One aspect of freight truck maintenance that professional drivers need to pay attention to is the suspension of their transport vehicle, which if it isn’t working properly is going to work against you and cause problems, like tires that wear quicker, springs that break during transport, and reduced fuel economy. This can occur when the components of a truck suspension work become loose after hours of continual use, so regular maintenance intervals based on total road hours is often a good way to go. Making sure you have the suspension of your heavy haul transport vehicle checked regularly is therefore going to make sure the suspension stays tight during transport and possibly save you time and money.

Long haul drivers should do visual inspections every three to six months and retorques at least once a year, but doing this more often sure isn’t going to hurt and it could prevent problems that are going to be expensive and possibly time consuming to fix. You can’t always tell when a fasterner is coming loose, so watch for trails of rust running down from the fastener, or for gaps and breaks in the paint around the fastener.

Volvo Trucks North America has been executing their EPA 2010 project, lately, and it appears that they are having some success in this regard. Sources around the roro and ltl freight shipping industry indicates that drivers are providing positive feedback on the performance, reliability and fuel efficiency of Volvo D11, D13, and D16 engines, which are the engines Volvo Trucks North America uses in its Class 8 trucks. More great news for Volvo Trucks North America as it goes forward down the road to the future and hopefully just a sign of great things to come for Volvo Group and the business of freight shipping in the United States of America. Volvo Trucks North America will only be using this milestone as a milemarker on the road before them though and they certainly will be looking to use this news to create a good feeling around the office and try to vault them to greater truck manufacturing heights in the days ahead in the century of the environment in America.

The 2002 Large Truck Crash Causation Study (LTCCS) results assigned the critical reason to large trucks in 55 percent of the crashes studied and to driver errors in 87 percent of the cases. The 2005 Drowsy Driver Warning System Field Operational Test (DDWS FOT) results assigned the critical reason to large trucks in 71 percent of safety-critical events and to driver errors in 57.9 percent of safety-critical events.

The FMCSA is so concerned about the need to help the roro and ltl freight trucking company drivers of the United States of American pinpoint possible driver related errors that might be occurring on the roads of the country that it has started a web-based driver tips project designed to help drivers possibly correct the errors occurring on the transport highways. Designed to raise driver awareness of the common driver errors occurring on the roads of America and to provide helpful driving tips through an easy to access internet site, this project is a great idea. The site is useful for trucking safety managers and the driver training programs they have in place and it provides tips on preventative measures that drivers can implement in order to avoid crashes. They have video tips for drivers to watch that illustrate the points they want to make and each video is followed by questions designed to make drivers think about safety when on the roads of America.

Sources around the roro and ltl freight shipping industry report that Internet Truckstop currently serves about 140,000 customers across the continent, markets about 16 products with which it serves the needs of the long haul industry of the United States of America. That since its beginning in 1995 Internet Truckstop has spun-off six additional business and is currently actively involved in the local community of New Plymouth, Idaho through its association with various government and community entities, and is the biggest Internet based freight matching service in the freight shipping industry of America. Not to bad for a humble company that was founded on family values, honorable ethics and teamwork.

LTL trucking companies are expected to take their already low rates and make them even lower in the near future. With business becoming harder to find due to economic concerns everywhere, LTL carriers are being forced to cut their rates even further in order to stay in business.

This pricing philosophy of dropping LTL freight rates even lower has proven to benefit some companies. Con-way is operating at nearly full capacity while there are others such as Old Dominion Freight Line are not so lucky. Freight rates are already around 5-15% lower than they were a year ago. Some freight shipping companies have LTL freight rates already discounted by 85%.

How some of the freight shipping companies like Con-way operate at such cut rate prices is a mystery to some. An executive for Old Dominion Freight Line, Earl Congdon, has commented on how operating at those rates is below cost, making running at full utilization not economically sound; the cost would be way too high.

“Those carriers,” he said of competitors pricing at or below cost, “are not going to be able to operate with the prices they’ve been quoting.”