RealAnswers Volume 4 Issue 4

Whether you believe the millennium starts or ends this year, there’s no doubt the trucking industry is at a critical stage in its evolution. Will the boom continue? What does the future hold? And what must trucking do to be prepared? We asked American Trucking Associations president and CEO Walter B. McCormick, Jr. for his views. We discovered that he sees the glass as neither half-full nor half-empty. The trucking industry can, if it wants to, fill the glass itself.

also an economic one, because it directly affects costs and productivity.

“The human body operates on a 24-hour cycle, but current hours of service rules treat it as though the cycle were 18 hours. If we can reduce driver fatigue with new rules, we’ll improve safety, and we’ll also promote greater efficiency and improved on-time delivery. Those things are good for the trucking industry, the industries we serve, and the country as a whole.”

“We are working to do just that. In cooperation with the U.S. Department of Labor, the Professional Truck Driver Institute and the states of Pennsylvania and Tennessee, the ATA Foundation has created a program to recruit workers who may have been displaced from other industries.

“Candidates are enrolled in driver training programs certified by the Professional Truck Driver Institute, and on completion of their training, placed in jobs with some of America’s premier trucking companies. We’re also working with the Department of Defense to get those who formerly served their country in the military to join the trucking industry as well.

“We project that for the foreseeable future, we’re going to need about 80 thousand new drivers each year. These programs will help alleviate part of that shortage.”

“As an industry, we have to continue to find ways to make truck driving a more desirable vocation. With a booming economy and low unemployment, the trucking industry is competing with every other industry for people.

“The ATA actively supports technology – which advances safety – through The Maintenance Council and its ‘Tomorrow’s Truck’ program.

“Advances in communications are ending the isolation of the long-distance truck driver, by making it possible for them to be in touch with their families as easily as they are in touch with dispatchers. Besides better communications inside the truck, truckstops are adding Internet and e-mail facilities for drivers as well.

“Fleets are realizing the value of vehicle amenities in making trucks pleasant to drive – and pleasant to live in. For many drivers, the cab is not just the office, but their home – for days at a time.

“On our side, we’re working with shipper groups to try to end unreasonable deadlines and to reduce delays at docks.

“We’re also working to increase spending to improve our highways and increase the number of parking spaces in rest stops.

“Right now, we estimate there’s a shortage of 28 thousand truck parking spaces. In Virginia, there’s a 2-hour limit on use of a rest area parking space. If we want safer highways, we must provide places drivers can safely park and rest.”

“Our studies show that the majority of Americans want to believe that truck drivers are safe. However, they have encounters on the road which lead them to believe otherwise.

“The ATA is working daily to make roads safer for all motorists. Therefore, we support strict standards for Commercial Driver’s Licenses, for accurate and easily accessible computerized records of driving histories, and we are solidly opposed to drugs that can be used to mask alcohol and drug use.

“We were also instrumental in the creation of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. We believe FMCSA will do for trucking safety what the FAA has done for airline safety.

“In addition to our ‘How to Drive’ program, which teaches the public how to drive safely around trucks, we’ve also instituted a new program we call ‘Highway Watch.’ It’s patterned after the ‘Neighborhood Watch’ programs around the country.

technology currently available in most trucks, and working with the states, AAA, state police departments, Mothers Against Drunk Driving and emergency medical and transportation authorities.

“In Colorado, Florida, Minnesota and Oregon, we have trained drivers how to use their CB radios, cell phones and satellite communications equipment to report accidents and dangerous road situations, bad road conditions and construction signage.

“The Colorado Highway Patrol reports that in just one year, their response time has been cut 50 percent as a result of the accuracy of location reports by truck drivers.

Eventually, ‘Highway Watch’ will make roads safer everywhere.”

And in the media?
“Late in 1999, we launched a major advertising campaign that will reach over 30 million adult American readers with positive messages about the importance of the American trucking industry to the American way of life.

“These ads feature real drivers, members of ATA’s America’s Road Team, showing the contributions they make to society by delivering the goods we need, their safety records and their professionalism.

“Each ad also depicts the driver as a real person, someone who could be – and is – your neighbor. By March, these ads will have appeared in major newspapers and magazines throughout America.

as its beneficiary.

“While we anticipate that both the growth of the economy and the trucking industry may flatten somewhat during the coming year, there’s no reason – unless fuel prices go even higher – to believe there will be a recession. We are really working every day to make sure the trucking business continues to be healthy and profitable.”

“Basically, the same kinds of fleets that are successful now. Those are the ones that are doing well with driver retention, that offer premium services, just-in-time and exactly-on-time delivery, who provide logistics services in addition to transportation, who offer real-time information to their customers, and who have embraced new productivity and safety technologies.”

“Not at all. Small fleets can do those things too. Some kinds of technology may be a bit difficult for them to afford, but one of the greatest strengths of smaller fleets is their ability to provide specialized services to individual customers.

“Deregulation made it easy to enter the trucking business. It was an entrepreneur’s dream. Today, surveys of college graduates indicate that people still want to start their own businesses.

“That means there will continue to be entrepreneurs who will be creating products they need to ship, and entrepreneurs in the trucking business who will be happy to transport those goods.

“While we’ve seen consolidation in trucking, as in practically every business, trucking will remain broad, because it is characterized by open entry and malleability. Small trucking firms are the malleable ones that can customize their services to the needs of these new entrepreneurs.

“We often say that trucking can do what railways and runways cannot – carry goods over those crucial first and last miles they need to travel.”

What will ATA’s focus be in the next millennium?
“We will continue to be the voice of the trucking industry and to act in an advocacy role. If we do our job right, we will have influence with the Congress, the courts, the regulatory agencies, the news media and the states, that matches our influence on the American economy.

“Like the trucking industry itself, ATA will have to continue to work hard to deliver value to our members.”