Life on the Road - Trucking News Blog

What is it any truck driver hates worse than the high fuel prices (that is unless they are a company driver!): oh yeah, I would have to say it is a DOT Inspection! So heads up everyone because apparently on June 3rd there is going to be a road check going on again!

Thousands of law enforcement officers will be blanketing North America’s roadways for 72 continuous hours beginning June 3 to hammer home the importance of comprehensive safety inspections of trucks and buses and on enforcing safety belt use.

“Roadcheck,” sponsored by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, dispatches federal, state, provincial and local inspectors to more than 1,000 locations across the continent to conduct comprehensive North American Standard Level I Inspections.

This leads me to wonder how many drivers really know what their safety rating is if they own their own company or if they are a company driver. I think it’s a good idea to check into something, such as a safety rating, before you go to work for someone. For one thing, it gives you a pretty good idea of how good (or bad) the equipment is by the amount of DOT OOS inspections there are both on drivers and equipment. You can check this information out at: http://www.safersys.org.

At any rate with June 3rd just around the corner make sure your log books are in order, your lights are working, that you are wearing your seat belt, and wearing a big smile because the chicken coops will be open awaiting your visit on June 3rd!

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Certain folks want to strike. Well they are about to get their wish.

There are two ways to interpret the word “STRIKE”. One, the way that our little buddies who could NOT understand supply and demand were advocating has to do with work stoppage. Our little buddies figured that if we stopped work then all our “demands” would miraculously be met.

What they failed to understand, what they apparently REFUSE to understand, is that we live in a global economy. Oil is traded on the global marketplace. (they shouldn’t feel TOO bad because apparently the US Congress doesn’t understand that either, sue OPEC indeed!!) Oil is a fungible commodity. If the US doesn’t buy the oil, why, Russia, China, India, Europe, or any of a whole lot of OTHER countries are in line to buy that same oil. If we don’t buy it then, on the Global Market, the demand falls. If the demand falls , and the supply is constant, THEN the price also falls.

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Speedway Motorsports Incorporated has purchased The Kentucky Speedway for a reported 78 million dollars. That is a heck of a deal for a track that cost a Hundred and fifty million to build ain’t it? This sounded fishy from the second that I heard of it. It has under the table dealing all over it and stinks to high heaven!

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Well the fan favorite from last week wins again. The Coca Cola 600 it always a great race. I know That I am a few days behind the power curve with this post but I have had a busy holiday weekend. Did everybody enjoy all the racing this past Sunday? I sure did! As soon as I got in from church I had to tune in to the Indianapolis 500, and what a great race that was. I was so hopefull that Danica Patrick could be the first woman to win the Indy 500. Man was I ticked when she got wrecked in the pits. Did you see he walking down pit road ready to kill? Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Or wrecked for that matter!

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I’ve heard many arguments about the fuel price crisis lately. We’ve all received quite an education on oil and it’s effect on the economy. I was quite surprised to find out something new from a Hollywood type like Ben Stein. He was on Glenn Beck discussing the oil scams and debating how we could become oil independent if the will was there.

He commented that Germany ran out of oil when their supplies were cut off in World War II. Under dire circumstances and heavy bombardment, they still managed to have plentiful supply of synthetic oil from coal. Here’s a long-winded link about how they did it. I found it very interesting that home heating oil and diesel make up 90% of the content when the oil is extracted. Sure, it’s not easy or cheap, and the Germans had a plentiful supply of slave labor, but it wasn’t difficult enough to slow their war machine.

If the Germans could do this back then under bad circumstances, what is our hold back to switching technologies now? I’m not saying coal is the total answer, I’m thinking that we have the technology to use coal and numerous other sources, other than just ethanol, to come up with a solution that works well. Like Ben said, the will just is not there. The will was never there at any other time that a supply crisis was claimed either.

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Do any of you have children? Do you recall the scenes where the little darling breaks something, or spills something, or otherwise causes a minor calamity, and then runs to mommy and blames it on another toddler. Or better yet “Sally MADE me do it!”

I was reading some posts regarding the recent Hijinks by the Senate Judiciary committee and that little scenario repeatedly came to mind. Children. We have children in office.

Vindictive and spiteful children. ”

Leahy and his comrades showed up ready to blame American oil companies for the high price of gasoline,

Not very bright children.

Not surprisingly, the petroleum executives stole the show, as they were far smarter, infinitely better informed, and much more public-spirited than the Senate Democrats.

And very, very, greedy children…

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I’m sitting in an IdleAire site in Oklahoma City.

I’m “surfing” the Internet as I usually do when stopped and find this.  It turns out that IdleAire has gone Bankrupt.  Doesn’t surprise me.  I’ve been hearing rumors for some time.  In fact there was a post on Life on the Road some time ago relating to IdleAire’s probable demise.

IdleAire hasn’t been all that popular. Some folks don’t like it , at all, at all.

I used to number in that group.  I thought that it was a waste of space.  That was before summer set in with ninety degree temps and high humidity (Oklahoma City right now, worse to come, this is only May), my air conditioner is on the blink right now and I’m a little shy of the thousand bux it’s goning to cost to fix it.  Also fuel just broke the five dollar a gallon mark in some places.  Since my kitty Cat gulps fuel at a gallon and a half an hour that equates to seven fifty an hour to idle.

IdleAire at a buck eighty an hour sounds pretty good.

So, like I said, I’m sitting in an IdleAire space in Okie City.  Nice an cool in the truck by the way.  It’s a sauna outside.  And IdleAire is bankrupt.  What gives?

They got a loan.

IdleAire will be open for a while yet.  I’m glad because I’m cool, for now.

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This is the first large carrier I’ve noticed to go under. It’s largest creditors were T-Check and a fuel company, so I’m assuming fuel prices played a major part. I hope other preventable factors played a major role, but I would not suspect it.  I don’t know too much about Jevic, but they appeared to be a strong company.

I talked to one of their drivers about a year ago and he really liked working for them. He had a reefer LTL deal that was making money for him. I would not have suspected a company involved with LTL and refrigerated to be one of the first big companies to file.

There are plenty of links all over the web about this, but I found this one interesting. What other industry that is non-union would have “so what” type of comments from people? You know out of 3,000 people there are at least quite a few hard working people that have just everything pulled out from underneath of them. Most will find another job quickly, but their health insurance and other benefits are gone, and gone in the blink of an eye with no warning. It will probably have an adverse effect on their customers and their employees too.

I have to wonder how many more companies will follow suit and I would really like to know the details of what went wrong with them. I’m sure I’m not alone.  It worries me about the economy overall. Jevic had over 5,000 creditors with the largest debt being over $1.5 million! Wow. If more companies do follow suit, that is a huge wake to leave behind.

I fear this may be bigger than previous market “adjustments” where weaker companies go under. No need for a strike if this keeps going, there will be plenty of involuntary strikers out there.

I should not have checked the news today. It looks like an economic doomsday if you believe it all. I usually don’t believe it, but then you see news like this. Other fuel dependent business, such as airlines, are starting to scream for relief and making drastic changes also. Time will soon tell if Jevic just had common industry problems or if others are on the brink of disaster also.

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If it wasn’t so serious it would be funny.

I subscribe to a Blog written by a fellow by the name of Warren Meyers. His Coyote Blog is a hoot. It’s also very educational. I highly recommend it to all who would like an insight as to how the world works from a small business point of view.

On May 21 of this year he posted Congress, Sue Thyself.

It seems that our leaders in congress are upset about the high cost of fuel. Nevermind that THEY are the ones primarily responsible for that same high cost.

The fact that Congress has placed many of the places in the US that are known to contain oil OFFLIMITS to drilling and production,

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This is Clark Schoeder from Cerberus Subrogation Professionals, LLC ( www.cerberussubro.com ). We are a company that helps commercial trucking companies, owner/operators, and commercial auto insurance companies recover money that is owed to them by other insurance companies. We are writing a series of articles about trucking insurance issues. Last week, we discussed what you can do to protect yourself and your company when you are involved in an accident. What to Do When You Are In an Accident

This week, we are going to discuss “What does the insurance company owe you when you are in an accident?” The answer to that question depends on whether you are filing a 1^st party or a 3^rd party insurance claim. Let me explain the differences.

1^st Party Claims

A 1^st party insurance claim is a claim that you file with YOUR insurance company under your “collision” or “comprehensive” coverage. These coverages are a contract between you and your insurance company that states that the insurance company will pay to fix your vehicle regardless of which party caused the accident. Under this contract, the insurance company does not owe all of the damages that you suffered; they only owe certain damages that are stated in the policy.

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