Profile For DaveW

TuSimple, an early autonomous Class 8 innovator, has leapfrogged all the other autonomous truck innovators by announcing on July 1 the launching of what they call "the world's first Autonomous Freight Network."

TuSimple announces its Autonomous Freight Network to expand driverless freight hauling throughout the nation

It says the bill was passed by Congress, but it was only passed by the House of Representatives. Congress is both the House and the Senate.

True. I'll edit the article.

In this Friday Short Haul, the suspense comes to an end as The House passes the Moving Forward Act, YRC Worldwide gets a huge government bailout, and trucking jobs are coming back.

Friday Short Haul - Congress passes Moving Forward Act, YRC gets a bailout, and trucking jobs on the increase

Representatives of the nation's truck stops and travel plazas, convenience stores and gasoline marketers have joined together to send a letter to the U.S. Congress opposing the Moving Forward Act.

Group pens letter objecting to proposed EV charging stations at highway rest areas

Ironically, a truck driver's biggest defense against becoming infected during the COVID-19 virus threat is something that many drivers complain about while living on the road – often to the point of having to quit driving -- the self-quarantining and extreme social distancing that comes with the job … in other words, being lonely on the road.

Carriers' virus response gets kudos at TCA virtual meeting

In this Friday Short Haul Convoy steps up its game to capture more freight business, FMCSA extends CLP waiver, the $2 million minimum insurance coverage amendment is passed, and CDL examiner and trucking school owner are sentenced for CDL fraud conspiracy.

Friday Short Haul - Convoy brokerage, CLP waiver extended, $2 million amendment passed, two sentenced for CDL fraud

"Nuclear" verdicts, monetary awards against trucking firms that are $1 million to $10 million or greater, have been making the news lately, and that's why the American Transportation Research Institute underwent an extensive study to quantify the number and size of awards, and to find out why the litigation landscape has changed so much to bring about these verdicts.

Nuclear verdicts strangling trucking companies; not so, say lawsuit attorneys

In a lawsuit that belongs in the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" category, CRST and seven other mega carriers are defending against a lawsuit by job-seeking drivers who complain that the carriers don't hire them as drivers even though they are still under contract to other carriers.

Eight carriers in lawsuit for not poaching other companies' drivers

In this Friday Short Haul - Post-virus speeds return to normal, Congress mulls a $2 million minimum for truckers' insurance, and Women in Trucking looking to honor an influential woman.

Friday Short Haul - Post-virus speeds return to normal, $2 million insurance minimum proposed, WIT looking to honor an influential woman

Because the declaration of the national emergency due to the virus crisis is still in effect, the FMCSA recently announced several extensions of previous emergency waivers and declarations.

FMCSA extends 3 COVID-related waiver declarations

A vast majority of drivers responding to a CDL Life poll stomped down hard on the brakes and declared they will not enter cities that have defunded their police departments.

Truckers say they will refuse to enter cop-defunded cities

In this Friday Short Haul FreightWaves finds that truckers love guns, freight broker leader steps down, and how to avoid injury from rioters.

Friday Short Haul - Truckers love guns, freight broker leader resigns, avoiding riots

Cargo thefts appear to be on the rise in the first quarter of 2020 compared to the same period last year, and at least one cargo theft security company has attributed the cause of increased cargo criminal activity to COVID-19 circumstances.

Cargo theft on the uptick during COVID-19 era

Two citizen-driven measures are working their way through legal channels that would give California voters the chance to thwart the will of state legislators in their desire to throttle California's gig and independent contractor economy by enforcing the recently enacted AB 5, the independent contractor law.

California voters will get a chance to scrap AB 5

In this Friday Short Haul Prime escapes a potentially nuclear verdict, Teamsters applaud legislation that might undo recent HOS changes, and OOIDA opposes efforts to give brokers exemption from posting a $75,000 bond.

Friday Short Haul - Prime crash verdict, Teamsters applaud INVEST Act, OOIDA opposes broker bond changes

As every driver knows who enters a shipper/receiver's facility with anything but a drop-and-hook load a certain dwell time is to be expected. The bane of drivers, however, is when that dwell time turns into detention time. During the past few months of the virus crisis drivers said they were experiencing longer-than-normal detention times – sometimes 24 hours or more. But, now that the crisis has largely passed on in most locations, and panic buying has subsided, those detention times have begun to decrease.

Dwell and detention times begin to decrease post-virus

On the heels of CRST Expedited's successful lawsuit against Swift Transportation, claiming damages because Swift allegedly poached its trained drivers, CRST had filed a similar lawsuit against TransAm Trucking in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa on the same poaching charges.

https://www.truckingtruth.com/news/Article-229/crst-poaching-drivers

In this Friday Short Haul the driver shortage appears to be over - for now, Amazon announces its freight brokerage is going nationwide, and lawyers are learning how to extract "nuclear" verdicts from carriers.

Friday Short Haul - Driver shortage is over, Amazon's brokerage goes national, and lawyers are after carriers for nuclear verdicts

As the nation rebounds from the near-catastrophic, economy-killing, over-reaction to the COVID-19 virus, trucking industry leaders are beginning to look toward the future of the industry the rest of this year, and into the years to come.

Freight industry considering post-COVID-19 strategies

The time for completely unattended autonomous freight hauling via Class 8 trucks is still somewhere down the road, but because self-driving vehicle innovators are stuck with regulations requiring a "driver" (and sometimes an engineer as well) to accompany the vehicles on each trip they are beginning to ask for hours of service exemptions for those attendees.

FMCSA to consider increasing HOS for autonomous drivers