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A storm left a Mexican city covered in more than five feet of hail and floodwater.

In its latest rulemakings update, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration lists July 31 as its projected publication date for its proposal to reform federal hours of service regulations. The date is not binding and could change.

FMCSA’s hands are tied as to how quickly it can progress, as the agency’s hours of service proposal is still under review by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. OMB must approve the rule before FMCSA can publish it in the Federal Register. Once published, members of the trucking industry can review the agency’s proposed changes and file public comments. FMCSA again lists a 47-day comment period for the hours of service notice of proposed rulemaking, starting July 31 and ending Sept. 16.

In April’s rulemakings update, the FMCSA listed June 6 as the target publication date, which was missed.

Even if FMCSA meets the July 31 projection, a revised hours of service rule likely wouldn’t take effect until 2020 or later. After the public comment period, FMCSA will analyze feedback and data and then begin the process of forming a final rule to alter hours regs. That process likely would take months, at minimum. After publishing a final hours of service rule, the changes likely would have an effective date of months later — if not longer. For instance, the agency’s most recent hours of service revisions were finalized in December 2011 and didn’t take effect until July 2013 — 18 months later.

That timeline would be needed to ensure ELD makers can adjust their devices and give drivers and carriers time to prepare for the changes.

FMCSA last summer sought feedback on a potential hours of service overhaul, and then the U.S. DOT announced in March that it had filed a proposal with the White House. The proposal has now been under review for more than three months, and it’s unclear when OMB will act to approve the rulemaking.

There’s been no indication from FMCSA what types of reforms it intends to make, but it sought feedback around the 14-hour rule and split-sleeper berth options, as well as the 30-minute break requirement — two of the most unpopular aspects of hours of service regulations among truck operators.

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As the Independence Day holiday period approaches, truck drivers and fleets are being warned of increased cargo theft activity as trucks are parked for extended periods of time.

Cargo theft recording firms CargoNet and SensiGuard each released warnings recently offering recommendations to truckers on how best to avoid cargo theft.

CargoNet recommends truck drivers avoid leaving cargo unattended in high-theft areas such as Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, Chicago, Atlanta, and Miami. The firm also suggests parking in high-security locations with security devices, secure fences, and high-visibility lighting.

SensiGuard offers similar suggestions and also recommends confirming receivers’ hours of operation for the holiday weekend to cut down on extended loaded park times. The firm notes that truck stops, rest areas, and distribution centers are frequent targets for cargo thieves.

CargoNet, which defines the Independence Day holiday period as July 1-7, has recorded 107 cargo theft events in 25 states and provinces in the U.S. and Canada during that period over the last six years. The firm estimates $13.23 million in losses during the six-year period with the average loss per incident being $217,041.

During the five-year period from 2014 to 2018, SensiGuard recorded 2.5 thefts per day with an average loss value of $226,505, which is a theft rate 20% higher and average loss value 34% higher than thefts during non-holiday periods.

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Damage that went unnoticed under the previous coating is exposed after the coating is stripped away in a blasting cabinet.

TORONTO, Ont. — Nasty-looking wheels, all covered with rust and cracked paint, are pretty well an invitation to a roadside DOT inspection. Rusty wheels may not reflect the attention to detail your fleet usually brings to the maintenance game, but they don’t send the right message to the creeper cops. For about half the cost of a new steel wheel, refinishing is a cost-effective alternative to new wheels.

Simply brush-painting the wheels is not recommended because it can hide defects such as cracks or deep corrosion that would be revealed by stripping the current coating off the wheel and applying a new finish. Many commercial tire shops offer refinishing services. Last year, Kal Tire alone refinished about 50,000 wheels in its three shops that offer the service.

“It’s an attractive option for larger fleets that can take tires and wheels out of service for a short period of time,” says Norm Schmidt, director of retreading at Kal Tire in Chilliwack, B.C. “It’s harder for smaller fleets because they often don’t have tires and wheels in inventory, but we sell new wheels, too.”

Schmidt says the refinishing process begins with an inspection for obvious defects, like cracks, elongated bolt holes, bends along the flange, or an out-of-round condition. If the wheel passes preliminary evaluation, its placed in a blasting cabinet where the previous coating is removed, and the wheel cleaned and degreased using media such as steel shot, sand or glass beads of varying sizes.

Shorten the blasting process

“The media is chosen for coating removal and paint preparation,” he says. “You can shortcut the process by using larger, more aggressive media, but you run the risk of pitting the wheel or possibly peening thin cracks closed. Use too fine a media, and the process takes longer.”

Some shops use a chemical bath to dissolve the coating, others may use a bake oven. Both are fine as long as the wheel isn’t damaged in the process.

The wheel is visually inspected again while stripped to the bare metal prior applying the electrostatic powder coating. The powder is positively charged and air-sprayed onto the wheel, which is negatively charged, causing the powder to cling to the metal. This step required the coating to be applied evenly, taking care to keep the coating thickness to a maximum of 3-3.5 thousandths of an inch thick.

“The coating cannot be any thicker, especially on the mounting surfaces and between the bolt holes,” Schmidt warns. “Excessive coating thickness can lead to a loss of clamping force and eventually loose nuts and possibly a wheel separation.”

After the coating is applied, the wheel is cured in an oven for 15 minutes to a temperature of 380 to 420 Fahrenheit. This liquifies the coating and bonds it to the wheel. The wheel cools before a final inspection that includes testing for coating thickness.

“Some shops are now offering a zinc undercoating for additional protection against corrosion,” Schmidt says. “There’s a limit to how may times wheels can be refinished because each time it goes through the blaster to remove the old finish, some of the metal comes away, too. The undercoating can extend the miles before it starts looking scabby again.”

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A bill introduced late last week in the Senate would require the Department of Transportation to resume work on a rule to require heavy-duty trucks to be equipped with speed limiters and mandate a limited speed of 65 mph.

Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Georgia Republican, filed the legislation June 27 in the Senate’s Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. It would require all new trucks to be equipped with speed limiters set at 65 mph, as well as existing trucks with speed limiting capabilities to have the same cap.

Due to Executive Orders signed by President Trump in his first days in office, DOT’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration tabled a rulemaking that sought to institute a speed limiter mandate. The agency was scheduled to publish a proposed rule in September 2017, but has since moved the rulemaking to a long-term agenda item.

Isakson’s bill likely won’t gain the traction it needs to prevail in Congress, though he could try to attach it to a larger transportation bill, such as an annual DOT appropriations bill or a highway authorization bill.

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Regarding Sen. Rick Scott’s recent guest column: With all due respect to the senator, the only people who believe there is shortage of truck drivers are the ones tasked with paying truck driver salaries and large corporate shippers and their political squires, apparently including the senator.

I am an owner-operator trucker with almost 30 years of experience. Adjusted for inflation, I make about the same now as I did in 1990. During that same time, the American Trucking Association has been promoting the canard of a driver shortage to anyone who will listen.

This is because, in our post-unionized trucking environment, large carriers have adopted a business model which depends on the churn of new entrants, with carriers cannibalizing each other’s inexperienced drivers with gimmicks and elusive signing bonuses.

Many, if not most, of the largest and most familiar companies you see on the interstate have annual driver turnover rates that exceed 100%! In any other “normal” business, that would be unsustainable, and in this business it is unsafe.

Working 70 hours per week on the interstate and having to sleep where you work for a job that has a median income of $43,680 is anything but high-paying, Senator Scott!

Allowing 18-20-year-olds to operate in interstate trucking is simply offering the ATA another pool of exploitable employees from which to choose.

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