Insurance For All Your Commercial Trucking Needs. www.InsureMyRig.com. Please contact us today for a no pressure and speedy quote. Contact Us Or call today
888-931-1934 Our decades worth of experience will make your purchase of commercial insurance easier on you!
SIGNS OF ECONOMIC HOPE: Fresh signs suggest that factories are coming back to life, home sales are picking up, and consumers are feeling a slight rise in confidence. Orders for manufactured goods did better than expected in February, rising 1.8 percent, according to the Commerce Department; this breaks the six-month trend of declines. Pending home sales and construction spending both fared better than expected, and there are signs that home price declines have ended. “There is now some solid evidence that the period of economic free-fall is now behind us, that the next step will be a slower rate of decline,” said the chief U.S. economist for IHS Global Insight. Nigel Gault predicated the economy would bottom out in the second half of the year. Another economist said the economy may begin recovering in as few as four months, but many economists believe the recession won’t end until much later this year and possibly not until 2010. The job market remains weak, with the unemployment rate hovering around 8.5 percent. Still, U.S. consumers are feeling more hopeful. According to a New York Times/CBS News poll, 20 percent of Americans now think the economy is getting better, compared to just 7 percent who believed so in mid-January before Obama took office. At that same time, only 15 percent said they believed the country was headed in the right direction, compared to 39 percent today.
CAMERAS POLICE DRIVERS: Once a rarity, cameras installed along roadways are now being used across the country to nab speeders, red-light runners, drivers who don’t come to a full stop before turning right on red, and even those with outstanding tickets. Cameras typically measure the speed of passing drivers and take a photo of the vehicle’s license plate so the city can mail a ticket to the offender. Many motorists accuse law enforcement of spying on unsuspecting drivers, and others are irked that the companies operating the cameras typically make $5,000 per camera each month. There are an estimated 3,000 red-light and speed cameras in the United States today, compared to about 2,500 a year ago. City leaders generally maintain that the cameras are intended to improve safety and reduce accidents. But a recent study by the University of Arkansas found that when city government revenue declines, police issue more tickets. And now municipalities are establishing increasingly clever methods of nabbing traffic violators. A Connecticut town recently approved the purchase of an infrared camera that mounts on a police car and reads the license plates of every passing vehicle. If the driver has failed to pay traffic tickets, the system alerts the officer, who can then pull over the vehicle. What’s more, cameras along highways are starting to catch on. Arizona hopes its highway cameras will add $90 million in fines to its coffers.
CAUTION AT THE BORDER: U.S. truck drivers who operate near the Mexican border are being warned to stay alert against increasing attacks and hijackings. “Violence amongst Mexican drug cartels in the border states, on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border, has exponentially increased in the past year,” according to an alert issued from First Observer, a trucking security program funded by a grant from the Department of Homeland Security. The program noted that truck drivers operating at the border carry a safety risk since they are involved in operations that may be of interest to these criminals. The alert did not come from the government itself, but the program is funded by a grant from the Department of Homeland Security, and a spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said the agency agreed with the assessment. The deputy attorney general of the TSA said that the department “has identified the Mexican drug-trafficking organizations as the greatest organized crime threat facing the United States today.” Last year, about 5,300 people were killed in drug-related fighting along the border. U.S. truckers are urged to exercise extreme caution when operating along the Mexican border. Safety precautions include staying on toll roads, creating a distress code to call for help, reporting in with dispatchers after all scheduled and unscheduled stops, and ensuring in advance that cell phones have access to service in areas the driver will be operating in.
WEAK ECONOMY BOOSTS HIGHWAY SAFETY: With less money to spend on gas and with fuel prices at record highs last summer, fewer Americans drove in 2008, resulting in the lowest highway death rate in five decades. Preliminary data show that 37,313 people died on U.S. highways last year, a 9.1 percent drop from the previous year. That’s the fewest highway fatalities since 1961, when there were 36,285 deaths. Fatalities fell more than 14 percent in New England and 10 percent or more in many states along the Atlantic seaboard and parts of the Upper Midwest and the West Coast. From 1973 to 1974, when the country faced an oil crisis and inflation, highway deaths showed a similar decline, falling more than 16 percent. And during the 1981–82 recession, roadway deaths dropped almost 11 percent. Not only did drivers log fewer miles last year, but seat belt use was at record highs and drunken driving laws were enforced more rigidly. In 2008, seat belt use rose to a record 83 percent. Twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia have passed tougher seat belt laws that allow officers to stop drivers whose only offense was not buckling up. Experts say it’s unclear if the number of deaths will continue to drop once the economy rebounds. Even with the drop in deaths, about 100 people died on U.S. roads each day in 2008.
LOOMING DEADLINE FOR TRUCKERS: The 2010 deadline for trucking companies to upgrade their fleets to the next level of emissions improvements is fast approaching. Truckers say the costs of the new engines are daunting, partly because the emissions-improvement measures reduce fuel efficiency. The 2007 emissions standards increased engine costs between $8,000 and $10,000 while cutting fuel economy by 2 to 4 percent. The 2010 standards “will substantially increase engine costs yet again, while fuel economy impact remains unknown at this time,” said Tommy Hodges of the American Trucking Associations. Hodges noted that the newest engines and their required ultra-low sulfur fuel would cost the industry $4 billion. With diminishing cash reserves, few truckers are pre-buying vehicles. Preliminary orders for Class 8 trucks were down 61 percent in the first two months of this year compared to the same period last year. Truckers with the cash or credit to buy, however, see an opportunity. Celadon, an Indiana-based truckload carrier plans to buy tractors until the end of the year. That way, the company will not have to buy in 2010, according to the CEO.
CONFIDENCE WANES IN STATUS QUO: Fewer executives than a year ago expressed confidence that large companies would continue to provide health benefits to employees over the next 10 years. The survey by Watson Wyatt Worldwide and National Business Group on Health found that 62 percent of respondents were “very confident” in the future of the existing health care system, compared to 73 percent who were very confident in last year’s survey. Watson Wyatt speculated that the weak economy and a possible overhaul of the national health care system affected confidence levels. The survey also found that employers are tweaking benefit offerings to try to improve the quality of care for employees while keeping costs under control. Among the cost-saving efforts is “patient-centered medical home,” a new form of managed care. According to Watson Wyatt, companies best at controlling health care costs while providing high-quality health care make efforts in the following ways: improving case management for serious conditions, providing employees with information on provider and hospital quality, and offering high-performance networks. The president of the American Academy of Family Physicians said employers should view primary care as an investment. “It’s like that old Fram oil filter commercial, ‘Pay me now or pay me later,’” said Ted Epperly, MD. “Just allowing reactive sick care to be what insurance pays for isn’t going to keep the work force healthy.”
MINIMIZE STRESS: Americans have known better times. Brian Souers, an Indiana father of a seven-year-old, knows only too well the current difficulties. He was laid off in December from his job at a wireless phone company, but he’s trying to be positive. “I’ve always tried to prepare for something like this,” said Souers. “I planned ahead. My bills are paid,” at least for now. Being proactive is key, says one social worker. She advises families to sit down together and work through hard times as a team. Sometimes adversity can bring people together. That’s exactly what Souers and his family are finding. When his son’s Xbox broke, the family got out the board games. They also kick the soccer ball around more often and enjoy neglected hobbies like guitar playing. Rather than being frustrated with this winter’s snowstorms, Souers saw it as an opportunity to spend more time with his son. The 28-year-old says it’s important that he “stay positive, stay proactive” and avoid self-pity. The Cleveland Clinic offers these tips for minimizing stress: keep a positive attitude; accept what you cannot control; exercise regularly; eat nutritious meals; learn time-management strategies (procrastination increases stress); say no to requests that will increase your stress levels; make time for hobbies; get plenty of sleep; re-examine your values and live by them; seek the company of positive, happy people.
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
—Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820–1903)
