Now that you are a small trucking company with a couple trucks you’ll need to be compliant with applicable portions of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations, Federal Hazardous Materials Regulations, and the Federal Motor Carrier Commercial Regulations.  Information on specifics that apply to you can be found at the following website:

http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/rules-regulations/rules-regulations.htm

To make sure your are in compliance, contact a U.S. Representative of the DOT to discuss your issues.  Or if you are an OOIDA member, call the Association’s Member Assistance Department for their review before contacting the DOT.

A few “red flags” that may trigger a compliance review on your small trucking company are:  having improper operating authority; hours-of-service violations; or failure to have proper proof of financial responsibility.  These are just a few and most common of the many things that could trigger a review.

A compliance review should be treated as if you were having an IRS audit.  Specific questions will be asked of you and you will want to be sure to have all your ducks in a row before the meeting.  If you know of any violation(s),  try to correct them before the review.  This might prevent or help minimize any civil penalty that may be levied.  If something is found during the review you can expect an increase in the civil penalty. 

A penalty will be determined by the nature of your violation(s), the degree of fault involved, plus your ability to pay.  Prior offenses, if any, are also taken into consideration.  Repeat offenders may be treated more harshly to get the message across.  The penalty is used to induce you to compliance, so don’t expect any breaks.

Once you have a claim you can: pay the penalty; request administrative adjudication; or enter binding arbitration.  If you select administrative adjudication, the evidence is submitted and argued without a formal hearing; you can request a formal hearing; or request an informal hearing.

All options, except paying the face value of the claim, have their own subtle differences, procedures and drawbacks.  This is definitely a place where you want qualified legal representation.  This is NOT a do-it-yourself project.  Address the issue or issues and deal with the consequences.  The quicker everything is resolved, the quicker you’ll be back in the truck tending to your business.

Rule Number 1 is don’t ignore the feds.!  Unless you have another career lined up and ready to step into, you don’t want to make enemies with the federal government.  They have exclusive power to pull your operating license and suspend your FMCSA registration.    It is also within their power to use a tax refund as an IRS offset, or collection agencies and even civil lawsuits in U.S. District Court. 

You can weather a compliance review if you stay calm, look at things objectively and get legal advice to answer your questions.  You aren’t the first person to go through a compliance review and you won’t be the last.

Easy Truckin is brought to you by Easy Trucking Software. We hope you enjoy it.

For the newbies or not so newbies

Here is a tip on sliding tandems.

Sliding tandems is necessary and required to accomplish three things:

1. To move weight off of the tractor’’s axles rear to the trailer tandem axles.
2. To adjust weight off of the trailer axles and move some of the weight forward to the tractor axles.
3. To set the vehicles “bridge length” to a length that meets the bridge law (axle spacing) requirements of the state you are operating or will operate in.

The standard and allowable weight for a regular five-axle truck and semi-trailer on the Interstate system is as follows:  steer axles 12,000, drive axles 34,000 and the tailer tandems are 34,000. This takes the truck to the acceptable standard weight of 80,000 pounds. A few states out there require less on the axles.  Be aware of where you are going and roads you are traveling.  As a rule, you should be scaling out or weighing all your loaded trailers to keep you from receiving a ticket.  

The weights mentioned are in a perfect world and we all know that’s not happening.  Grossing out at 80,000 pounds is easier said than done.  If you scale the truck and you’re not overweight on the steer axles, and the weights are close to equal on the drive axles and the trailer tandems, you are good to go. Ideally, for safety it is better to have more weight on the drive axles than the trailer tandems.   Slide the axles to the rear to get some weight to move forward to the drive axles if you scale out and the drive axle weights are lighter than the trailer tandems.

Be sure to FIRST check the bridge length requirements to make sure you are not sliding the axles too far to the rear to meet the bridge law requirements! It is important to remember that you can have legal weights on all of your axles and still have a huge potential problem at the weigh stations. If you are legal on these axles and are found to be “over bridge,” you are going to have to get the load moved to allow more weight to be moved forward so you can slide the trailer tandems up to meet the bridge length requirements. In order to do this you’ll need to physically get inside the trailer and move the freight forward!  Now, if the trailer is fully loaded and you are over-bridge and overweight, some of the freight will need to be removed before being allowed to continue. This will likely result in a major violation from your company, plus a pretty hefty fine from the DOT.  Not to mention the lost time to get to your receiver.

Sometimes there is just no way around getting the tandems to weigh less than the drives.  You CAN still legally take the load to where it needs to be, but you must REALLY be more careful when changing lanes and any other side-to-side maneuvers. If these weights are excessively different, you may want to call your dispatch with the problem or refuse the load.  More weight on the drive axles is always preferable.

Easy Truckin is brought to you by Easy Trucking Software. We hope you enjoy it.

Technology is a wonderful thing. We can create documents, edit images, create music files and do just about anything we like with a computer. The advancements in technology grows at an alarming rate, and each week we see new things that before were never possible. With all this comes a down side. Having this complicated machine in our home offices means we need to be even more careful with our data. Today, people keep tax returns, family information and personal data on their hard drives, thinking that it is safe and that they always have access to it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Computers can, and do, fail. If we don’t protect the data we have on our operating systems, we may run into problems that are extremely hard to amend. Knowing how to back up data and protect it is more essential than learning the most difficult computer program. Here, we discuss backing up data, how to do it, when to do it, and how to insure that it is safe.

Types of Backup Systems

The type of system you use depends on just how valuable your data is to you. Because I rely on a computer exclusively for my business, I use a backup system that is both redundant and backs up every three hours. This would be overkill for people using a computer for family fun and email. How does the casual user back up their data to insure integrity? Windows XP operating system has a backup utility that works well for this. The backup utility in Windows XP Professional will back up your data to a CD, DVD, external hard drive, or even another computer. Because the file system on a Windows XP machine contains relevant data in your My Documents file, it is always best to at least back this data up. If you are sharing the computer with family, the computer should be set up so that each family member has their own log ons and file structure. That way, using the Backup Utility to choose the files to back up can include everyone’s My Document data.

What To Backup To?

I personally use an external hard drive that is equal to my internal hard drive capacity for backup.  I do this along with running Time Machine on my Mac.  Time Machine updates any changes to my external hard drive every hour.  During my Windows years on a computer my data was automatically set to be backed up weekly to my external hard drive.  You can’t back up your data too often.  Better to do it twice than not at all.

How To Schedule Backups

Backups can be set to run automatically through the use of the Widows Task Manager. This can be accessed by going to Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Backup. Here, a wizard walks you through the task of backing up your data, including files and setting, cookies, and contacts. It allows you to choose what to back up, and then asks where you wish to back up to. Choose the appropriate media, and the backup utility does its thing.

A much better way to do this is through Scheduled Tasks, because you never forget to do the backup. With the regular Backup Utility, you must manually do the backup, and with the Scheduled Tasks module, you can have the task performed automatically.  If you use the Scheduled Tasks module be sure to leave your machine on for the backup to run as scheduled.

Backing up personal data is your responsibility. Use the utilities on your operating system, and never lose valuable data again.

I happened to notice the other day while behind the wheel of my vehicle, music blaring, windows down, wind whipping my hair, that I was driving the speed of my music… a little too fast.  At that point I was distracted from the road singing along with my favorite oldies station, really getting into the music.  Like everyone else, we sing our best when the music is loud and we are feeling good.  This doesn’t necessarily mean we sing good, just loud and enjoying the music.  Nothing wrong with that.

Slower music does in fact lower your blood pressure and mellows you out.  It could also put you to sleep if you don’t watch it.  Less of a chance for road rage or inattentive driving while listening to classical music, don’t ya think?  My favorite music happens to be jazz, in case you’re interested.  Good instrumental jazz….I could drive forever.

Some music can be tied directly to road rage.  Scary isn’t it!  The trucker or car next to you could turn violent as any second.  You can’t control anyone else but you can do what you need to do.  Be aware of what you listen to.

Speeding with the music isn’t smart.  It can divert your attention away from the road, resulting in fenders crunched and a nice big ticket from a law enforcement officer with the bonus of a court date.  Higher speeds are also harder to control in a crisis situation.

Studies have been done on the relationship of music and driving.  In these studies it shows that music can be a distraction.  Now I know it gets pretty boring just driving and not listening to anything.  What the study is saying that music can distract you to the point of having an accident if you don’t pay attention to the road.  A music distraction can cost you up to 3 seconds delay in responding to a situation.  Now you say 3 seconds isn’t that much and you’re much quicker than the average person.  Yea right!!

Take a look at a clock and watch the second hand as 3 seconds is measured off.  Be conscious of that time.  That 3 seconds is longer than you think and could mean everything in your reaction time.  

Normal reaction time is 1.5 seconds.  That’s half of what your distracted reaction time is.  Big difference isn’t it.  It could mean everything to the vehicle ahead of you.  Stay sharp and alert.

The truck you drive doesn’t stop on a dime.  Although the last guy that cut you off in traffic thought you could.  It’s a physics thing about really heavy objects in a forward motion taking longer to slow down and stop.  

We at Easy Trucking Software care about truckers and want you to return home to those you love in one  piece and safe.  Take it easy out there.  Enjoy your music but also enjoy the trip and be aware of everything around you on the road.