Profile For The Highlight Reel

Earlier this month, Arkansas passed legislation requiring that all drivers who want to get or renew a Class A CDL in Arkansas will need to complete a human trafficking prevention course.

The state will not directly administer the training. Drivers will be required to watch a 26-minute movie and complete a 15-question quiz to be certified by Truckers Against Trafficking, who will then pass on that "evidence of completion" to the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration.

Arkansas joins Ohio as the only states to require the training for new CDL applicants, but goes further to require renewing drivers to complete it.

Truckers Against Trafficking is a non-profit organization dedicated to fighting human trafficking. Truck drivers are uniquely positioned, as the eyes and ears of the road, to help recognize and report trafficking and save victims.

Truckers Against Trafficking Official Website

Human trafficking prevention training to be required for Arkansas truckers

States taking steps to combat human trafficking

Night Driving Safety - for Truckers - 1930's Film

Inspired by a recent and "exciting" thread on the use of high beams, passing, and courtesy for the eye holes of other drivers, we dug up this beauty on night driving from the 1930's, presented by Chevrolet and the American Road Builders Association.

Produced in an era that still referred to long-haul drivers as the "Knights Of The Highway", this vintage film contains some good, relevant, general advice on night driving. They do, however, recommend using or blinking your "stop light" at night, as at the time brake lights were just becoming required standard equipment on vehicles, and were manually operated by the driver.

At the time, American truck drivers were known as the most courteous and safety conscious drivers on the highway, the "most expert night drivers in the world", according to American Road Builders Association President Murray D. Van Waggoner

Skip to about the 3:00 mark if you want pass Van Waggoner's flattering intro to get to the nitty-gritty.

NO HIGH BEAMS! Forum Thread

In what might come as no surprise to anyone, distracted driving was a factor in over half of driving trips that resulted in a crash, according to one recent study by Cambridge Mobile Telematics. The study collected data from several hundred thousand drivers and measured behavior in six different categories:

Key findings in the report included:

• Distracted driving happened in 52% of trips that resulted in a crash.
• Average duration of distraction was 135 seconds on trips that involved a crash.
• 29% of these crashes were at speeds over 56 miles per hour.
• 20% of drives with distraction had a distraction lasting two minutes or more.
• Cell phone use was involved in 14% of fatal crashes in 2015.

According to the National Safety Council, overall highway fatalities have increased 14% in the last 2 years, the largest such increase in the last half-century.

Studies have also shown that states with anti-phone laws have only slightly lower rates of distracted driving.

The FMCSA has specific rules to address distracted driving by commercial drivers, and can be summed up as such:

So as a truck driver, unless your are in an emergency or contacting law enforcement, any texting or dialing device needs to be "hands-free", and the FMCSA has this to say about company Qualcomm devices:

"texting on a dispatching device is indistinguishable from texting on another text-capable device, and is therefore prohibited."

Depending on the state laws regarding seriousness of any infractions, the penalties could lead to eventual disqualification for CDL holders.

Some easy tips to avoid distracted driving include the obvious:

• Don't get distracted by objects outside of your truck.
• Don't text and drive.
• Do not dial a handheld phone.
• Avoid using dispatching devices.
• Avoid eating and drinking.
• Avoid reading, writing, or looking at paper maps while driving.

About Cambridge Mobile Telematics:

"Founded in 2010 by two MIT professors and experienced entrepreneurs, CMT pioneered telematics for behavior-based insurance (BBI) and deployed the first solution to provide both traditional vehicle-centric UBI and BBI. With over 20 customers in 14 countries, CMT has a proven record of changing driver behavior: an average reduction of 35% in phone distraction, 20% in hard braking, and 20% in at-risk speeding all within less than 30 days of using the program. With DriveWell, insurers report fast customer growth (e.g., 2x growth rate compared to earlier), lower loss ratios (e.g., 34% lower crash rates, 19% less-severe claims, and 10% lower loss ratio compared to blackboxes), and greater customer retention rates."

Telematics: the branch of information technology that deals with the long-distance transmission of computerized information.

More From TruckingTruth.com

Wiki - Cell Phone Use, Texting, & Driver Distractions

Blog - Distracted Driving For Truck Drivers: The Penalties And Risks

CDL Driver Disqualification

External Links:

New data from Cambridge Mobile Telematics shows distracted driving dangers

FMCSA - Distracted Driving

FMCSA: Limiting the Use of Wireless Communication Devices

The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) has released a survey to get input from commercial drivers on a few industry issues:

Responses are kept confidential and no registration/personal information is required to participate.

The survey can be found here: Commercial Driver Perspectives on Critical Industry Issues

ATRI Official Website: American Transportation Research Institute Online

The ATRI is a not-for-profit trucking industry research organization, that has been in operation since 1954 as a part of the American Trucking Associations Federation (ATA). Their main focus is on research that promotes safety, efficiency, and the viability of the industry as a whole.

It's April, there's new Spring life blooming everywhere you look. Accordingly, since 2003, April has been designated as "National Donate Life Month" by Donate Life America, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to motivating Americans to register as organ, eye, and tissue donors.

One statistic that is especially important is that 80% of organ donations are from people who have already died. Once you're gone, you can't really give consent, in which case it will be left up to your family to decide. The registration is a binding legal document, that you can revoke, should you choose, at any time. In many states, you can register while you're doing driver's license-type stuff at the DMV, and it counts the same.

What's more, only 3 in 1,000 people die in a way that allows for their organs to be donated. So the list is long, and the options short, for people in need of transplants or donations.

Organ Donation Facts & Statistics:

Registering to become an eye, tissue, or organ donor is as easy as filling out a secure, online form at RegisterMe.org or DonateLife.net:

Online Organ Donor Registration At RegisterMe.org

Other External Resources:

Donate Life America

OrganDonor.gov Organ Donation Statistics

Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network

53 years ago this week the iconic Ford Mustang made it's debut at New York's World Fair, finally bringing the culmination of the concept to the showroom for the general public. The 1964/65 Mustang was one of Ford's most successful launches, moving 22,000 Mustangs almost immediately after they became available.

The first-generation Mustang was originally developed as a 2-seater in concept, and changed to a 4-seat design before launch. Though technically a "4-passenger" vehicle, that was reportedly a pretty liberal description considering it was a 2-door sports car with limited leg and head room if you were anyone at average-or-better height riding in the back.

The launch was accompanied by great fanfare, including being featured on the covers of Time and Newsweek (kind of a big deal, at the time), and a coordinated advertising campaign that ran commercials simultaneously on all 3 national television networks. See, kids, back in the day, at any given time, you had your choice of exactly three, yes three, channels to choose from on the TV. The old folks will tell you all about this fabulous thing they used to call "the outside", that used to fill up much of their free time.

The Mustang was the brainchild of Lee Iacocca, who would later be credited with Chrysler's 1980's revival, and spawned hundreds of car clubs, and has made appearances in hundreds more films. In 2005, Ford released the 5th generation Mustang, leading the wave of nostalgia for older muscle cars, and "retro-futurism" that also drove the comebacks of the new generation of the Dodge Challenger and Chevy Camaro in 2008 and 2009. Now in it's 6th generation of continuous production, the Mustang has sold over 9 million units to date.

External Links:

Road & Track Magazine, August 1964 First Impressions: Ford Mustang

1964 - Ford Mustang debuts at World’s Fair

WikiPedia - Ford Mustang

Tuesday, April 18th is the day the IRS has designated as the tax-filing deadline. If you are going to owe money for your taxes, even if you can't pay right away, filing by the deadline will avoid all kinds of unnecessary penalties, fees, and interest.

In honor of this anti-holiday, many establishments around the country, mostly food-related, are offering deals, specials, and freebies, if you're in the neighborhood and into that sort of thing. Plenty of local places will have their own deals, so check around, wherever your are.

Also beware the "Only at participating locations" caveat. Some highlights include:

The complete list of Tax Day Freebies can be found here:

The best Tax Day freebies and deals

Looking at some of these deals, we would also highly suggest taking advantage of the nicer weather and getting up and moving:

Getting Exercise As A Truck Driver

In response to concerns raised by government watchdog agencies, that the TSA is not "adequately positioned to identify security risks across different modes of transportation or effectively support federal, state, local and private providers of transportation security.”, a bipartisan group of 4 U.S. Senators has reintroduced the Surface Transportation and Maritime Security Act (S. 763).

Among it's various provisions, is a directive that any individual who has already passed a background check to get, and holds a valid TWIC card does not have to submit to a second, redundant, background check for their Hazmat endorsement. Generally, it eliminates the extra Security Threat Assessment and it's (reduced) fees for drivers who have their TWIC card and need the HME:

A lot of things happen between the time a bill is introduced and actually getting it through Congress in anything resembling it's original form, so certainly nothing is officially decided. The bill was introduced in the last session of Congress, but too late for it to advance very far.

A number of states were previously determined to have comparable Hazmat background checks, and were already allowed to combine them, but this will establish the practice as the nationwide standard.

The "Surface and Maritime Transportation Security Act"

The added pertinent section reads:

The proposed bill aims to assess and streamline surface transportation security, reduce redundancies in the driver credentialing process, and overall make moving hazardous material and accessing security-sensitive areas more efficient, as much as a government agency can be efficient.

External Links:

Trucking Applauds Proposed TWIC Driver-Credential Reform Measure

ATA Applauds Progression in TWIC Program

World smallest V12 engine

We don't know if this is actually the official "World's Smallest V12 Engine", but it's pretty darn small. The subtitles appear to be in Spanish or Portuguese(?), and the video is a few years old, so you may have seen this.

The builder's name is Yesus Wilder, who reportedly built the engine using only aluminum, bronze, and stainless steel. It is made of 516 pieces, 372 screws, and took 1,580 hours to complete. There is no information on who was shown machining all of those tiny parts, so we're assuming that it was Wilder, himself. Either way, it's a stunning piece of art, that took an incredible amount of skill and dedication.

The engine is technically not an actual combustion engine, as it lacks both an ignition system and fuel, so Wilder pumps compressed air into it to make it operate. Skip to the 8:06 mark if you want to go directly to the tiny engine in action, but be fore-warned that you will be missing out on a truly inspiring crescendo to the "Pirates On The High Seas"-type backing track, which works great for this video, in it's own weird way.

Americans, obviously, like their stuff. The entire world knows it. Especially at holiday time, where by some accounts we seemingly take every opportunity and make any excuse to increase our consumption of various consumer goods.

That's not to say that the reason and spirit for the season is lost on people, by any means, as millions of Christians are celebrating the Resurrection, but the various traditions, rituals and accessories at Easter time also require truckloads and truckloads of physical stock to support it. It is during these times of high consumption that we like to remind the General Public just how important the trucking industry is.

Must of this holiday consumption is food-related, in the form of holiday meals, eggs and candy, and every time you turn around, another brand is coming up with more specialized themed products, like the pastel M&M's and Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs. Around one-third of the estimated $18.4 billion spent on Easter-related retail sales in 2017 will be on food. With around 88% of American parents doing up Easter baskets for their children, here's some Easter by the numbers:

Another $2.9 billion will be used on Easter gifts, while $3.3 billion will be spent on clothing, and another $3 billion for flowers, decorations, and greeting cards. The effective bottom line of all of this is that record amounts of consumer goods need to be moved from place-to-place, as always.

Other fun Easter stats:

• Easter Cards:

  Still quite popular, despite electronic alternatives, we send about 43 million per year.

• Egg Hunts:

  Winter Haven, FL boasts the largest in the country, with almost 10,000 children searching for over 500,000 eggs every year.

• Chocolate Bunnies:

  90 million chocolate bunnies are produced every year. About 76% of consumers say that the ears should be eaten first. The other 24% are split between the feet, tail, and "other" just to spite them.

External Links:

National Retail Federation Says Later Easter Expected To Bring Record Spending

Sweet Easter Facts

Easter by the Numbers