Have you ever been driving for what seems like an eternity, and you stop at a rest stop for a break, get out your truck, grab your back, and make an “Uhnnnhhh!” noise? That’s the sound of you not limbering up enough for your long hauls.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has launched a pilot program aimed at trying to interest more women in transportation-related careers, specifically in the areas of science, engineering, and technology.

It would be great if you could keep going, and going, and never stop to eat, wouldn‘t it? You‘d certainly get to your destination with your load well on schedule. But, alas, eating is important. Yet sometimes, even if you wanted to pull over at the nearest exit to grab some grub, that’s not just possible. You might be out in the middle of no where with no convenience stores or “fast casual” restaurants around. So what can you do?

The typical response to even the idea of increasing hauling rates is that, “Truckers don’t set the rates, the brokers and shippers do.” But in reality, the market place and the laws of supply and demand are what determine hauling rates. In the current trucking environment, estimates show there are between 250,000 to 300,000 more trucks available to haul loads than there are loads to be hauled.

This article appears in the October/November issue of iTECH, published in the Oct. 19 print edition of Transport Topics.

Web Communities Help Trucking Companies Drive Sales, Hire Drivers

“We went into social media not to drive sales but to expand the community,” Jones said. He views social networking tools as a logical extension of the message board that Getloaded.com developed on its Web site years ago to reach out to owner-operators and freight brokers, its core consumers.

Click here to read the whole article on Transport Topics Online

A recent survey reports that long-haul truckers are infected with high rates of hepatitis C (inflammation of the liver), but are mostly unaware they have the virus.

This year’s 2009 Truck Show Latino ¾ billed as the only major U.S. truck show for Hispanic/Latino truckers ¾ will be held at the Fairplex in Pomona, Calif. on October 17 and 18.

Diesel prices in the U.S. have fallen for the fifth straight week. Can you say “Hooray!”? Back during the week of August 31, the average price of diesel was $2.64 per gallon; this week, it’s $2.58. Almost exactly a year ago, prices were just coming down from the highs of summer, dropping to $3.87 per gallon.

It’s that dreaded time of year again ⎯ flu season. And with the H1N1 “swine” flu in the news, it’s probably a good idea to be extra aware of how to take precautions against the illness to keep it from spreading. The federal government is one step ahead on that front; they’ve issued a set of guidelines for how to effectively and safely clean truck cabs when drivers become stricken with the virus.

MIDLOTHIAN, Va., October 8, 2009 – Getloaded.com, an online freight matching service for the trucking industry, offers a new package of services for its broker customers that combines the benefits included in the standard “broker” package with new products to increase profits and save more time when looking for qualified carriers and setting rates. The total value for all of these features separately is $165, but Getloaded.com is offering it to new account holders and existing account holders for $99, a more than $65 savings.