Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
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PRODUCT REVIEWS, OEM & SUPPLIER NEWS, AND EQUIPMENT MANAGEMENT TRENDS BY JACK ROBERTS Regulation rage Trucking about to be strangled by new rules B NEW REGULATIONS: The forthcoming round is the largest concentration ever to hit the industry concurrently. NO ONE SAFE: The new rules will create challenges in the coming years for both fleets and owner-operators. y any measure, CCJ's Fall MANY RAMIFICATIONS: The onSymposium last month in slaught may spur more fleet mergers and Scottsdale, Ariz., was a resoundclosures while limiting newcomers. ing success. As the equipment editor for our publisher, Randall-Reilly, I – along with my fellow editors – attend this threeonce and create incredible challenges day series of meetings with two primary purposes. The first, naturally, is to report on the in the next several years for both fleets various speakers and news generated by the Symposium and communicate that informaand owner-operators. Even if they truly tion back to you. (For a full roundup from the CCJ Fall Symposium, turn to page 34.) Our other Symposium assignment is exactly the same as the fleet executives attending: don't hit all at once, they will be coming Learn as much as possible about current and future trends facing the trucking industry so we hard and fast, like storm-tossed waves can be prepared for them as they develop. The funny thing is that you never know when some on a beach. By the time fleet managers vital piece of information is going to leap out at you. get a handle on one set of new rules, Case in point was Eric Starks' excellent economic forecast, which he presented at the they'll be trying to sort out another Symposium on its last morning. batch of regulations before they've had a Economist Eric Starks warned Now, I'm not going to lie to chance to catch their breaths. CCJ Fall Symposium attendees you: Even though they're vitally It's going to be a relentless and highly about the upcoming wave of important to all of us, I hate challenging environment, to say the least. government regulations afeconomic presentations. Every Starks predicted these new regulations fecting the trucking industry. time I attend one, I'm immewill spur additional fleet mergers, drive diately transported back to less healthy carriers out of the marketDr. Vallery's Macroeconomics place and serve as a substantial barrier to 101 class at the University of entry that will – at least initially – make Alabama, where I sat in utter it considerably more difficult for new bewilderment for a whole setrucking companies to go into business. mester understanding virtually Needless to say, there will be a lot of nothing that was discussed the entire time. news coming as these regulations take efWhile taking notes at Starks' presentation, it felt like I once again was sitting in Dr. Vallery's fect, and the industry as a whole will have class trying to make sense of all of the statistics being thrown at me. But even if I hadn't been to work diligently to get through them – taking notes, one of Starks' main points would've made an immediate impression or take advantage of them. when he pointed out that the forthcoming round of government regulations is the That said, I hope you took largest concentration of such ever to hit the trucking industry concurrently. These a nice long rest over the changes include California Air Resources Board trailer regulations, hours-of-serholidays this year, because I think you're going to need vice changes, new greenhouse gas/mpg rules and potential mandatory electronic it: I have a feeling that 2014 logging device and speed limiter requirements. is going to be a wild and "The problem is not so much the regulations themselves," Starks said. "It's the fact interesting ride. that they're all happening at once. But make no mistake – these regulations will be game-changers." I knew full well beforehand that all of these regulations are coming, but until JACK ROBERTS is Executive Editor of Commercial Carrier Journal. E-mail jroberts@ccjmagazine.com or call (205) 248-1358. Starks pointed it out, it had not occurred to me that they will hit more or less all at COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL | JANUARY 2014 15