspire their drivers to
nominate them. I’m delighted with what their
performance trends are, and what the future
trends are that these Best Fleets are doing to
keep their drivers. I would invite everybody to
get to Chicago and learn what a lot of these very
good fleets are doing.
Talk about TCA’s ongoing efforts to
encourage better health.
24 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2015

TCA’s next big event is our Refrigerated Division
Annual Meeting in beautiful Stowe, Vermont from
July 8-10, followed by our officers’ retreat in Maine
during August. We’re going to have a couple of
days up there to plan the future success of our
organization. Many TCA officers and board members
are going to be part of state delegations doing “calls
on Washington” throughout the summer, and I know
Brad Bentley and I have a number of dates set when
we’re going to be going out visiting our members.
Also, our Wreaths Across America Gala has just been
announced for September 22 in Washington, D.C.
If you’ve not been involved in the program, this is
a great opportunity to see how our members are
delivering truckloads of respect to help Wreaths
Across America carry out their mission to remember
our fallen heroes, honor those who serve, and teach
our children about the sacrifices made by veterans
and their families to preserve our freedoms.
You mentioned the Wreaths Gala. Last year,
every grave at Arlington National Cemetery
was covered by a wreath, which was a
tremendous success and a long-time goal of
the founders. What is the goal this year?
We want to continue the excellent work at
Arlington, where we had about 70 trucking
companies donate trucks and their drivers’ time
last year. Nationally, we had more than 140 of our
members distribute wreaths to well over a thousand
cemeteries, and we would like to up the number of
trucks in 2015. Debbie Sparks, Marli Riggs and our
entire staff start in the early fall and go all out for
the Wreaths Across America program because of the
tremendous demand that we’re getting with wreaths
coming out of Maine. We really don’t want Wreaths
Across America to pay for transportation services and
we need more people to step up for this awesome,
powerful program. Of course Arlington is the most
famous but we want to hit more cemeteries. Our little
company has been involved for several years at the
four or five cemeteries with thousands of veterans
in Toledo, and we cover just a small percentage of
those veterans’ headstones a couple of weeks before
Christmas. So there’s more money that needs to be
raised, and there’s a lot more work to do. Arlington
was a moving, emotional experience for those who
were there last year and have been there in the
past, but we’re asking more carriers to get involved
in this extremely noble cause.
Last question: You mentioned to me that
Truckload Authority is getting to some very,
very powerful and successful people in this
industry and a lot of industry stakeholders
and opinion shapers. Talk a little bit about the
effectiveness of this publication for TCA.
Creating an environment for healthy drivers has always been part of
TCA’s strategic plan, and we have rolled out programs like the Truckers
Weight Loss Challenge in the past, and will continue our health fairs at
select travel centers during National Truck Driver Appreciation Week. And
while I can’t break the news quite yet, look for an important announcement
in the future about a new health and wellness initiative. We hope to have
the partnership finalized before the next issue of Truckload Authority is
printed.
We know much will be happening in TCA over the summer and into
the fall. Give us a quick preview of some other activities and events
to be on the lookout for.
We all receive a number of publications and are
extremely busy reading dozens and dozens of e-mails that we get every
day; but for a lot of us, the first thing we do when we go through the mail
every couple of months is look for Truckload Authority. I’m not sure about
the choice right now in terms of the chairman and his capabilities, but the
magazine has great articles on just the right subjects in our industry. I
do get e-mails from quite a few of my friends saying, “I saw your article,
did you happen to catch this or that?” So the magazine is read by many
people in the industry and you guys do a good job of accurately reporting
what’s going on in trucking.
Until our next chat, Mr. Chairman, be safe and we’ll see you down
the road.
TCA 2015 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 25

SUMMER | TCA 2015
Sponsored by
Tracking The Trends
By Dorothy Cox
As alternative forms of energy become more viable, will diesel become more dominant?
At the risk of sounding “fuelish,” can we say
that saving money on fuel and putting out cleaner
emissions always means using alternatives to diesel?
There are several camps of thought on that.
Some in trucking are still pursuing diesel alternatives
such as natural gas, dimethyl ether (DME)
and other “green” fuels with fervor.
And when oil prices (with diesel following) went
on a downward spiral earlier this year, it gave natural
gas prices a pretty good run for their money.
But diesel is on the way up, again. As of this
writing, diesel was above the $3-a-gallon mark
in six of the Energy Information Administration’s
(EIA) 10 reporting sectors, something that doesn’t
surprise natural gas proponent and investor T.
Boone Pickens.
Since 1980 there have been six oil price collapses,
he says, adding that in all six cases, oil
prices “recovered rapidly.” And he believes oil prices
will be back up around $70 a barrel by year’s
end.
The EIA doesn’t think oil will go quite that high
this year. The agency forecasts that Brent crude
oil prices will average $61 a barrel this year and
probably won’t average $70 a barrel until 2016.
Pickens told attendees at May’s ACTExpo
“clean fleet event” in Dallas that so many drilling
rigs have been shut down that the oil market
is already stabilizing itself. It’s a matter of supply
and demand, he says, adding that Middle
East “geo politics” would be the only thing that
could change oil prices one way or another in the
months ahead.
In an ACTExpo webinar follow-up, Ron Gitelman,
fleet management program administrator
for Yale University, had a word to the wise to companies
that are thinking of a foray into alternative
fuels: “Keep up with alternative fuels” and where
they’re headed. “You may not be able to use them
now but there may come a time when it’s viable
for your company. Be adaptable as technology
changes. Hydrogen may be the next big thing in
the future.”
Indeed, who could have imagined some of the
new technologies coming down the pike?
Peloton Technology is a Mountain View, California-based
company that currently is testing an
“active safety system” on steroids for commercial
trucks. Volvo is investing in Peloton through its
Volvo Group Venture Capital arm and currently is
the only OEM to do so although the technology
start-up has also talked with other HD trucking
OEMs.
The system uses radar on the front bumper
and wireless technology to electronically “connect”
two trucks, enabling them to communicate
each other’s speed, engine torque, braking and
other necessary safety information.
When the front truck brakes, the second truck
reacts in 100th of a second, faster than the fastest
human being, says Josh Switkes, founder and
CEO of Peloton.
Two trucks connected wirelessly and traveling
together is called “platooning.”
And the improved reaction time not only results
in increased safety, it also means fuel savings,
Switkes says, because the two connected
trucks can travel much closer to one another, from
40 to 75 feet apart, compared with a few hundred
feet apart for two trucks without the technology.
Basically, the two commercial trucks can use
something racecar drivers, and sometimes even a
motorcyclist, will use, called “drafting.”
Traveling closer together creates better aerodynamics
and less wind resistance, and in Peloton’s
real-world testing on the open road one
carrier achieved a 10 percent fuel savings on the
back truck and a 4½ percent fuel savings for the
front truck when traveling 36 feet apart. And no
one in trucking could have missed Freightliner
Trucks’ recent unveiling in Las Vegas of its autonomous
truck, “Inspiration,” which OEM spokesmen
said can take advantage of the fuel-saving
platooning.
But it will be a couple of decades before this
truck hits the road, Freightliner spokesmen say.
Will these future trucks’ emissions be cleaner?
The Environmental Protection Agency and the
National Highway Transportation Safety Administration
says they will have to be, given EPA’s
ever-more-stringent heavy-duty engine regulations
and NHTSA’s greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations.
Particulate matter (soot) and NOx (the contributor
to haze) emissions have been reduced some
96 percent compared with 2000 truck models.
Now, we’re drilling down to reducing CO², which
says Fleet Advantage’s Fran Flynn, is the “end
game,” whether it’s by natural gas, DME, clean
diesel or some other means.
“We believe clean diesel is the new alternative
fuel,” says Flynn, vice president of sustainability,
marketing and community relations for Fleet Advantage.
The company monitors and analyzes computer
data from customers’ trucks to determine fuel
economy and helps the carrier get the best economy
possible. “We believe every drop counts,” says
Flynn. If mpg is trending downward, they send a
fleet services expert to the customer to find the
problem. One customer was seeing a fuel increase
on Sundays, when the trucks weren’t running.
Come to find out, the person fueling the trucks for
the week ahead started the trucks and left them
all running while he got to each one. “Unless you
monitor that you will never know,” she points out,
and the only way to be able to analyze what’s going
on is “to get all the data.”
Fleet Advantage uses “all the data” to determine
when customers’ trucks reach “economic
obsolescence,” or have arrived at the point where
running and maintaining them costs more than
running a new, fuel-efficient truck model.
The idea, she says, is to shorten a truck’s lifecycle:
The newer the truck, the less maintenance
needed, the higher the mpg and the less harmful
emissions are put into the air. By shortening the
life cycle of a fleet’s trucks from trading in every
six or seven years to every three, it might cost
more on the front end but the amount saved in
fuel and cleaner emissions more than make up
for it.
Shorter life cycles will have a “domino effect”
on the industry, she maintains, with newer trucks
entering the used market at the primary, secondary
and tertiary levels. The OEMs will be selling
more trucks, the government will be collecting
more excise tax and there’s a better return on investment.
Flynn says the government should be giving
incentives not just for natural gas-powered trucks
but for any carrier decreasing its CO² output, no
matter how they’re doing it.
“Any variance from the norm behooves the
government to give subsidies,” agrees Dave
Heller, the Truckload Carriers Association’s director
of safety and policy, pointing to TCA’s energy
policy. It says in part that “Alternative fuel programs
should be ‘fuel-neutral,’ not recommending
or mandating the use or favoritism of any specific
alternative fuel.”
Heller says the trucking industry “is looking
26 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2015

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for better alternatives and if it’s not better it won’t
last.”
It all depends on trucking’s acceptance of alternative
fuels such as natural gas, he says, and
whether the fuel is inexpensive and the infrastructure
is prevalent.
The natural gas infrastructure build-out continues,
but perhaps not as fast as was hoped.
Shell this spring confirmed it will not build a
previously planned plant west of Calgary, Alberta,
Canada, to turn natural gas into its liquid
form, liquefied natural gas, for use in heavy-duty
trucks, but says it will go ahead with two other
LNG plants, one in Louisiana and one in Ontario.
However, Shell LNG fuel is now available at two
additional TravelCenters of America truck fueling
stations in Texas. They’re located in San Antonio
and Dallas and follow on the heels of the opening
of Shell LNG fueling lanes in Baytown, Texas,
as well as Lafayette, Louisiana, this past March.
The Baytown, San Antonio, and Dallas stations are
strategically located in the Texas Triangle, a region
with heavy truck traffic.
There is still much interest by trucking in natural
gas, obviously.
“In the United States, petroleum is by far the
most-consumed transportation fuel. But recently
the share of fuels other than petroleum for U.S.
transportation has increased to its highest level
since 1954 … . The recent increase can be mostly
attributed to increased blending of biomass-based
fuels with traditional vehicle fuels and growing use
of natural gas in the transportation sector,” states
a recent report by the EIA.
And, says Drew Cullen Sr., vice president of
fuel and facilities services for Penske Truck Leasing,
even when diesel is cheap, natural gas by
virtue of its non volatility, still gives a good returnon-investment
to its users. That’s especially true,
he says, when a company has to maintain a green
“sustainability program” for its shareholders and
when a stable fuel price is “more comfortable on
the fuel budget.”
One of the largest stumbling blocks for natural
gas has been the increased costs of the engine
and tank, as high as $60,000 with a payback that
can average a discouraging four years.
Penske has found a way around that by aggressively
going after government grants.
At the beginning of May, the U.S. Department
of Energy awarded Penske Truck Leasing a
$400,000 energy grant for the company’s Alternative
Fuel Vehicle Demonstration and Enhanced
Driver Experience Project. Penske will use the
grant to further introduce alternative fuels to its
customer base.
Also in May, Penske received $1.1 million in
Texas sustainability grants through the Texas
Emissions Reduction Plan. Those monies will be
used to subsidize the purchase of natural gas
Freightliner Cascadia tractors equipped with Cummins
Westport 12-liter engines.
Penske in turn will deploy them in its truck
leasing fleets in the Dallas and Houston markets.
“What we’ve done is focus on grant opportunities
to really help address the ROI challenge,”
Cullen says.
With natural gas, “there’s some predictability
for their fuel prices which is very attractive for certain
companies. They can set the price and not
see wild [price] swings.”
Also, he notes, many drivers like the quietness
of the natural gas vehicles and “one of the biggest
things that brings across the pride is we hear
from drivers who like working for a company that
does ‘the right thing’ with vehicles emitting less
GHG and particulates. Happy drivers are a good
recipe.”
Pickens, himself, admits that hydro carbon fuels
will be used “way into the future” and that 70
percent of oil produced is consumed by the transportation
industry. “It’s a long time before we get
away from hydro carbon fuels,” he says.
However, that being said, Pickens points out
that there’s currently a 125-year supply of natural
gas in the U.S. and “a lot more to be recovered
from shale rock, enough to take us into the next
century.”
“Once you get used to using one fuel it’s hard
to change,” Pickens says, “but once you make the
change [to natural gas] nobody goes back. It’s
cheaper, cleaner domestic fuel … and it’s the right
thing to do.”
Once the change is made, he says, “you feel
comfortable.”
Not everyone is behind that change, comfortable
or not.
The Diesel Technology Forum in May cited a
new study by the Environmental Defense Fund
that found that switching from diesel to natural
gas in heavy-duty trucks “could worsen and accelerate
negative climate impacts unless methane
leakage can be lowered.”
The panel called for increased study and new
policies “to lower methane leakage in order for
natural gas heavy-duty trucks to have a possible
environmental advantage over new and future
clean diesel.”
Time will tell, and like TCA’s Heller says, fleets
will go with “the alternative that’s practical for
their own fleet. That’s how it will go.”
LESS FRUSTRATION HERE.
MORE PRODUCTIVITY HERE.
28 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2015

Autonomomentous
By Cliff Abbott
As quickly as word began to get out about Freightliner’s Inspiration,
the first autonomous vehicle in the world to be licensed to
operate on public highways, driver comments poured in to The
Trucker’s Facebook page.
“We’re doomed,” said one.
“This is the beginning of the END,” said another.
“Truckers, headed soon to an unemployment line near you,”
said a third.
Industry executives, on the other hand, speculated
on what the technology might mean for
carriers.
While the idea of a future in which the
driver shortage is solved by eliminating the
need for drivers is frightening for some and
exciting for others, it’s not very realistic
for either camp. After all, airliners have
been able to fly themselves for years, but
cockpits are still populated by pilots and
copilots. Trains are nearly fully automated,
but still carry engineers. Expect trucks
to follow suit.
Even with drivers present, however,
much of the same technology that allows for
“autonomous” driving can be used for another
highly-anticipated phenomenon.
The term “platooning” is being heard
everywhere in trucking.
The term refers to electronically
linking two or more trucks, with
all behind the leader intentionally
following the truck ahead by a
distance of less than 50 feet at
highway speeds. While drivers
who practice this dangerous
behavior cause indigestion
in owners and safety directors,
platooning can work for
trucks that are electronically
connected.
When the truck in front
senses a hazard and applies
the brakes, for example, the
next truck in line receives a
signal and simultaneously
applies its brakes.
A recent ATRI release of
findings in the first phase
of a study of the potential
savings reported a 5 percent
increase in fuel mileage
for the front tractor in
a platooning arrangement
and savings of 10 percent
for each trailing truck, with
a potential to positively impact
traffic flows if enough
trucks adopt the practice.
It’s important, however,
to understand what the “au-
TCA 2015 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 29

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tonomous” moniker will mean for the industry.
The steering wheel-mounted control for the “Highway Pilot,”
Freightliner’s name for the system that drives the Inspiration,
greatly resembles another control that’s commonly mounted on
the steering wheel: cruise control.
There’s a good reason for the resemblance. There is a great
deal of similarity in what the systems are intended to do.
Cruise control is a feature that wasn’t possible until engine
electronics were developed. Once Electronic Control Units (ECUs)
began controlling engines in vehicles, cruise control was a nobrainer.
Instead of controlling vehicle speed by altering foot pressure
on the throttle pedal, the operator could designate a speed
and let the computer take over. The driver no longer had to keep
a constant eye on the speedometer and the right foot and leg
no longer had to stay in the same position for hours on end. The
technology was quickly adopted by drivers of all types of vehicles.
The technology that was, at first, a novelty and a luxury, grew
into a feature most drivers wouldn’t do without.
As technology developed, engine brakes were incorporated to
help the vehicle stay near the set speed when gravity caused it
to accelerate.
Later, more technology was introduced. Collision mitigation
systems monitor the road ahead, disengaging the throttle, initiating
engine braking, and even applying service brakes if necessary
to avoid an accident.
Lane Departure warning systems did just that — warn the
driver when the vehicle began to stray from its lane without a
turn signal.
Despite the “autonomous” name, Freightliner’s Inspiration
simply builds on those technologies that many drivers are already
accustomed to. The key difference is that active steering is
added. Instead of warning the driver when the vehicle begins to
leave the lane, the Highway Pilot system makes a steering correction
to keep the truck centered in the lane.
Instead of only giving the right leg a rest, as with cruise control,
the Highway Pilot feature provides a rest from the steering
wheel, too.
Just as with cruise control, the driver must remain at the
controls, ready to take over. And, just as with cruise control,
there are times when it shouldn’t be used.
The Highway Pilot system is suitable on roads that have
clear lane markings and long stretches without turns, exits
or pull-offs. The driver activates the system, which then
maintains a constant speed and lane position, adjusting
speed as necessary to maintain a safe following distance
from the vehicle ahead.
When the intended route is plugged into the system, it
quickly identifies which portions can be driven autonomously
and which will require a driver. If, for example, a fuel stop
has been entered, the system alerts the driver to take control,
even providing a 30-second countdown so the driver can get
ready. The driver takes control by pushing a button, tapping the
brake, or simply taking hold of the steering wheel.
Under the driver’s control, the truck exits the highway, maneuvers
to the fuel island and sometimes to a parking space afterward.
The driver manually executes all maneuvers outside of simply
rolling down the highway, including turns, exits, passing maneuvers,
and backing.
Drivers are also needed to perform pre-trip inspections, perform
any duties associated with loading and unloading, pay tolls, converse
with the friendly DOT officer, and deal with dispatch personnel.
Instead of replacing drivers, autonomous features are designed
to be used to increase driver comfort and reduce fatigue.
The autonomous feature of the Inspiration isn’t designed to
permit the driver to go to the back to make a ham sandwich, however,
as the urban legend driver of a recreational vehicle was said
to have done. As with cruise control, the driver must remain at the
ready to take over, albeit in a more relaxed state. In the event of
a blown tire, an engine failure or a multitude of other truck driving
variables, a real driver must be ready to assume control.
Weather is a factor as well. Ice and snow on roads prevent the
video from “seeing” the painted lane boundaries it uses for guidance.
Heavy rain or dust and smoke could impact sensors, too,
requiring the driver to take over.
Undoubtedly, rumors will persist that the Inspiration is just
another milestone on the road to completely self-driving trucks.
Considering the legislation required, however, all 50 states plus
foreign countries passing laws over when and how completely autonomous
vehicles will be allowed to operate, it could be a long,
long time before trucks are driving themselves coast to coast
even after the technology is developed.
Then there are the legal implications. If an automobile is hit by
a truck that is driving itself, who pays? If the accident is the fault
of the driver of the car, can a case be made that the truck could
have avoided it if a real person had been at the wheel? Then
there are unions, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association
and others who would undoubtedly oppose technology
that puts drivers out of work.
The autonomous truck is here to stay — just like the truck
driver.
30 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2015

Game Changer
PART 3: The challenge with cameras in trucks
By Cliff Abbott
Anchorman Rob Johnson of CBS 2 Chicago’s evening news
opened the program with this: “New tonight, the driver of a big
rig in Illinois who may have been literally falling asleep at the
wheel just before a big crash, and it’s all caught on camera.”
Co-anchor Kate Sullivan continued: “Now, never-beforeseen
video from a camera that was installed in a truck cab,
meant to monitor dangerous driving.”
Reporter Pam Zekman, who serves on the station’s “investigative
team,” had obtained video of a deadly crash involving
a tractor-trailer smashing into a car that had stopped to avoid
a previous accident. The woman driving the car was killed in
the crash.
How she had obtained the video was a question answered
in the next segment, which showed Zekman and an attorney
viewing the file together. It wasn’t the carrier’s lawyer.
The daughter of the woman who had died in the crash had
filed suit. Her attorney and reporter Zekman watched a split
screen showing two video scenes — a view of the accident on
top, a view of the driver beneath. “It looks like he was falling
asleep,” said the attorney. The driver’s name was both spoken
and spelled out on the television screen. The name of the carrier
was given, too.
In the next scene, Zekman was shown sitting in the cab of a
tractor, pointing at and explaining the video camera mounted
on the upper part of the windshield. The camera zoomed in for
a close-up of her foot depressing the brake pedal — a demonstration
of a hard braking event that can trigger the device to
save recorded video.
The carrier who installed the Ltyx DriveCam system likely
didn’t plan for the video it recorded to be shown on the evening
news. That’s one of the risks of managed video systems.
Seeing the video used against the carrier and driver in the
courtroom is another risk. Attorneys who claim to “specialize”
in personal injury cases abound. An internet search for “truck
accident lawyer” returns page after page of results. Many of
these websites specifically mention onboard video as a tool
the lawyer will use in the process of winning big dollars for the
unfortunate client.
Attorney Jim Klepper is familiar with video being used
against the carrier who owns it. “Once the lawyer has attended
a ‘how to sue a trucking company seminar,’” he said, “it’s a
sure bet that one of the discovery questions will be, ‘do you
have in-cab cameras?’”
Klepper is president of driver defense firms Driver’s Legal
Plan and Interstate Trucker, and an exclusive contributor to
The Trucker.
He acknowledges that video can provide benefits to both
carriers and drivers. “Eight out of 10 times you will be happy
to show the video,” he said. “In the other 20 percent, it may be
possible to settle before a suit is filed.”
Klepper said that video can exonerate carriers and drivers
alike and adds that the training benefit is a huge one. But there
are negatives too, he says. Video that can be subpoenaed may
not be limited to a particular crash or incident. Any recorded
video can be requested during the discovery phase prior to
litigation or subpoenaed as needed.
For example, an attorney who wants to make a case that
a driver involved in a crash was fatigued could request all the
video saved on that particular driver since the system was installed.
Past video segments that show the driver yawning,
nodding or inattentive, for example, could be used to convince
a jury that the driver habitually drives while fatigued. Worse,
the case could be made that the carrier had the video and
should have known, or knew, and failed to act.
Carriers are familiar with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety
Administration’s requirement to retain driver records-of-duty
32 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2015

2016-08-30 15:16:137 TCA
2026-18-28 17:24:107 TCA
0832:14-10 R
0102:04-40 R
status for six months. Many have policies in place to destroy
those records after the required retention time to prevent their
use in future court cases. At this time, however, no such retention
standard exists specifically for video.
Klepper says a video retention policy is a good idea. “Have
a written video storage policy and enforce it consistently,” he
said. How long should video be stored? “Right now, I’d be looking
at 30 days,” he answered. “That’s enough time to identify
drivers who need training. Thirty days is reasonable, and
there’s no reason to keep it longer.”
Some providers of managed video systems retain and store
video segments independently, allowing customers to access
them online. The provider and carrier could have greatly different
ideas about retention of video, so it’s best to resolve the
issue prior to installing the cameras.
Carriers who install managed video systems in equipment
often discuss the potential legal ramifications with their own
legal representation as well, before making the decision.
There are potential ramifications outside of the courtroom,
too. The driver shortage has been cited as the most important
challenge this year as carriers struggle to find enough qualified
drivers to fill their equipment. Announcements of pay increases
and new equipment frequently appear in recruitment advertising,
prompting current drivers to consider a change.
For the first time, drivers are asking carriers they consider
working for if cameras are used in their trucks. More specifically,
many want to know if a camera points into the tractor cab.
For the most part, drivers have bought in to the concept of
video cameras. Many have purchased personal “dash-cams”
for self protection in the event of an incident where evidence
can exonerate the driver.
When drivers are informed that their own actions will be
recorded or, worse, that someone from the company can “look
in” at any time, most are instantly suspicious.
A Facebook poll conducted by The Trucker asked if driverfacing
cameras were an “enhancement to safety” or an “invasion
of privacy.” Responses numbered in the hundreds with
negative comments comprising more than 93 percent of the
responses.
“It’s like a peeping Tom,” said one. “I’m not a little child.
I will never drive a truck that has a camera facing me, ever,”
another wrote. “We’re in our truck 24/7 for a month or more at
a time,” said a third. “It is our home.”
A small number of respondents claimed they work for, or
used to work for, carriers that employ driver-facing cameras.
Several attempted to reassure others that video was only saved
when triggered by an event, but others were skeptical. “It’s always
recording,” said one. “They tell you that they don’t see it
unless there’s an event, but who decides what an ‘event’ is?”
A few posted the thought that the owners of the truck have
the right to install cameras in equipment they own, bringing
sharp criticism from others who viewed the tractor as personal
space, regardless of ownership.
To be sure, introduction of new technology that provides
information about the truck or driver to the carrier has nearly
always been viewed with suspicion. More experienced trucking
executives can still remember the uproar created when satellite
communication systems were introduced. As carriers adopted
the technology, some drivers quit, while many more threatened
to. Within months, attitudes had completely changed.
Drivers were demanding that their trucks be equipped with the
communications units.
More recently, Electronic Logging Devices (ELDs) have
caused consternation among the driving populace. Desperate
to lower CSA scores in the Hours of Service BASIC, many carriers
have adopted electronic logs in advance of the coming
TCA 2015 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 33

mandate. Providers of the communications and telemetrics
systems already in use quickly added ELD technology to existing
products.
As more drivers were shifted from paper logs to electronic
ones, carriers experienced a benefit in addition to lowered
CSA scores. Once they became accustomed to using EOBRs,
drivers liked them.
Already, some carriers are reporting similar experiences
with onboard video recorders.
How the program is presented seems to be crucial. “We
understand that there’s a balancing act between intruding
into the cab of the vehicle and capturing what we need to accomplish
our mission of continuous improvement,” said Lytx
Vice President of Safety Services Del Lisk. “Carriers that take
the time to educate their drivers upfront on the capability and
uses of the system get greater acceptance of the product.”
“We did six months of communication with the fleet before
installing the cameras,”
reported Clay
Merches, vice president
of safety and
human resources for
J&R Schugel Trucking,
who installed the
DriveCam system in
their entire fleet. “We
showed them exactly
what the system does
and how it can help
them become better
at what they do.”
2018-22-52 11:34:47 TCA
“Once the lawyer has attended a ‘how to sue a
trucking company seminar,’ it’s a sure bet that one
of the discovery questions will be, ‘do you have
in-cab cameras?’ Eight out of 10 times you will be
happy to show the video. In the other 20 percent, it
may be possible to settle before a suit is filed.”
John Billingsley,
director of safety at
G&P Trucking, says
the company took
a similar approach
when adopting the
SmartDrive system. “Once the decision was made,” he said,
“before the first camera was installed, we realized that we
needed to start with a public relations campaign among our
drivers.” That campaign began with an online video featuring
G&P President and General Manager Clifton Parker.
“I was here for the implementation of electronic logs,
and saw many of the same attitudes,” Billingsley explained.
“Some drivers were angry, some feared the technology, but
once they started using them there was wide acceptance.”
Director of Marketing and Customer Solutions for Bendix
Safety Director TJ Thomas says his company wants to
be part of the introduction. “If you adopt our system, we’ll
tell you on day one that we need to be there to participate
in the training,” he said. “Like anyone, drivers have
a fear of the unknown. We find that if we fully explain the
capabilities of the system, once drivers understand how it
helps them, they welcome it.”
Bendix, however, isn’t concerned with driver reaction to
cameras pointed into the cab because the Safety Direct system
doesn’t use them. “There is no rearward facing camera
on our devices,” said Thomas, explaining that the Safety Direct
system utilizes the forward facing camera used by the
company’s lane departure warning system.
Mike Nalepka, general manager of video intelligence for
PeopleNet, says the system the company will soon be offering
doesn’t record video of the driver, either. PeopleNet plans to
introduce its “Customer Demand Video” product some time
this year. The system, according to Nalepka, will initially be
offered with a forward facing camera and digital video recorder,
with left and right cameras and a rear-of-trailer camera to
come later. Similar to other product offerings, the PeopleNet
system will use the vehicle’s telematics, but in a unique way,
according to Nalepka.
“We surveyed a
number of our largest
carrier customers,”
said Nalepka.
The survey, he said,
showed forward facing
cameras to be
most important to
those surveyed, followed
by left and right
side cameras, back-up
cameras, and a camera
inside the trailer
to record loading and
unloading events.
“Number five was a
driver facing camera,”
he continued. “Most
of our customers were
hesitant to go that
route, mostly due to recruiting and retention issues.”
In an effort to proactively address those issues, Lytx uses
additional methods to encourage driver acceptance. The company
regularly runs advertising directed to drivers, presenting
the company’s DriveCam system as a driver-improvement
tool and touting its ability to exonerate the driver when an
accident occurs.
The company also presents “Driver of the Year” and “Coach
of the Year” awards to drivers from its carrier clients. Winners
receive monetary prizes and a trip to the annual Lytx Users
Conference to accept their awards.
Will onboard video recorders soon become so prevalent
that drivers will expect every carrier to have them? Perhaps,
but until they do, drivers will have a choice whether to drive
for carriers that use any such system, particularly systems
that they feel invade their privacy. How they will choose most
- Jim Klepper, President of Driver’s
Legal Plan and Interstate Trucker
0892:16-15 P
34 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2015

likely rests between complete acceptance and the online bravado
represented in online postings. Still, recruiting and retention
must be a consideration both in choosing the system and
in how it is presented to current drivers.
Recently, Swift Transportation chose the DriveCam system
for installation in 6,000 trucks. The company announced the
decision to its drivers with a video featuring President and Chief
Operating Officer Richard Stocking. The information was leaked
to the press by Swift drivers, some of whom shared the video,
while the company refused to comment if it responded to calls
and e-mails at all.
Lytx, who previously issued press releases each time a new
customer signed on, also refused to comment on the sale, undoubtedly
at the request of their new, very large customer.
It could be that a personal video plea from Stocking himself
was the best way to minimize the retention impact on Swift’s
fleet of drivers. Perhaps the company decided that a public announcement
would harm its recruiting efforts. The result, however,
was that online message boards and forums lit up as the
news went viral. If the sharing of the news with Swift’s drivers
was tightly controlled, the release to the public, including the
pool of drivers Swift hopes to recruit from, was anything but
controlled.
Whether the lack of public announcement was shrewd implementation
strategy or public relations disaster will be reflected
in Swift’s recruiting success in the coming months.
Finally, it isn’t yet known how onboard video cameras will
impact other functions that any business deals with, such as
worker’s compensation claims or Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC) complaints.
A driver who complains of feeling “harassed” by a video camera
inches away or claims that the camera creates a “hostile
work environment” can file an EEOC complaint claiming that
the harassment is based on a protected class, including race,
gender, age and religion. Even groundless claims can require a
great deal of time and expense to defend, and the cost goes up
if the EEOC demands copies of video evidence to determine if
recording standards are being applied equally.
A video of an operator bouncing in the driver’s seat on a
rough road could conceivably be used to support a worker’s
compensation claim for a back or other injury.
Undoubtedly, a well-defined and thorough policy that clearly
outlines event triggers, the way recorded video is used by the
carrier and video storage parameters will help minimize the
risks.
A review of the policy by the carrier’s legal team should be
mandatory, and a regular review and update of the policy is
necessary as well.
In spite of precautions, video recorded by onboard devices
has the potential to help and to harm the carrier that employs
it. Many have already decided that the benefits outweigh the
risks, possibly by a wide margin, but failure to consider the potential
pitfalls could result in an investment in disaster.
www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 35

Truckload trends crucial to you and your business @ DAT.com
Rate Optimized Routes
By
Late spring to late summer is usually “freight
season.” If you follow our free weekly update
on truckload supply and demand (dat.com/
Trendlines), as well as rate trends by equipment
type, you know freight availability goes up
seasonally, as do rates. Whereas Trendlines
gives you big picture, broad strokes, DAT Power
gives you lane-by-lane rates in either direction
of a lane pair, as well as rate optimized route
alternatives.
Rate optimized routes are essentially triangle
routes. Basically, triangle routing adds another
leg to the backhaul route to increase revenue,
rate per mile, and other common carrier
metrics. It can also increase total miles and
impact schedules based on drivers’ hours or
service compliance. Triangle routes typically
take time to figure out – unless you can
automate them.
At the recent TCA annual meeting, several
carriers expressed interest in automated rateoptimized
route options. To take the example
illustrated below, a carrier could head back to
Philadelphia with a single load paying $1484.34.
The first of five triangle options automatically
suggested in DAT Power involves first taking
a load to Charleston, WV, and then taking a
load from there back to Philadelphia. The
DAT TriHaul adds 208 additional miles and
$1081.97 for a total rate of $3.53/ mile.
You might even find that a short deadhead,
in this case from Charlotte, can re-position your
truck to get paid even more than you would on
a direct route with higher loaded miles. You can
choose the option that fits your schedule, your
driver’s hours of service and other requirements.
We realize revenue calculations don’t cover
hours of service, dock times, etc., which can
vary by day of week. But, if you’re bringing a
truck back that’s not going out the next day on
a contract run, this could be a weekly revenue
booster.
In fact, you may have contacts in the
suggested trihaul locations, with even better
rates and shorter unload/load times. Obviously,
this would make for more revenue and better
scheduling.
The point is that trihauls represent revenue
options for your assets. Unlike Trendlines’s
broad averages, DAT Power rates are based on
transactions between carriers and load as soon
as a statistically valid number of transactions
have occurred, generally well within 7 days, and
often as recent as the day before.
You can verify what each alternative route is
likely to pay out for your van, reefer or flatbed.
You’ll make informed choices, and you can make
more money.
In partnership with
Ken Harper, Marketing Director, DAT Solutions
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36 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2015

SUMMER | TCA 2015
Member Mailroom
I have only been a member for a short period of time –
how can I keep abreast of the association’s activities?
Traditionally, TCA has used its
website to list all of our activities under
our “Event” tab. But the world is
changing and so has our outreach.
We use Facebook, Twitter, You-
Tube and LinkedIn to share and connect
with members.
Because of the blend between social
media and our website, we discovered
that our website was not as
user friendly as it should be. This
summer we will be launching our new
site that is also tied to our database
… how does this help you?
It allows us to do more targeted
messaging to only include you in
notifications of products, services
and events that you find to be of
interest. To help us better target
your needs you will see a series of
mini-surveys that will ask you to
share your requirements so we can
better tailor our marketing to your
needs.
Once you let us know your preferences,
we can tie this into our event
apps so that when you are on-site
we can update you on events, sessions
and meetings that most appeal
to you.
Our goal is to help you to get the
information that is most important to
you … faster!
TCA 2015 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 37

SUMMER | TCA 2015
Talking TCA
d e b b i e s p a r k s | v i c e p r e s i d e n t, d e v e l o p m e n t
S T O R Y B Y lY N D O N f I N N E Y
You. A pronoun in the second person used
to refer to a person or persons being addressed.
We. Plural of a pronoun used to indicate
a particular profession that includes the
speaker.
Two short words, one with three letters,
the other with two.
But they are the difference between compliance and
commitment.
If you don’t believe it, just ask Debbie Sparks, vice
president of development for the Truckload Carriers Association
since 2006.
After moving successfully from one profession to another
— and honestly being successful in every endeavor
— to her somewhat surprise in 2001 Sparks landed a job
at the American Trucking Associations. Just another job in
a long line of jobs, she figured at the time, somewhere else
she could make her mark and move on.
A victim of the dot.com crash in the late 1990s and early
2000s and living in the Washington, D.C., area, her mother
urged her to get a job with the federal government but she
wanted no part of the capital rat race.
Instead, she opted to find an association where she
could use her marketing and communications skills learned
in college and honed throughout her professional career.
She learned the ATA was looking for marketing help so
she headed to “their big building on Eisenhower Avenue”
in Alexandria (ATA has since moved to another location)
where she interviewed with Eric Wolfe, who was in charge
of membership and marketing.
Wow, she thought as she walked in the door, this is a
very successful association.
“I think he asked me four questions,” Sparks recalled.
“He asked, ‘have you done this’ and ‘can you do that’ and
I said ‘no I haven’t.’ And to me, those questions seemed to
be the meat of the job. We had a lot of conversations, but
at the very end I thought, well there goes that job.”
But to her amazement, she was called for a second interview
and got the job as ATA’s director of marketing.
She asked Wolfe why with having to answer negatively
on the four questions, she was chosen. “And he said, ‘You
were candid. You were honest. And I saw your potential.’”
Sparks spent the first 18 months carefully navigating
the waters of her new industry.
Then came the defining moment, the time compliance in
doing a job she’d been asked to do turned into a commitment
to a profession she dearly loves today.
“Before the economy crashed, we had put together the
‘Get Trucking’ campaign,” she said. “We were trying to recruit
more drivers into the industry and I was responsible
for going to the state associations and introducing the ‘Get
Trucking’ campaign. I was going around the country helping
to pitch the concept. I was at the Arkansas Trucking
Association where (then Arkansas Trucking Association
President) Lane Kidd had given me the opportunity to
present the campaign to his membership.
“I got up on stage and every time speaking prior to that
meeting I always would say, ‘you in the trucking industry’
because it was ‘your’ industry not mine. I said ‘we’ as I was
giving my speech and I knew I had been bit. I knew trucking
was in my blood.”
But if her father had had his way, she might have been
the next Roz Keith, the ever faithful secretary to Franklin
Hart in the movie, “9 to 5.”
“When I was growing up my dad (who died when Sparks
was 17 and who worked for former President George HW
Bush when he headed the Central Intelligence Agency) instilled
in us that my sister was going to go to college,” she
said. “As for me, I was to take all these secretarial skills
courses. He thought I’d be a great secretary. I excelled at
shorthand and typing. My dad said, ‘With your skills you
can get a job at the CIA. They will make the determination
if you need college and they will pay for it.’ I remember
asking my father, ‘Why can’t I go to college?’ and he said,
‘You’re going to be a secretary.’ I told him, ‘I’m going to go
into the military; their ads say they’ll pay for college.’ He
said, ‘No daughter of mine is joining the military; you do
38 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2015

ealize it’s not for college, it’s to protect our
country. You could die.’ At 16 I didn’t understand
that it wasn’t about paying for college.
I thought I had it all solved.”
After her dad died, she decided to attend
community college so she could be home
with her widowed mother (who later remarried
and has been for 25 years).
Now with an associate degree, her mother
suggested she get a job rather than completing
her four-year degree.
The CIA was hiring so she headed to an
area hotel where the CIA was hosting a hiring
fair.
She took the shorthand test and was waiting
to take the typing test when she was suddenly
called out from the applicant pool and
in short order, offered a job.
“One of the things they tell you when you
hire into the CIA is that it’s a six- to-nine
month process because they have to do a
background check,” Sparks said. “Well, obviously
they had done mine. It was, ‘What do
you want to do, come join us.’ At that time, I
didn’t know why I turned the job offer down.
Later I figured out why. I think my dad was
so good and he was such an influence on me,
I didn’t want to let down his memory. I was
afraid if I went in, I wouldn’t be able to fill
his shoes.”
So with her dad’s death benefits, she finished
her undergraduate degree at Loyola
University in Baltimore.
After college, she took her first job working
temporary secretarial assignments.
Within months she was hired permanently
into the temp organization and learned that
all’s not fair in the corporate world.
“So it was a two-person office,” Sparks
recalled. “We recruited and trained the applicants,
plus we sold the temporary assignments.
We were both new to it for about nine
months when the regional vice president
came in. She invited my counterpart to join
her in the back office. She made her the offer
to run a sister location as the manager.
She got the promotion. I thought, what is
that all about? As she was leaving the office I
followed her out and asked, ‘What made you
select Deborah (my counterpart) over me?’
She said it was easy. ‘Every time I come and
visit the branch, Deborah’s got cards all over
her desk, she’s always busy and your desk is
always immaculate.’”
That gave Sparks an opportunity to issue
a challenge.
“I said, ‘I tell you what, don’t fill her job.
Don’t put a second person in here. I’m going
to show you who did all the work.’ And in three
months I’d been promoted to her assistant.”
TCA 2015 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 39

Sparks worked at several of the agency’s branches, taking on more
challenges.
She was climbing the corporate ladder at the temporary firm and
a competitor started soliciting her to come to work for them. She had
a non-compete contract at the temp agency, but the new offer was
for an agency that made permanent placements, so she figured the
non-compete was moot.
So she accepted the offer, only to be called by the new company,
which said the offer had been rescinded because her former company
was threatening to sue.
Of course, she couldn’t return to
her old job.
By that time her mother had
remarried and her step-father
owned a little liquor store that
was floundering.
“It was one of the last liquor
stores on the way to
the beach and the governor
at the time had come
in and decided that people
needed to get to the beach
faster so he barricaded the
highway right through this
town, which meant people
couldn’t get off the highway
to stop at local stores,
including the liquor store,”
Sparks said. “He made me
a challenge. He said, ‘If you
go in and run it, you can live
with your mother and me for
free. You turn a profit, we sell
it and I’ll share the profit with
you.’
“I went in and it was sad. The shelves were very barren, it was
dusty. At one time they’d had these custom-built wine shelves that
were gorgeous, but there was no wine on them. So the first thing I
had to learn was how you sell alcohol and how you get people into the
store. Well, I found out quickly that you rely on the liquor salesmen
that come into the store day in and day out. They were a wealth of
information. They knew what the strong stores were doing so they
told me what to do and what not to do.
“I didn’t even know what store merchandising was at that point
and I remember it was October and one of the guys came in and said,
‘Where is your fall merchandising?’ and I said, ‘What are you talking
about?’ and after that, the store always had merchandise out.”
She learned about which products are marked up the most, which
are washouts.
With the liquor store now profitable under her guidance, her stepfather
sold the business and shared the proceeds with Sparks.
She took her portion and went out and bought her first house, but
with no furniture.
“I needed a job,” she mused as she reflected on the situation.
Then she had another creative idea.
“I went looking for jobs and thought, ‘I’m going to sell furniture
because I’ll get an employee discount so I can furnish my house.’ It
was the best thing that ever happened because I love furniture, I love
decorating (a passion that went all the way back to high school when
a skills test showed a penchant for interior decorating).”
She went to work for a national furniture chain.
“I worked in the smallest showroom in the company, and won the
award for the best sales per square footage.”
But she tired of working weekends and took a job with a start-up
dot.com company that was eventually bought by Kinkos.
“We were part of the transition period at Kinkos that took them
from offline to online,” she said. “We were the originator that pulled
FedEx in and etched in my memory is that transition of the entire
society from having our floppy disk to doing things online.”
But eventually, the office in which she was working closed (the re-
Q & A With Debbie Sparks
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: May 29, 1966, in Maryland
MY TRADEMARK EXPRESSION IS: You are not dealing with Christmas help
MOST HUMBLING EXPERIENCE: Finding out in my junior year of college that I had a major learning
disorder
PEOPLE SAY I REMIND THEM OF: Diane Keaton and I hate it!
I HAVE A PHOBIA: Idle time
MY GUILTY PLEASURE: Pizza
THE PEOPLE I’D INVITE TO MY FANTASY DINNER PARTY: Mother Teresa, Jane Austen, John F.
Kennedy, Christopher Columbus, Thomas Edison, Will Ferrell, Jimmy Fallon, Ellen DeGeneres, Harrison
Ford and Raquel Welch
SOMETHING HARDLY ANYONE KNOWS ABOUT ME: I’m an aspiring home remodeler/designer
MY HARDEST PROBLEM AS A PROFESSIONAL IS: Accepting the status quo
I WOULD NEVER WEAR: Sneakers with a suit/dress
A GOAL I HAVE YET TO ACHIEVE: Learning sketchup, a 3D software
THE LAST BOOK I READ: “Krik? Krak!”
LAST MOVIE I SAW: “Frozen”
MY FAVORITE SONG: ‘Brandy” — it was my father’s favorite song one summer and we had a family
road trip and he sang it nonstop — when I hear it, it puts my entire family back together in the car — I believe
it was an Oldsmobile Delta 88
IF I’VE LEARNED ONE THING IN LIFE, IT WOULD BE: When you trust your instinct, your path to
success is shorter
MY PET PEEVE: Incompetence
THE THING ABOUT MY OFFICE IS: Organized
ONE WORD TO SUM ME UP: Driven
40 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2015

sult of the dot.com crash) and select employees
were offered an opportunity to go elsewhere
in the company, including California,
but Sparks chose to stay in the Washington
area and went job hunting again.
“I had just gotten married (which eventually
ended in divorce). My mom and my step
father said, ‘Why don’t you get a job with the
government, it’s safe, it’s conservative,’ but I
said, ‘I’m just not a government employee.’
Northern Virginia is chock full of trade associations
and I thought that can’t be as bad as
government.”
Which brings us back to the visit at the big
building on Eisenhower Avenue.
After working just over six years at ATA,
former TCA President Chris Burruss began to
reach out to Sparks about working at TCA.
“Back then I never really knew what the
role was for TCA. TCA was always an affiliate
of ATA but I never quite knew what their mission
was. I had reached the point with ATA
that I knew I had a lot of ideas, that I had
a lot to offer and a lot of energy to offer an
organization.”
She and Burruss met on and off for almost
a year with him trying to convince her
to come to work at TCA.
But she was concerned about leaving an
association with 300 employees to go to work
for one that had 10 employees.
“My close friends worried about the overall
value of my resumé in making the move,” she
says today. “I had a lot of people who told me
it would be a bad move. But ultimately the
decision was to go to TCA because I thought
Chris would be a really good boss for me. He
wasn’t going to clip my wings. He was going
to let me fly. I had a lot of ideas. I really
wanted to get closer with the members and
find out what their needs and wants were so
I could start delivering results. He really was
a really great fit for me.”
As was TCA, it turned out.
She’s proud of her now almost 15-year
commitment to the trucking industry.
“In the trucking industry, there’s nothing
we can’t solve,” she said. “There a spirit of entrepreneurialism.
Even though we have very
strict regulatory and legislative ways to do
things, we have a way of figuring out how to
move something in a very efficient way. We’re
unstoppable.”
Trucking has been good to her, Sparks
says readily.
“It’s very selfish, but I’ve had a great career.
I have had opportunities that the trucking
industry has brought me, and my career
is kind of circling back,” she said.
The divorce during her time at ATA was
costly since Sparks had to buy out her exhusband.
“It took all my savings and I had to take out
a home equity loan on the house. I was very
scared, so I looked at how I could supplement
my income. How do I get savings and a nest
egg built up? I looked at all these different parttime
jobs, but because of the flexibility needed
for traveling to visit members and our multiple
meetings, it wasn’t feasible. I ultimately
took in tenants; I turned my basement into an
apartment and I rented it out for seven years.
I built up a large enough nest egg that when
the economy and the housing market dropped,
I was actually able to buy a 738-square-foot
beach cottage in a coastal community along
the Potomac River. It wasn’t on the water. You
couldn’t even see the water, but if you stood
just right on the front porch in the dead of winter,
you could look down three blocks and just
see the top of the water.”
She gutted the house and redesigned the
whole thing over the next year.
“From there, I got the remodeling bug,
sold that beach house and was able to buy
an even worse house, but on the water. I’m
on the Potomac River and it’s going to be a
good 10-year project house. I also bought a
big old home in historic Fredericksburg and I
came to the conclusion of why should I ever
pay a mortgage? The house is located right
at the main gate to Mary Washington University
and I made it into a duplex. The righthand
side on the street corner I rent out to
tenants. I live on the left-hand side and I rent
the basement out to a professor at the university.
They more than cover that mortgage
and part of my beach house mortgage.
“I plan to do more of that. I’m on my
fourth remodel design for clients and next
month I’m taking several days off to learn
an online 3-D remodeling software so I can
show clients exactly what the house will look
like, animated.”
What’s more, on her own time, Sparks is
also working on a children’s clothing line with
two little characters similar to “Thomas the
Tank.”
“We’re going to have Lindsay Hauler
(named after TCA Highway Angel spokesperson
Lindsay Lawler) and Chris Cargo,” Sparks
said.
When she was deciding on names, Chris
Cargo barely won out over Justin Time.
Maybe someday as she expands the line,
Justin Time will become part of the family.
If so, it would be very appropriate because
it can easily be said that when she made that
pivotal “we” statement back there in Arkansas
years ago, Debbie Sparks had arrived “just in
time” to make a huge impact on the trucking
industry.
Debbie Sparks bought, renovated and sold a small beach house (left) and is currently working on
another larger beach house with a spectacular waterfront view from the back deck.
TCA 2015 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 41

A QUICK LOOK AT IMPORTANT TCA NEWS
SMALL
A QUICK LOOK AT
IMPORTANT TCA NEWS
Best Fleets Seminar
The Truckload Carriers Association and CarriersEdge
will share tips and best practices from this year’s Best
Fleets to Drive For annual survey and contest during a new,
one-day workshop.
“Inspired to Excellence: Making the ‘Best Fleets’ Grade”
will be presented in Chicago July 30 from 9 a.m.-3 p.m. at
the Renaissance Chicago O’Hare Suites Hotel.
Best Fleets to Drive For identifies the North American
for-hire trucking companies that provide the best workplace
experiences for company drivers and owner-operators.
Nominated fleets are evaluated on the range and
depth of programs being offered, the overall effectiveness
of those programs across key metrics, and the responses of
surveyed drivers.
Fleets with the best overall scores are named Best
Fleets to Drive For.
For those who are familiar with this program, results
are shared in a series of free seminars and webinars.
TCA and CarriersEdge are presenting the workshop for
a small fee to provide trucking company executives with an
opportunity to dig deeper into what is learned through the
Best Fleets’ nomination process.
“We see this as an opportunity to take the next step in
building our industry’s image by inspiring business excellence
across the board,” said Debbie Sparks, TCA’s vice
president, development.
“Inspired to Excellence: Making the ‘Best Fleets’ Grade”
will present data collected during the nomination process,
including current and emerging trends, descriptions of innovative
programs, and case studies of winning fleets.
Specific sections will include:
• New paradigms for compensation and benefits
• Operational strategies that improve the driver experience
• Performance management and benchmarking
trends, and
• Trends that Best Fleets foresee in the future.
In addition, a panel of this year’s winners will share
their own stories and discuss what it takes to become a
Best Fleet.
“This year’s Best Fleets really surprised us with the
different programs they offered their drivers,” said Jane
Jazrawy, CEO of CarriersEdge. “These companies are demonstrating
fantastic creativity to address the driver shortage
head on, and with three fleets that have now made the list
for five consecutive years, we have a lot to talk about.”
“Best Fleets to Drive For has been successful because
it continues to capture outstanding information from fleets
across the country,” said Keith Tuttle, TCA’s chairman and
the founder of Motor Carrier Service of Northwood, Ohio.
“The workshop gives attendees a more in-depth look at the
survey results so they can take away ideas that help them
build stronger businesses. This promises to be a fantastic
event!”
TALK
Registration for TCA’s for-hire and private fleet members
is $199. Non-TCA members pay $259.
For lodging, those who reserve by July 6 may obtain
rooms in TCA’s room block at the special rate of $159 per
night.
Annual Safety Award
Truckload Carriers Association President Brad
Bentley, left, presents the 2015 Clare C. Casey
Award to Dean Newell, vice president of safety
and training for Maverick Transportation. Looking
on are Rande Walker, president of Creative
Concepts and John Joines, vice president of Safety
Services with Great West Casualty Co.
Dean Newell, vice president of safety and training
for Maverick Transportation of North Little Rock,
Arkansas, has received the 2015 Clare C. Casey Award,
given each year to a safety professional whose actions
and achievements have had a profound and positive
benefit or contribution to bettering safety on the nation’s
highways.
The award was presented during the Truckload Carriers
Association’s annual Safety and Security Division
meeting last month in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The award is sponsored by Creative Concepts, which
also presents the winner with a ring. Great West Casualty
Co. provides the winner with a crystal truck. TCA
provides a burgundy blazer and a crystal plaque.
Newell has been employed by Maverick Transportation
for more than 30 years. He began as a professional
truck driver and then held positions in recruiting, driver
services, and safety. Today, he manages a fleet of over
1,400 tractors and 2,000 trailers as well as overseeing
eight terminal/facility locations and eight on-site loading
and securement locations that employ more than 1,500
people. He continually seeks to develop new initiatives
to address the ever-changing safety and driver training
needs of the company.
Known as a strong leader, Newell has developed a
reputation for assembling the best possible teams and
making effective leadership decisions.
He has won many distinguished awards, including
the American Trucking Associations’ National Safety Director
of the Year award, the Arkansas Trucking Association’s
Safety Director of the Year, and numerous safety
awards from Maverick during his years as a driver.
Under Newell’s leadership, Maverick Transportation
has earned more than 30 industry awards from such
organizations as ATA’s Safety Management Council, the
Arkansas Workers’ Compensation Commission, as well
as from several insurance companies.
“Dean is whole-heartedly committed to the improvement
of trucking safety across the board … not
just within the corporate structure of Maverick,” said
Stephen Selig, the president and COO of Maverick Transportation
and the author of Newell’s award nomination.
Selig outlined how Newell initiated and hosted
the kick-start of a collaborative effort of flatbed safety
meetings, in which he invited various flatbed carriers
to attend and discuss safety ideas and concerns in a
roundtable fashion. He also said that Newell has made
several presentations for conferences and seminars
throughout the industry and has never hesitated to share
his expertise with others.
Throughout the years, Newell has held numerous
volunteer positions, most notably as chairman of the
Arkansas Trucking Association Truck Driving Championships,
chairman of the ATA National Accident Review
Committee, and twice chairman of the Arkansas association’s
Safety & Loss Prevention Management Council.
He has also been active with the Risk and Insurance
Management Society, the North American Transportation
Management Institute, the Commercial Vehicle Safety
Alliance, and the Transportation Research Board, among
other organizations.
Nominees for TCA’s award must exemplify leadership
and demonstrate the goals of protecting lives and
property in the motor transportation industry while serving
their company, industry, and the motoring public. The
award is named after a safety professional who actively
served TCA from 1979 until 1989. He was devoted to
ensuring that all truckload safety professionals meet
yearly to build the strong safety network this Division
provides today, and was instrumental in forming the
first annual Safety & Security Division meeting in 1982.
Upon his death in 1989, the first award in his name was
presented in 1990.
TMAF Update
Trucking Moves America Forward (TMAF), the industry-wide
campaign to create a positive image for the
industry, reported recently on the success of its yearlong
efforts through gifts, advertising and sponsorships.
First, TMAF announced it had reached its goal of
raising $1 million dollars to fund educational and outreach
activities.
Later, TMAF reported it had received more than $4
million in-kind donations through advertising, sponsorships,
trade show printing and more.
TMAF was unveiled at the 2014 Mid-America Trucking
Show to help policy makers and the general public
understand trucking’s contribution to the nation’s economy.
The movement also centers on building political and
42 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2015

grassroots support to strengthen and grow the industry in the future.
TMAF was recently bolstered by the Motor Carriers of Montana, which made a
$10,000 financial contribution promise to the movement over the next year.
“The contribution from the Motor Carriers of Montana will further amplify the TMAF
message,” said Kevin Burch, TMAF co-chairman and president of Jet Express. “We are
deeply appreciative to have their support as we continue to recruit members of the
industry. Together, we can build momentum for TMAF now and in the future.”
“We are thrilled to join this effort and to tell the trucking industry’s story,” said
Spook Stang, chairman, Region IV and executive vice president of Motor Carriers of
Montana. “Collectively, our members deliver the goods and products Americans have
come to rely on. There’s so much to learn about the diversity, safety and sustainability
efforts of our industry, and Trucking Moves America Forward is the right platform to do
that.”
“We appreciate the Motor Carriers of Montana stepping forward to support the movement,”
said Michael S. Card, president of Combined Transport and a TMAF founding member.
“They are showing the pride we all feel in our great industry and that our message is
resonating.”
WAA GALA
A Pottle’s Transportation tractor-trailer makes its way to Arlington National
Cemetery with a load of wreaths for the Wreaths Across America Day last
December. Pottle’s Transportation President and CEO Barry Pottle was one of
the first trucking industry executives to support Wreaths Across America and
remains one of the backbones of the event today.
The third annual Wreaths Across America Gala will be held September 22 at the
Grand Hyatt Washington.
The gala has become a “can’t miss” among Truckload Carriers Association members,
other trucking stakeholders and especially the military.
Last year, through the efforts of the gala and other interests, WAA celebrated a truly
heartfelt holiday milestone when for the first time it received enough money and manpower
to cover each of the 230,000 headstones of every veteran interred at Arlington
National Cemetery with a fresh remembrance wreath. At Arlington alone, nearly 50,000
volunteers were on hand to place the wreaths in celebration of this year’s Wreaths
Across America Day on December 13, 2014.
Celebrating alongside WAA was the Truckload Carriers Association (TCA), which
coordinated logistics for the numerous trucking companies and professional truck drivers
who made the effort possible behind the scenes. TCA not only covered the delivery
of arrangements for the ANC, but also covered the delivery of an additional 490,000
wreaths to 1,034 veterans’ cemeteries stretching from coast to coast.
Including those placed at Arlington, a total of 720,000 wreaths were distributed nationwide
to honor the nation’s fallen veterans. Nearly 300 trucks along with countless supplies
of fuel and manpower were donated to accomplish this worthy gesture of respect.
As with last year, the TCA will be calling on its member carriers and drivers from all
walks of life to volunteer their services to transport the wreaths to Arlington.
Carriers and drivers will once again be able to pre-select loads.
Mark your calendar for this year’s Gala and look for more information in the August
issue of Truckload Authority.
Top Rookie
Trucking stakeholders have until June 26 to submit nominations for Trucking’s Top
Rookie Award, a competition to increase pride and professionalism among new drivers
and promote truck driving as a career choice during a severe shortage of drivers.
Randall-Reilly launched the contest four years ago. Through its many trucking
periodicals and industry partners such as Shell ROTELLA, Progressive Insurance, Pilot
Flying J and Rand McNally, Randall-Reilly has been able to promote the contest and
recognize 155 nominees thus far.
“Support from these sponsors and association partnerships with Truckload Carriers
Association, the American Trucking Associations, the Commercial Vehicle Training
Association and the National Association of Publicly Funded Truck Driving Schools have
been the key to the program’s success,” Scott Miller, senior vice president, sales for
Randall-Reilly, said. “We have built a lot of momentum and hope to have 60 nominees
compete for more than $25,000 in cash and prizes in 2015.”
The winning driver’s award is named to honor Mike O’Connell, the former
executive director of CVTA, who first suggested that Randall-Reilly pursue an
entry-level driver recognition program. Any CDL holder who has graduated from a
Professional Truck Driver Institute-certified, or NAPFTDS- or CVTA-member driver
training school within the past year and has been employed by a trucking company
for less than one year, is eligible for the Mike O’Connell Memorial Trucking’s Top
Rookie award.
Nominations may be made by motor carrier employers, training organizations, and/
or other interested parties. There is a standardized nomination form, courtesy of Truckload
Carriers Association, which can be completed online at truckload.org/rookie.
An expert panel of judges, including representatives from motor carriers, suppliers,
trade associations and driver training schools, will identify 10 finalists. The winner will
be interviewed by Eric Harley on RedEye Radio Network and will be recognized during
a press conference at the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas.
The winner will also receive: a $10,000 check; a custom plaque from Award Company
of America; a RoadPro Getting Started Living On-The-Go Package; $1,000 cash
and 100,000 MyRewards points from Pilot Flying J; a GPS unit from Rand McNally; an
American Trucking Associations “Trucking Moves America Forward” package; and a
dash camera from Cobra Electronics.
The other nine finalists will receive $1,000 and a similar prize pack. Please nominate
your deserving drivers today.
PTDI Training
Students listen to an instructor during a classroom training session at the
Regional Equipment Operator Training School in Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania.
The Professional Truck Driver Institute (PTDI) has certified the first contract training
course at a U.S. Army installation and a second U.S. Air Force truck driver training
course, broadening both the marketability of veterans and the pool of properly trained
military drivers.
“The truck driver training program is ideally suited for a soldier transitioning out of
the military, coming back from overseas, or retiring from the service,” said Harry Kowalchyk,
president of National Tractor Trailer School, Liverpool, New York, which offers a
PTDI-certified contract training course at Fort Drum in upstate New York. “Many do not
TCA 2015 www.Truckload.org | Truckload Authority 43

have strong, marketable skills that can help them easily transition into the private sector.
Now, with PTDI, when they enter the civilian sector, they have completed a certified
course that is nationally recognized.”
The Regional Equipment Operator Training School (REOTS) at Fort Indiantown
Gap, Pennsylvania, is the second of two USAF truck driver training sites to attain
PTDI certification and the second ever Department of Defense course to be certified.
REOTS is part of the 201st RED HORSE Squadron of the Pennsylvania Air
National Guard and was selected as a venue for truck driver training because of
REOTS’ mission to provide skill level upgrades and proficiency training for Active
Duty, Air Force Reserve, and Air National Guard USAF Civil Engineers (CE). With
tractor-trailer operations being an integral part of CE’s mission, ensuring Airmen
were properly trained to drive on a military installation as well as on public roadways
was imperative. As a result, the Air Force began looking at ways to improve
training and turned to PTDI.
Impressed by how much he learned going through the PTDI certification process,
TSgt. Joshua Neely, lead instructor of the REOTS truck driver training program,
said he now has more knowledge of what it takes to put safe drivers behind the
wheel.
“With PTDI, we realized how much we missed,” Neely said. “We are training to
industry standards now, and it has significantly increased our Airmen’s capabilities.
This program has broadened the amount of people we have available who can
drive tractor-trailers for the military. And from the civilian side of it, they can leave
the military with this certificate and be more marketable to carriers ready to hire
drivers.”
Ensuring proper training and public safety overall have been significant motivators
for REOTS. “It’s been a huge strengthening of the professionalism and confidence of
our instructors,” said CMSgt Paul F. Swenson, Commandant. “We can see the benefits
all across the board.”
“Our primary reason and focus for providing truck driver training at REOTS is to
ensure we are able to complete any mission and be safe in the performance of our duties.
From an international perspective, it helps us to better meet our federal and state
mission to respond with properly trained Airmen, ensuring we get the right capability
at the right place at the right time and do it safely.”
Kowalchyk sees similar benefits at Fort Drum. “Soldiers are taking this course for
upward mobility within the Army. The Army needs qualified drivers to transport goods
and supplies to its installations throughout the world, and this program helps answer
that need.”
TAT Award
Truckload Carriers Association President Brad Bentley and Vice President of
Development Debbie Sparks, pose with Truckers Against Trafficking’s Freedom
Driver’s Project Driver, Bill Brady, who is joined by American Trucking
Associations Senior Vice President of Communications and Public Affairs
Elizabeth Barna and National Association of Truck Stop Operators Senior
Director of Public Affairs Tiffany Wlazlowski Neuman.
Truckers Against Trafficking (TAT) has received the Suzanne McDaniel Memorial
Award.
Bill Brady, an over-the-road truck driver for Lodestar who often drives the Freedom
Drivers Project for TAT, accepted the award on behalf of the anti-trafficking organization.
Brady is a member of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association.
The award was presented at the 2015 Congressional Victims’ Rights Caucus
Awards recently.
In attendance and supporting TAT were Truckload Carriers Association President Brad
Bentley; TCA Vice President of Development Debbie Sparks; Elisabeth Barna, senior vice
president of communications and public affairs for the American Trucking Associations; and
Tiffany Wlazlowski Neuman, senior director of public affairs for the NATSO Foundation.
“It was a great day for trucking, thanks to TAT,” Sparks said.
TAT received the Suzanne McDaniel Memorial Award for Public Awareness as part
of the annual Congressional Victims’ Rights Caucus Awards on April 22 at the Rayburn
House Office Building in Washington.
Truckers Against Trafficking, which was founded as part of a Christian ministry
group, became its own 501(c)(3) in 2011.
The group works with TCA and other trucking stakeholders to educate drivers and
the public about how women and children caught up in the networks are “not out there
because they want to be there,” Brady said. “They are being forced.”
The group maintains a 24-hour hotline to which truckers can report what they
believe are instances of human trafficking, and the group alerts local law enforcement
agencies.
The award given to TAT is named after the late Suzanne McDaniel, a Texas prosecutor.
The caucus said she was one of the first prosecutor-based victim advocates in
the country and founded the Texas Crime Victim Clearinghouse, the first statewide
resource in the nation.
Vietnam War Commemoration
Larry M. Brom, left, acting director of the Department of Defense Office of
Commemoration, and TCA Chairman Keith Tuttle hold the commemorative
flag designating the Truckload Carriers Association as a partner in the United
States of America Vietnam War Commemoration program.
The Truckload Carriers Association has been selected as a Commemorative Partner
with the United States of America Vietnam War Commemoration.
TCA was chosen because several of its members are donating their equipment
and manpower to haul The Wall That Heals, a 250-foot replica of the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial and accompanying mobile education center, to various communities across
America.
During a ceremony at TCA headquarters, TCA Chairman Keith Tuttle, TCA President
Brad Bentley and the TCA staff were shown a video about the importance of remembering
the sacrifices of Vietnam Veterans. Then Larry M. Brom, acting director of the
Department of Defense Office of Commemoration, presented a commemorative flag
and the official certificate of partnership signed by the Secretary of Defense and the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“I remember the Vietnam War and its impact on all of us back home and especially
to those veterans that returned,” Tuttle said. “The trucking industry has a history of
welcoming veterans into our ranks. We did so after Vietnam, and we are still working
toward that legacy of service as we pledge to hire 50,000 veterans. As chairman of
TCA, I am proud to be a Partner with the Vietnam War 50th Commemoration Committee
as we work toward the common goal of recognizing service and sacrifice.”
The Commemorative Partner Program is designed for federal, state and local communities,
veterans’ organizations and other nongovernmental organizations to assist
a grateful nation in thanking and honoring Vietnam Veterans and their families. Commemorative
Partners are encouraged to participate in the Commemoration of the Vietnam
War by planning and conducting events and activities that will recognize Vietnam
Veterans and their families’ service, valor, and sacrifice.
“Patriotism and the trucking industry seem to go hand in hand,” Bentley said. “TCA
is proud to be part of delivering the U.S. Capitol Christmas tree to Washington, supporting
logistics for Wreaths Across America, and now bringing The Wall That Heals to our
nation’s communities. We are pleased to join so many other Partners to honor our past
and continue to promote the value and commitment of service.”
44 Truckload Authority | www.Truckload.org TCA 2015

SPRING 2014
Mark Your
Calendar
SepteMber 2015
>> SePTeMBeR 10 - Independent Contractor Division Annual Meeting -
Renaissance O’Hare Suites, Chicago. Find more information at Truckload.org
or contact TCA at (703) 838-1950.
>> SePTeMBeR 10-11 - Open Deck Division Annual Meeting -
Renaissance O’Hare Suites, Chicago. Find more information at Truckload.org
or contact TCA at (703) 838-1950.
>> SePTeMBeR 22 - 3rd Annual Wreaths Across America Gala - Grand
Hyatt, Washington, D.C. Find more information at Truckload.org or contact TCA
at (703) 838-1950 and see the ad on page 45 of this edition of Truckload Authority.
june 2015
>> June 4 - 12-1:30 p.m. eDT - Hiring Our Heroes 2: Best Practices for
Recruiting Success WeBInAR. Register online at Truckload.org.
>> June 11 - 12-1:30 p.m. eDT - eSOPs in Trucking: A Strategy for
Succession Planning and Successful Ownership WeBInAR. Register
online at Truckload.org.
julY 2015
>> July 8-10 - Refrigerated Division Annual Meeting - Stowe Mountain
lodge in Stowe, Vermont. Find more information at Truckload.org or contact
TCA at (703) 838-1950.
DeceMber 2015
>> DeCeMBeR 12 - Wreaths Across America Day - Arlington national
Cemetery (and other national cemeteries across the nation). Become a
part of Wreaths Across America by visiting WreathsAcrossAmerica.org.
March 2016
>> MARCH 6-9 - TCA Annual Convention - Wynn Resort, las Vegas,
nevada. Find more information at Truckload.org or contact TCA
at (703) 838-1950. Exhibitor opportunities available.
Scan here to viSit our event calender page online:
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its READERS are many of our MOST VALUABLE CUSTOMERS and PARTNERS.” -Dave Gilliland, VP National Accounts for
BEST FLEETS TO DRIVE FOR • NATIONAL FLEET SAFETY AWARD WINNERS • DRIVERS OF THE YEAR
O F F I C I A L P U B L I C A T I O N O F
T H E T R U C K L O A D C A R R I E R S A S S O C I A T I O N
FROM WHERE WE SIT • HIGHWAY ANGEL TOUR WITH LINDSAY LAWLER • WREATHS ACROSS AMERICA GALA IN REVIEW
O F F I C I A L P U B L I C A T I O N O F T H E T R U C K L O A D C A R R I E R S A S S O C I A T I O N
SUMMER 2014
WHERE STATES STAND • HOS STRESS • TCA HONORS INDUSTRY EXCELLENCE
O F F I C I A L P U B L I C A T I O N O F T H E T R U C K L O A D C A R R I E R S A S S O C I A T I O N
FIRED UP
WITH CHAIRMAN SHEPARD DUNN
BILL O’REILLY
EXCLUSIVE
NO SPIN MEDIA MOGUL
CRACKING UP (NO LAUGHING MATTER) | 06
WINTER RIDICULUDICROUS \ r -’dik-y -’lud-e-kres \ | 10
2013-14 DOWN TO BUSINESS WITH CHAIRMAN KRETSINGER | 24
TCA CELEBRATES 75 YEARS: FOUNDATION OF THE FUTURE | 33
12
19
24
EXCLUSIVE
MAKE LOVE, NOT POLITICS WITH
JAMES CARVILLE & MARY MATALIN
TECH TAKEOVER
COMING RETRACTIONS
06 30 34
AMERICAN
EXCLUSIVE
EXECUTIVE ACTION | OUT OF SERVICE | WALKING AWAY A WINNER
CARLY FIORINA
TRAILBLAZER
GUARANTEED TO REACH TRUCKING’S TOP EXECUTIVES.
To inquire about partnership and space availability, call (800) 666-2770 or email publisher@thetrucker.com.
46 Truckload Authority auThoriTy | | www.Truckload.org Tca TCA 2015