Opinion: Truck driver shortage involves more than ‘churn’

Drivers, drivers, drivers. Is any subject more talked about in our industry? Nope. Of the seven issues recently cited as the biggest concerns of Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA) members, six of them concerned drivers in one way or another, and the only other issue identified was carbon pricing. No mention of freight rates or aggressive enforcement or lousy roads or a zillion other possibilities. Just drivers.

Opinion: The risk of hacking connected vehicles is real

Safety-critical vehicle systems are being connected to the internet, but that poses real security risks, according to one report.

Opinion: Trucking ahead of four wheelers in the tech race

Trucking is way ahead of the four-wheeler industry in terms of conceiving how we might incorporate electrification and autonomy.

Coming ZF technologies include new transmission

EAST LIBERTY, Ohio – ZF showcased a series of new technologies to journalists this month, including an all-new automatic transmission that uses a torque converter – making its PowerLine a direct competitor to the Allison 2500 transmission series.

Opinion: Renewable natural gas (RNG) seems like a tidy solution

Renewable natural gas (RNG) seems like a tidy solution for trucking, and we need to double our efforts to get off the diesel train as soon as we can.

Opinion: Rust never sleeps, but what’s your biggest truck maintenance headache?

What’s your biggest maintenance headache? I actually do want to know because, believe it or not, planning for next spring’s Canadian Fleet Maintenance Summit on April 15 is already underway. It’s at a preliminary stage, for sure, but we’re already at it. We haven’t yet held a meeting of the dozen or so members of the advisory council that helps us devise the program, but individually we’re creating short lists of subjects to cover.

Opinion: Use your head when approaching emergency workers at roadside

Every time I see a policeman or a tow-truck driver working at the side of a busy road, I get the willies. The risk is so obvious, so profound. A driver’s momentary inattention or wilful carelessness can snuff out a life in a millisecond. It happens far too often.

Goodbye, Bill MacKinnon

There are people who just plain shouldn’t die. Ever. Bill MacKinnon was one of those guys, a pillar in our industry with a trucking history that goes back to the 1920s. But die he did on March 22, at home in Guelph, Ontario, after a long illness. He was 90 years old.

Plenty of talk, little action on driver training

Man, I am so fed up with the utterly endless discussions about driver training in this country. I’ve heard the mostly empty chatter for 40 years now, with precious little…

Bridging Extremes: How do we deliver tech to more applications?

Here I sit, fingers hovering over the keyboard, staring at the blank screen where this column will be built. It’s late February and I’ve resolved to write about the technological…

Where are the techs?

The maintenance people of trucking are a resourceful breed. They get things done. Yet there’s a challenge that’s been haunting almost every shop manager – at fleets, dealerships, and independent garages alike – for as long as I’ve been writing about this industry of ours. The shortage of skilled technicians is a plague that just won’t go away.

Has platooning reached a dead end?

Has Daimler's Martin Daum thrown serious rain on the platooning parade? Is he right to stop investing in the technology? Will he dissuade others from doing so?

Autonomous technology improving, people unpredictable

Probably most of us believe that the onset of autonomous vehicles is inevitable, cars and trucks alike. But does anyone think it will go smoothly? I sure don’t. For the…

Truck parking shortage is a productivity killer

What are the industry's biggest issues these days? Most everyone will say the driver shortage leads the way. Everyone except drivers, of course. I'd say top spot belongs to hours of service rules followed closely by the electronic logging device (ELD) mandate, both of which are key reasons for the shortage... of drivers willing to work long hours within that arbitrarily constructed straitjacket. So it's no surprise that the top three issues for drivers are those two plus the lack of parking facilities.

Charging standards are on the way

Electric, electric, electric. The hoopla about electric trucks has been literally inescapable. You’d be forgiven for thinking that they’re about to take over the trucking world, but it may be…