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For the first time, the federal government is regulating big-rigs, RV's, and tractor-trailers in much the same way it's held car makers to rigorous fuel efficiency standards for decades. But a group of California truckers contends the regulations will drive them right out of business -- and has filed suit to block them. The Environmental Protection Agency is ordering large trucks and buses to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 20 percent and overhaul engine design starting with models built in 2014. Most operators will need to spend thousands upgrading their rigs or buying new vehicles,

(12-12) 07:27 PST OAKLAND -- A group of protesters have succeeded in stopping a line of big-rigs from entering the Port of Oakland this morning during their march to shutdown the busy cargo terminal. Organizers have pledged to march to the port and shutdown the terminal, one of the busiest on the West Coast. Some unions, including the one representing Oakland teachers, are supporting the day-long strike while others, like the longshoremen's union, say shutting down the port will harm hard-working stevedores and truck drivers. Carrying signs saying "Shutdown Wall St. on the Waterfront" about 200 protesters marched the three...

Mexican Trucks Are On Our Roads by Phyllis Schlafly November 9, 2011 Phyllis Schlafly After years of negative votes in Congress and the opposition of the American people, on October 21 Barack Obama allowed the first Mexican truck to cross the border at Laredo, Texas and head north to deliver door-to-door service of its load of industrial equipment. This implemented an agreement quietly signed by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood in Mexico City on July 6 with Mexico's secretary of Communications and Transportation. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) calls this deal a major anti-jobs program, saying: "We're literally taking good jobs here...

SAN DIEGO (CBS) — Union and trucking industry leaders joined a pair of Southland lawmakers on Wednesday to warn Americans about a potential economic fallout if Mexican trucks are allowed to travel unchecked across the border. Reps. Bob Filner (D-San Diego), and Duncan D. Hunter (R-El Cajon) joined James Hoffa of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and Todd Spencer, the owner-operator of the Independent Drivers Association, to voice their concerns over the bilateral pilot project that is set to roll into the U.S. interior within days. The bipartisan group argues that allowing Mexican trucking companies to travel into the U.S....

WOODSTOCK -- The last few days have been busy for Shenandoah County emergency personnel on Interstate 81. Or, as some people may feel, it's been like old times. Four notable crashes in a 10-mile stretch since Thursday afternoon -- there were two that day, one on Friday and a tractor-trailer overturned Tuesday morning -- may have been the most in such a short period of time since the Virginia Department of Transportation raised the posted speed limit throughout most of the jurisdiction to 70 mph last the fall. Official crash data, though, is not yet available for the past few...

OAKLAND -- To the accompaniment of big rig cabs driving through downtown and honking their horns Tuesday afternoon, a handful of protesters gathered outside City Hall to say truckers are being unfairly treated despite their progress in reducing emissions. New state rules that took effect Jan. 1 required truckers hauling at California ports to either install expensive filters (estimated by protesters at $15,000 to $25,000 per vehicle) or upgrade their trucks to models from 2004 or newer. After speaking to a small crowd of onlookers outside City Hall, AB Trucking President Bill Aboudi said in an interview that a UC...

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Striking truck drivers protested for a third day on Friday in Shanghai's main harbor district amid heavy police presence and signs the action has already started to curb exports from the world's busiest container port. The strike is a very public demonstration of anger over rising consumer prices and fuel price increases in China. It comes as the government struggles to contain higher inflation, which hit 5.4 percent in March, fearful that rising prices could fuel protests like those that have rocked the Middle East. A crowd of up to 600 people milled about outside an office...

To what lengths will cash strapped Democrat controlled states, counties and municipalities go to fatten their coffers to pay for their inflated budgets? While law enforcement should be chasing “bad guys” – the crack dealer, the murderer, the thief – those types of law breakers only strain an already tight budget filled with this gimme program and that gimmie program. No, all you have to do is follow the money trail. One look at Rhode Island will illustrate just that. Truck drivers are prime targets for any number of traffic violations apart from speeding. The fact that they are “just...

It is amazing that, with unemployment unacceptably high, the Obama administration has endorsed a plan that will cost U.S. jobs and make highway driving for Americans more dangerous and less pleasant. Barack Obama wants to admit Mexican trucks to drive on all U.S. highways and roads. Todd Spencer, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, explained what this means: "U.S. truckers would be forced to forfeit their own economic opportunities, while companies and drivers from Mexico, free from equivalent regulatory burdens, take over their traffic lanes." We wonder if Mexico has any regulatory standards at all. Mexican trucks...

The U.S. government on Friday proposed prohibiting commercial truck and bus drivers from using cellphones while behind the wheel... http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/about/news/news-releases/2010/Rule-to-Ban-Hand-Held-Cell-Phone.aspx

The lifestyle of truck drivers can lead to many health problems and many drivers are looking at the new safety initiative, CSA 2010 as focusing on the problem of obesity and sleep apnea. The concerns drivers are having is due to the following statement, found in the CSA 2010 document which states: “Driver Fitness BASIC—Operation of CMVs by drivers who are unfit to operate a CMV due to lack of training, experience, or medical qualifications.” The “medical qualification” that many drivers are concerned with, is the possible disqualification due to being overweight. We have received emails from drivers who are...

HUAIAN COUNTY, CHINA—So you think struggling home from Ontario’s cottage country was tough? Think again. And consider, if you will, the case of Chinese trucker Pang Laisuo. On Sunday his coal-laden transport truck was caught in a traffic jam near here, about 240 kilometres north of Beijing. Pang knew he’d have something of a wait. What he didn’t know was that it would last 18 hours. “Everyone who pulled up at 4 o’clock Sunday afternoon ended up being stuck there until 10 o’clock Monday morning,” says Pang, a lean and grizzled man in his 50s speaking at a roadside stop...

(CNSNews.com) - The federal government has spent $550,496 on a project that involved conducting “focus groups and in-depth interviews” with American long-haul truck drivers to learn about their sex lives in order to assess their risk of contracting HIV or other sexually transmitted infections. The project has failed to find any instances of HIV among the truck drivers studied. “Several international studies have documented substantial levels of sexual risk behaviors and high rates of STI and HIV amongst long-distance truck drivers living in diverse settings including India, Bangladesh, South Africa and Thailand,” says the abstract for the grant published by...

The Midnight Truckers are another barometer on the pulse of the nation for if they are moving so is the economy! CLICK TO LISTEN!

We've melted down Congress' phonebanks, we've written and sent emails and faxes, we've vented our frustrations at townhall meetings for a solid year, we've written our newspapers and blogged about it until we are blue in the face, and yet we've done all of this to no avail. The time for talking is almost over, but... There is still time for a peaceful, non-violent expression of AMERICAS ANGER AT THE SOCIALIST/DEMOCRAT LEADERS IN CONGRESS AND AT THAT ARROGANT BASTARD TEMPORARILY RESIDING AT 1600 PENNSYLVANIA AVE. Here's what I propose:

Port of Oakland truckers are facing another deadline: They have until Friday to line up financing to pay for diesel filters or new trucks to comply with the state's strict air quality rules that went into effect Jan. 1. Drivers who are not able to purchase the new equipment will not be able to haul cargo at the Port after Feb. 15, but organizations who are offering low-cost loans to pay for the filters say they have received fewer applications than they expected. About 1,300 drivers who haul cargo for the Port were denied grant funding for filters and trucks...

OAKLAND — Homan Huang pulled up his rig to the TraPac terminal at the Port of Oakland before 9 a.m. Tuesday to pick up a container and take it to Napa. Two hours later, he had been turned away at the gate and was instead stuck in a creeping line of hundreds of drivers, all waiting to find out why a tiny radio transmitter was not working. Hundreds of drivers with cargo to deliver or pick up Tuesday were forced to watch their day's profits drain away after spending hours stuck in line to correct problems with the tiny radio...

State air regulators found an extra $3 million Wednesday to help more Port of Oakland truckers buy new diesel filters for their rigs, but that did not stop more than 450 independent drivers from filing a lawsuit to block a state-mandated emissions deadline that will put them out of work on New Year's Day. Approximately 1,200 mostly independent drivers who haul cargo in and out of the port will not be able to enter the gates starting Friday. They applied for grant funds to install new diesel filters on their rigs but were rejected because a $22 million pot to...

Arrow Trucking news is not good for employees, as the Arrow Trucking Company is closing its doors. The Arrow Trucking Company is rumored to be bankrupt now, but it seems that Arrow Trucking really didn't care about their employees in the end. It is being reported that some Arrow Trucking employees didn't find out they were out of a job until their gas cards were rejected while they were on the job across the country.

Filiberto Cervantes has already separated from his wife and kids, lost his car, moved into his truck and says he subsists largely on a diet of $1 cheese burritos. But Jan. 1 looms like a date with the grim reaper himself. ... Cervantes is among thousands of truckers servicing the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex who are facing a day of reckoning this New Year's. That's because Jan. 1 is the day new clean-air guidelines go into effect at the ports, banning all pre-1994 trucks -- as well as 1994-2003 rigs that have not been retrofitted with costly diesel particulate...

CONTINGENCY OPERATING BASE ADDER, Iraq, Nov. 3, 2009 – When a deployed unit approaches its end-of-tour date, the focus begins to shift from the deployment at hand to redeployment stateside. Army Sgt. Nic Light and Army Spc. Andrew Carpenter inspect a truck on Contingency Operating Base Adder, Iraq, Oct. 17, 2009. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Andy Mehler  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. But not so for those who support the mission until its final moment, such as the mechanics with the 628th Aviation Support Battalion, who face the pressures of repairing vehicles quickly while also taking steps to...

AN eight-year-old boy has been hailed a hero after he hot-wired a two-way radio to call for help as his dad lay trapped in the wreckage of a horror truck rollover. Michael Bowron stripped the radio wires and connected them to a spare battery he found among the wreckage. Yesterday, the Bonnie Rock youngster told The Sunday Times his fingers burned from sparks flying off the battery while he desperately called for help. "I was scared, but I was trying to be brave," Michael said. "My dad had heaps of blood on his face and heaps on his leg. "I...

WASHINGTON -- U.S. business groups are growing increasingly frustrated with President Barack Obama's failure to resolve a cross-border trucking dispute with Mexico they say has threatened thousands of American jobs. "We've got companies that are really concerned," said Frank Vargo, vice president for international economic affairs at the National Association of Manufacturers. "Our calculation is that we've got 15,000 jobs at risk and the longer this goes on, the more likely it is that Mexican buyers are shifting suppliers," Vargo said. U.S. manufacturers hold out hope Obama's meeting early next week in Guadalajara with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian...

I stumbled on the political forum at the "Truck.net Roundtable Forum" and witnessed a lopsided representation of todays events and issues by a few liberals on the forum. To add a little balance, I created and had an account activated with the login id of "Ophir". I posted 3 or 4 articles that were critical of the present administration and was immediately banned from the forum. The administrator came up with ridiculous claims of "racism" and "using multiple logins". I have asked the admin to call me directly. No reply has come back. The forum can be found at http://roundtable.truck.net/viewforum.php?f=28...

Washington, DC (AHN) - An FBI program that investigates unsolved killings along highways has linked long-haul truck drivers with hundreds of murders across the country, the Los Angeles Times reported over the weekend. The Highway Serial Killings Initiative (HSKI) has solved more than two dozen killings since it started five years ago, authorities said, according got the Times. At the center of HSKI's operation is a database holding information on more than 500 female murder victims, whose bodies were discarded at or near truck stops, motels and other places along well-traveled truck routes nationwide. The database also has information on...

MEXICO CITY (AFP) — Mexico on Monday said it would place tariffs on nearly 90 US products after Washington canceled a program that allowed some trucks from Mexico to operate in the United States. There is to be an "increase in customs duty on almost 90 industrial and agricultural products," Economy Minister Gerardo Ruiz Mateos said in a statement. Ruiz said the increase would represent some 2.4 billion dollars, but did not name the products. . . . . . The move drew a sharp rebuke from US Senator John McCain, who said he regretted Mexico's decision and also lashed...

BRAWLEY — A long-haul trucker escaped major injury Monday when he lost control of his big rig, jumped over a parkway along eastbound Main Street and burst into flames here, authorities said. The 18-wheel truck driven by Efrain Aguilar Cabrera, 27, of Mexicali, skidded more than 150 feet during the 4:32 p.m. incident. The rig struck a palm tree and had its fuel tank sheared off when its bottom portion impacted with the parkway’s curb, said Brawley Fire Lt. Chuck Peraza. The incident occurred near Marjorie Avenue. Cabrera, who suffered a cut finger to his left hand, said one of...

Having tolls removed from a major route in British Columbia, Canada, has taken some of the sting out of the cost of operating a trucking business in that province, but there’s still plenty of sting to go around. In late September, the government removed a $20 truck toll and $10 passenger vehicle toll from the Coquihalla Highway, which connects the city of Hope to Kamloops, B.C., in the Canadian West. Provincial officials said that truckers were pleased with the move, and they were. “Given the price of fuel, truckers are very happy with this,” Bridgitte Anderson, spokeswoman for British Columbia...

MICHIGAN (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - Truck drivers maneuver several tons of cargo down Michigan highways every minute. A new study shows that hundreds of thousands of them shouldn't even be behind the wheel. Right now about 600,000 commercial drivers suffer from conditions like diabetes and narcolepsy. They are conditions that qualify them for full disability benefits, because they can lead to serious issues like heart attacks, seizures and unconscious spells. Some truck drivers say the reason so many of their peers slip through the cracks is that they find doctors who overlook those medical conditions so they can stay on the...

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Manuel Castillo was driving a truck through Alabama hauling onions and left with a $500 ticket for something he didn't think he was doing: speaking English poorly. Castillo, who was stopped on his way back to California, said he knows federal law requires him to be able to converse in English with an officer but he thought his language skills were good enough to avoid a ticket. Still, Castillo said he plans to pay the maximum fine of $500 rather than return to Alabama to fight the ticket. "It just doesn't seem fair to be ticketed if...

AUSTIN — Truckers who smuggle drugs or people into the United States are now risking not only prison time but the loss of their commercial drivers' licenses as Texas uses a long-standing law in a new border-crime crackdown. “Up until today, when those lawbreakers had their trucks apprehended, they were convicted in federal court, they typically paid a small fine or served a brief sentence, then it was back to business as usual. Well, starting today, that all changes, ” Gov. Rick Perry said Thursday at the Texas Capitol with U.S. Border Patrol sector chiefs. “If you are a commercial...

If you think gas is expensive, be thankful you're not a trucker. Filling up their 18-wheel, 80,000-pound leviathans can cost more than $1,300 these days. Because of short supply, the price of diesel has gone up more than twice as much as gasoline in the last year, reaching a U.S. all-time high this week of an average of $4.33 a gallon. With little hope of a near-term decline -- oil futures rose $2.17 to settle at a record $126.29 a barrel Friday -- the run-up is causing panic and prompting radical cultural and technological shifts in the struggling trucking industry....

RIDGEFIELD, N.J. -- Truckers angry about the high price of fuel staged a rolling protest on Tuesday, using their big rigs to slow traffic to a crawl on the New Jersey Turnpike. The protest was part of a loosely organized nationwide effort by independent truckers to draw attention to the high prices they face. On the Turnpike, southbound rigs "as far as the eye can see" slowed to about 20 mph near Newark around lunchtime -- jamming traffic on one of the nation's most heavily traveled highways. State Police said several drivers were issued tickets as troopers broke up the...

Crude oil is running $100 a barrel and it costs $50 instead of $35 to fill your car, but you carpool occasionally and watch the number of trips across town so you're doing all right so far. But what happens when, in addition to the $50 fillup, your groceries go from $80 to $120 and you hunt for new jeans but the shelves don't even have your size? That's the very real possibility that is triggering an unofficial nationwide call for a shutdown by thousands of independent truck operators who deliver those supplies – all sparked by the rising costs...

KIRKERSVILLE, Ohio -- Today could be the day the trucks stop rolling. Across the nation, on citizens band channels, independent truckers are talking about parking their rigs today and letting their countrymen know how much it needs them. If not today, some say, then one day next week, or the next, but with diesel fuel hovering near $4 a gallon, someday soon. "They're desperate for someone to pay attention," said Glen "Jonesy" Jones, who hosts a daily, four-hour radio show for truckers on Sirius Satellite Radio. Jones said the idea of a national trucking boycott gets almost constant discussion on...

Mexican truck drivers allowed to travel throughout the U.S. under a Bush administration demonstration project may not be proficient in English, despite Department of Transportation assurances to the contrary. A brochure on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's website instructs Mexican truck drivers, "Did you know … You MUST be able to read and speak English to drive trucks in the United States." Still, at the Senate Commerce Committee oversight hearing Tuesday, Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters and DOT Inspector General Calvin L. Scovel III reluctantly admitted under intense questioning from Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., that Mexican drivers were being...

Teamsters General President Says U.S. Drivers at Risk to Unsafe Trucks From Mexico Washington, D.C. – Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa blasted the Bush administration today for its reckless indifference to the economic struggles of working Americans who are suffering under the North American Free Trade Agreement with more than a million lost jobs and billions of dollars in lost wages. “No matter how many jobs we lose, no matter how many foreclosures, no matter how many people die on the highways, the Bush administration just doesn’t care about the safety and security of American workers,” Hoffa said. Hoffa’s comments...

Reported by: Joyce Peterson Email: jpeterson@myeyewitnessnews.com Last Update: 2/26 6:29 am Trucking Company Says It Is Not The Focus of Federal Investigation Documents seized during a raid on two truck driving schools and a Driver’s License Bureau. Memphis, TN - Federal and state agents raided two Mid-South truck driving schools and a Memphis driver's license center on February 25, 2008. Both schools, one on Brooks Road in Memphis, and the other on Veterans Parkway in Millington, are operated by Swift Transportation. The state run license center on Shelby Drive in Whitehaven was also targeted in the investigation. The FBI confirms...

It's been a few weeks since our highways were opened to Mexican trucks. I'm on hwy 85 occasionally and I've been looking for Mexican plates. Haven't seen any. Anyone out there, closer to the border roads, noticing traffic? Do Mexican trucks have to have identifying plates, or are the plates changed after they cross the border?

Anyone whose feet are set in concrete against toll roads is going to get run over. Toll roads are here. They are coming. The need is undeniable, as is the rationale in many cases. But you can’t defend toll roads in every instance, and the proposed I-35 toll lanes through Waco sound indefensible. Two concerns present themselves immediately — one about Waco’s self-interest and one about fairness to motorists. First, the provincial concern: The proposed self-contained toll lanes would deliver a lot of travelers through Waco without access and egress to take advantage of what the city offers, even if...

Truck driver Kjell Fundin has done what no man has ever done before by traveling almost the entire length of Sweden on a lawnmower. On Thursday morning the intrepid 59-year-old from Sundsvall made history as he drove his trusty machine into Ystad town centre. Covering a distance of 1,700 kilometres (1,060 miles), the lawnmower man took 46 days to complete the journey from Haparanda to the southern town. The idea for the journey came about after a well-known radio show host travelled the same route on a motorcycle during the summer. Distinctly unimpressed, Fundin decided to pop off an e-mail...

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration's late-night decision allowing Mexican trucks to ply U.S. roads triggered angry criticism Friday from opponents of the trucking program. John Hill, head of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, gave the go-ahead for the trucks late Thursday night, allowing Transportes Olympic of Nuevo Leon, Mexico, to drive its trucks beyond the roughly 25-mile limit from the border where they have been confined. In return, Mexico granted permission to Stagecoach Cartage in El Paso to operate in Mexico. Neither company had crossed the border yet, and Hill said the trucks might begin crossing this weekend. The...

PHARR — San Juan long-haul trucker George Villanueva spent a few days in Dallas last week drum-ming up alternate business for his transportation company. For more than a quarter century, Villanueva and other Rio Grande Valley truckers have hauled tons of maquiladora-produced goods north into the interior United States. But he expects business to start drying up now that the U.S. government has opened the roads to lower-wage drivers from Mexico. Very soon, he says, local truckers may have to start looking away from the Valley for business, meaning less time at home with family. “It will put us as...

A commercial truck driver from Monterrey who has crossed Laredos international bridges countless times was stunned earlier this month when he received a ticket from U.S. inspectors because he cant speak English."We were worried," said Samuel Tamez Treviño, owner of the truck that was driven by Rafael Segovia. "We consulted with attorneys. We were somewhat relieved when they told us it would be treated as a warning. But now what are we supposed to do?" Tamez Treviño, whose transportation company is in Montemorelos, is concerned that his drivers may be unable or unwilling to learn English, considering that even a...

More than 100 members of the U.S. House of Representatives have written to President Bush, asking him why the Department of Transportation apparently is ignoring what the legislators want. The issue was raised by U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who circulated the letter dealing with plans to hurry along with a "demonstration" project to allow Mexican truckers access to U.S. roads. Specifically, the letter raised concerns about federal agency actions – apparently despite what Congress wrote into the law. "The U.S. Congress and the American people seriously question the ability of Mexican motor carriers and drivers to adhere to our...

Pointing to an overwhelming rebuke by the House, opponents of an agreement that would allow Mexican trucks to travel freely on U.S. roads are demanding the Department of Transportation come forward and tell the American public whether or not the program will begin next month, reports WND columnist Jerome Corsi. Last month, the House passed a measure 411–3, the Safe American Roads Act, to limit the secretary of transportation's authority to allow Mexican trucks to operate beyond U.S. cities and commercial zones on the border. Safety requirements also were enacted in the Iraq supplemental funding bill. But this week, amid...

...The following morning I hit the ground running and made it to Wichita Falls, TX. The weather had turned foul, and on the north end of town I drove into a raging thunderstorm on US Hwy 287. It was one of those classic North Texas thunder-bangers that just lights up the sky with constant lightning and the thunder is so loud you can feel it down in your bones. The wind was brutal, and visibility was reduced to maybe a tenth of a mile...

Local Truckers protest doesn’t strain Beltway as feared Natalie McGill, The Examiner Apr 24, 2007 3:00 AM (5 days ago) Current rank: # 1,923 of 5,158 WASHINGTON - The first day of a three-day truckers protest planned for interstates nationwide had little to no impact on Capital Beltway traffic Monday morning and afternoon. SaveAmericaFund.org, based out of California, asked truckers across America to rally together and create slow-rolling road blocks in protest of a change in U.S. Department of Transportation policy making it easier for Mexican-owned trucks to traverse the nation. But Maryland State Police spokesman Arthur Betts said nothing...

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration appears to be delaying the start of a one-year experiment that would allow 100 Mexican carriers access to U.S. highways for the first time since 1982. Congressional critics of the plan said they have been told by U.S. Department of Transportation officials that the administration will comply with proposed legislation to delay the program until U.S. truckers receive the equivalent right to travel throughout Mexico. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a sponsor of the measure, was informed about the change in plans this week. “We were told the department would comply with the legislation even though...

Protest by Truckers May Hobble Beltway By Eric M. WeissWashington Post Staff WriterTuesday, April 24, 2007; B03 Drivers on the Capital Beltway could find themselves in the middle of a protest by truckers today and tomorrow that might slow traffic.Organizers of the event have called on truckers to take up all lanes of the Beltway and drive the speed limit. The protest was planned to last from early morning until 5 p.m. through tomorrow.