It always seems to happen on an otherwise easy Tuesday afternoon; you’re finishing up the paperwork for the day when you get a phone call: one of your employees working in another state has hurt himself or been injured on the job. What happens now? If you don’t already cover this in your employee handbook, then the first thing that should happen is to make sure the employee gets medical attention. Make sure you get some sort of report of… Read More

As you pull into a free space, ready for some rest from the day’s long ride, millions of data points about your drive are being uploaded and saved. Your speed when you thought nobody was looking, captured. The sudden brake you applied when a vehicle cut you off out of nowhere, also captured. You cannot operate a truck without being fully immersed in telematics and data management (also known as fleet tracking), tools that are easily viewed as only making… Read More

Starting up and running a trucking company is no easy task. There are all the typical headaches that come with operating any business such as the paperwork, insurance, and staffing. Then, there are the ones specific to trucking, such as: Department of Transportation and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration registration requirements; fuel tax requirements; State and Federal compliance regulations compliance; and a mountain of others. So, now that the Environmental Protection Agency has finalized new regulations aimed at reducing emissions… Read More

It has been a long day, the last two hours of which you spent angling for a parking spot, hustling through the grocery store for necessities, waiting in line to check out, then hustling toward the door to load everything into your car and hustle home. Then you see it—another line at the exit, where one-by-one shoppers are showing their receipt and verifying that the contents of their cart comport with the receipt. You cannot take one more delay and… Read More

Look around you on any given day and you will see words and symbols that represent businesses large and small. Every time you see the distinctive swoosh, you know that the products come from Nike; and when you see that wave, you know it’s Coca-Cola. Even if consumers cannot identify the company behind the good or service, they know that it is the same company and can rely on what they know about those goods or services. Words and symbols… Read More

The scenario has become all too familiar to trucking and logging companies in Virginia – a truck owned by the company is involved in a collision, and the State Police arrive at the scene and immediately summon a towing company from a pre-approved rotation list maintained by the Commonwealth. Irrespective of whether the truck owner has a preferred towing company that is ready, willing and able to respond – and even if that preferred vendor can respond more quickly than… Read More

The headlines show an American trucking industry dealing with significant challenges, one of which is recruiting and retaining drivers. The American Trucking Association reported a shortage of 80,000 drivers for the year 2021 and a possible shortage of 160,000 drivers by 2030. As a result of this demand, new truck drivers are seeing salaries of $110,000, up from an average starting salary of $87,000, as well as additional bonuses and perks. Faced with a thin and competitive recruiting pool, trucking… Read More

You’re cruising down the road, just you and one other vehicle are running side by side. Suddenly, the other car swerves in front of you and hits their brakes causing your vehicle to rear end them. Local police are called, and they take the position that you must be at fault because you struck the other vehicle in the rear. Now you are stuck wondering, how in the world do I even begin to handle this mess? This situation can… Read More