Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
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14 COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL | FEBRUARY 2016 JOURNAL NEWS the front seat of the truck while a com- mercial learner's permit holder oper- ates the truck. The company said the exemption – the same as granted to C.R. England (CCJ Top 250, No. 21) in June – would "promote greater productivity and help individuals who have passed the CDL skills test return to actively earn- ing a living faster." To comment, go to regulations.gov and search Docket No. FMCSA-2015-0480. • FedEx Corp. (CCJ Top 250, No. 2) and Dutch freight and package opera- tor TNT Express announced that the European Commission last month gave unconditional approval to the companies' $4.9 billion merger. The announcement followed the European regulator's decision four months ago that it wouldn't block the union that FedEx is pursuing to broaden its pres- ence in European and Asian markets. In the interim, the agency conducted a review to determine possible conditions such as divestitures. FedEx and TNT still need approvals from China and Brazil and continue to target a completion of the deal in the first half of this year. • Heniff Transportation Systems, headquartered in Oak Brook, Ill., acquired Nederland, Texas-based EZ Alternative Transport, a bulk chemi- cal hauler. Heniff said the acquisition expands its Gulf Coast footprint to more than 200 trucks and gives the com- pany 14 terminals across the Midwest, Northeast, Central, South and Southeast United States. • Truckers using the New York State Thruway (Interstates 90 and 87) could see savings on tolls for the next sev- eral years if a plan proposed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo is approved by the State Legislature this spring. Cuomo is proposing tolls on the 496-mile-long INBRIEF 2/16 Pilot still facing litigation in fuel rebate fraud case T he remaining lawsuit in the nearly three- year-old fuel rebate fraud case involving truck stop giant Pilot Flying J has been refiled in a state court after being moved away from the federal court previously overseeing the case. Wright Transportation of Mobile refiled its suit last December in Mobile County, Ala. Since the alleged scheme was uncovered, Knoxville, Tenn.-based Pilot has reached an $85 million class action settlement with 5,500 trucking companies, along with a $92 mil- lion settlement with the Justice Department involving criminal accusations. Wright, along with six other carriers, opted out of the class action settlement in order to pursue separate litigation. The other six carriers have either reached settle- ments with Pilot or seen their claims dismissed on jurisdictional grounds. In its new suit, Wright again makes the claim that Pilot, its executives and its sales staff intentionally scammed "mom-and-pop" carriers they deemed easy targets by offering them either "cost-plus" or "retail-minus" pump pricing and then fudging the numbers and sending those carriers checks for less than what they were owed. Pilot says it has discontinued the practice of manually calculating the rebates – the apparent source of the fraud accusations. Since the FBI raided Pilot's headquarters in April 2013, 10 Pilot employees have pleaded guilty to fraud or conspiracy charges. – James Jaillet Wright Transportation of Mobile, Ala., is still accusing Pilot of inten- tionally and fraudulently scamming carriers out of owed fuel rebates. Operation Safe Driver inspections down, citations up, CVSA says L aw enforcement officers conducted 19,480 roadside inspections of commercial drivers and vehicles during the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance's 2015 Operation Safe Driver Week in October. The number of inspections was down from 24,184 in 2014. Also, 13,807 CMV traffic enforcement contacts were made in 2015, down from 19,980 in 2014. The top five warnings and citations issued to CMV drivers were size and weight, speeding, failure to use a seatbelt, failure to obey a traffic control device and using a handheld phone. Among other statistics involving commercial vehicles: • The percentage of speeding warnings and cita- tions increased from 5.8 percent in 2014 to 9.3 percent in 2015; • The percentage of warnings and citations for failing to obey traffic control devices increased from 2.5 percent in 2014 to 3.85 percent in 2015; and • Seatbelt warnings and citations increased to 5 percent in 2015 from 2.8 per- cent in 2014. – Matt Cole The number of inspections during CVSA's 2015 Operation Safe Driver Week was down from 24,184 in 2014.