Inspector David Abeita of the New Mexico Motor Transportation Div. was named grand champion at the North American Inspectors Championship held recently by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA). He was the U.S. high scorer and placed first in the Level 1 inspection competition.
Top honors also went to Inspector Tim Hepner, Kansas Highway Patrol, for motor coach inspection, and Officer Phillip Wernick, California Highway Patrol, for haz-mat/cargo-tank inspection. Wernick also received the John Youngblood Award of Excellence. Ed Marshall, commercial transport inspector for the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, was high scorer among Canadian competitors.
"Traffic is like a bad dog... It's important to not show fear." - P.J. O'Rourke
RAVE OF THE MONTH Thank you for your "School Daze" article [Driver's Lounge: June, pg. 24]. Carriers look to you for ideas and putting the Professional Truck Driver Institute (PTDI) story out front is great.
We now have Driver Finishing Standards for carriers. There has been a lot of interest from the insurance companies as well as carriers. This is a way to tell the public and the government that the industry is committed to safety and training. - Virginia DeRoze, Program manager, PTDI, [email protected].
Helping hand Citing the technician shortage as "a real problem," Kenworth Truck Company has begun working with tech schools to help field a pool of entry-level technicians qualified to service the OEM's products.
According to Randy Jones, KW's dealer training manager, the model for the program is being launched at Nashville Auto-Diesel College (NADC) in Tennessee. He says the OEM is working with the school to integrate Kenworth training materials into the curriculum.
Trucks that really haul Don't look now, but there's movement apace to put oil-burning racers back on a track near you. Although big-rig racing faded away in the U.S. several years back, it has flourished in Europe, as this photo shot at July's Truck Grand Prix on Germany's fabled Nurburgring track attests. Now, at least one major supplier that is a leading sponsor of truck racing over there-component maker ZF-is looking into helping establish a new Class 8 circuit in North America. Discussions with sanctioning bodies and other legwork is still in the early stages, according to a ZF official, who points out the company views racing sponsorship as an excellent vehicle for reaching customers.
Communications tool We recently conducted an informal telephone survey among shippers regarding their perceptions of web-based transportation exchanges...
The most powerful aspect of an exchange is NOT "bidding," but the ability to communicate with your trading partners via the web. If you have a rock-solid partnership with your core carriers, great. But use the exchange, instead of the fax and telephone, to tender loads to those core carriers and (if you desire) only those core carriers; to track your loads; electronically pay your carrier; and reduce the auditing required.
