TMAF has released an all-new video, titled “The Delivery.” It illustrates how and why we’re proud to answer the call by operating safely and making the delivery – on time, every time – no matter how long the road ahead.
Driving alongside your family on the highway is a tremendous responsibility that I do not take lightly. It’s my first priority that we all return home safely from our trips — whether it’s a trip to the beach or a delivery to stock the shelves at the local grocery store.
As we kick off the busy summer travel season, I hope that you’ll share this goal so that we can successfully share the road.
While driving next to a truck on the highway can seem intimidating, know that I am well-trained and dedicated to ensuring your safety. The trucking industry invests at least $9.5 billion in improving safety every year, and it’s paying off. Our trucks are safer than ever, and I’m trained to drive with the highest level of caution, especially on a busy weekend like the one ahead.
Yet the same things that frustrate you on the road — bad traffic and crumbling infrastructure — frustrate me, too. And with a big rig and a trailer full of freight, the stakes are high.
As aggravated as I may get from congestion, it’s my duty to stay calm and operate at safe speeds to ensure the safety of those around me and to make a successful delivery. Millions of drivers will be on the roads this holiday weekend, so you and I may be sitting in some traffic together.
I keep my cool by focusing on what lies ahead. The next mile is always the most important.
One way to fix America’s congestion problem is by working to expand and improve our highway system. Like many of you, I’m anxiously waiting for Congress to make a greater investment in infrastructure. Increased funding for America’s roads and bridges will only help to ensure safe, efficient deliveries — something we can all celebrate.
I’m proud to be a professional truck driver, playing an important role in our country’s economy. Trucks help deliver everything you can see or touch around you, from your picnic supplies at the beach to the fuel that helped you get there.
Here in Minnesota, trucking delivers 78 percent of all goods in the state. Instead of viewing trucks as something getting in your way this holiday weekend, I hope you’ll view us as keeping your lives supplied and moving.
The summer travel season is one of the busiest times of the year, and I’m proud to share the road with you. I want drivers to know that when they pass me on the highway this weekend, they’re safe.
The most important trip I make is the trip home to my family, and I know that’s true of everyone I drive alongside. Let’s work together this Memorial Day weekend to keep our roads and highways safe, our shelves stocked and continue Moving America Forward.
Bill Krouse, of Shakopee, is a professional truck driver and member of Trucking Moves America Forward.
Link: The Star Tribune
Trucking Moves American Forward introduced its newest member, the trucking industry’s mascot on Thursday.
The mascot is a smiling red, white and blue semi-truck with working head and tail lights and an “I love trucking” license plate. It will travel the U.S. spreading the word about trucking’s influence on the economy.
But he or she is still nameless.
TMAF, along with its partner and largest financial supporter, Pilot Flying J, called on the industry to help name the mascot. Name submissions can be sent to mascot@truckingmovesamerica.com, and the winning name will be announced at the beginning of July.
“(The mascot) is a great conversation starter,” said Wendy Hamilton, Pilot Flying J senior manager of sales marketing and a TMAF executive committee member. “It’s an integral part of the movement to help bring folks into understanding the knowledge of why trucking is so important.”
The mascot is part of the goal TMAF set when it started in 2013 — to spread the word about the economic impact of the trucking industry, Hamilton said.
One in 16 Americans
There are 3.5 million truck drivers and 7.3 million industry workers in the U.S., which brings $726.4 billion in revenue to the country, said Kevin Burch, TMAF co-chairman and Jet Express Inc. president.
He said because one in 16 Americans is part of the trucking industry, creating positivity around the industry is critical.
“Trucking, for probably the last 10-15 years, has gotten a really bad rap on image and we’re trying to change that,” he said. “Back in the ’60s we were the knights of the road. If you had a problem on the road, a truck driver, male or female, would stop and help and assist, change a tire and whatnot. Nowadays, if somebody has a car on the side of the road, if a truck driver stops they’re rolling up their windows, locking the door and calling 911. We need to get back to that simple mentality that we are good people that move America’s goods.”
He said much of the effort to change that mentality relies on image. That’s where the mascot comes in.
“Out of sight out of mind,” said Burch, chairman of the American Trucking Association. “We want to have this mascot so we can go to schools, events. We move America’s goods, but we move them safely, and that’s the story we want to tell. It’s an image thing, so this gives us the opportunity to do that.”
A shortage of jobs
The trucking industry is facing a driver shortage, Burch said. Part of telling truckers’ stories includes sharing career opportunities.
“We want to make our story known as to the careers we have,” he said. “Trucking Moves America Forward is for everyone in the industry. It doesn’t matter if you’re union or non-union, truck load or LTL. You’re a professional truck driver that makes a difference moving those goods.”
Hamilton said the impact of a professional truck driver is something that American culture tends to overlook.
“We see trucks on the road,” she said. “We understand that they’re a part of our daily lives, but I’m not sure they understand how integral that are to our daily lives. As a mom, when my child is sick, I can go to the store and pick up the medicine because a trucker brought it there.
“Without trucks, our country truly stops.”
Link: Knoxville News-Sentinel
Political leaders and citizens agree: our nation’s transport infrastructure is crumbling. Our roads receive a “D” grade from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and one in nine of the nation’s bridges are structurally deficient.
The trucking industry knows this as well as any, as our 3.5 million drivers travel 279 billion miles across these insufficient highways, bridges, and tunnels annually.
But poor infrastructure affects more than just our hardworking men and women on the road. Roughly 70 percent of the nation’s freight is moved by nearly 32 million trucks on the road, day in and day out — delivering the goods that our towns and cities need to thrive — from groceries and medicine, to retail goods, school supplies, and more.
In other words, failing infrastructure threatens to not only slow down trucking, but all of America in the process.
For this reason, Trucking Moves America Forward (TMAF) is proud to be an affiliate of Infrastructure Week once again this year. We join a diverse coalition of groups dedicated to rebuilding America’s roads, bridges, rails, ports, airports, pipes, power grid and more to support the cause and spread the message of this year’s theme, that it’s #TimeToBuild.
Consider road congestion, which is merely one of the symptoms of our increasingly inadequate infrastructure. It cost the trucking industry — which contributes $726.4 billion in revenue to the economy every year — almost $50 billion in wasted time and fuel last year alone, a cost that affects the entire economy. In fact, as several of the country’s lawmakers have noted, due to the conditions of our roadways, “American businesses pay $27 billion a year in extra freight transportation costs, increasing shipping delays and raising prices on everyday products.”
Additionally, the ASCE found that by 2020, this deteriorating infrastructure will cost the economy nearly 1 million jobs and hurt GDP growth by $1 trillion. That includes deteriorating pavement and bridge conditions that alone will cost our economy $58 billion per year, and the resulting highway congestion that will cost us more than a quarter billion dollars.
There’s no denying it’s time to invest and build. The trucking industry won’t sit idly when poor infrastructure puts our mission in jeopardy and prevents us from doing our jobs as safely and efficiently as possible. As long as we need to, TMAF will advocate strongly for infrastructure spending that improves the highway networks most critical to the movement of freight and interstate travel, while prioritizing the safety of the motoring public in the process.
Importantly, we’ll continue to call on our political leaders at the state and federal levels to work with us to close the nation’s infrastructure investment gap. Our hardworking drivers depend on structurally sound and safe roads to deliver America’s goods. Families, neighborhoods, hospitals, businesses and individuals like you and I — the entire American economy — are counting on it.
And the 7 million-plus workers in the professional trucking industry stand in agreement with all of Infrastructure Week’s affiliates and supporters by echoing a unified, clear message: it’s #TimeToBuild.
Kevin Burch is the co-chairman of Trucking Moves America Forward (TMAF), chairman of American Trucking Associations, and president of Jet Express Inc.
Link: The Hill
Millions of Americans will hit the roads this Memorial Day weekend for beach trips and barbecues with friends and family. I’ll be right there beside them — not for a vacation, but as one of 3.5 million professional truck drivers working to safely deliver the goods that keep our community running.
Driving alongside your family on the highway is a tremendous responsibility that I do not take lightly. It’s my first priority that we all return home safely from our trips — whether it’s a trip to the beach or a delivery to stock the shelves at the local grocery store. As we kick off the busy summer travel season, I hope that you’ll share this goal so that we can successfully share the road.
While driving next to a truck on the highway can seem intimidating, know that I am well-trained and dedicated to ensuring your safety. The trucking industry invests at least $9.5 billion in improving safety every year, and it’s paying off. Our trucks are safer than ever, and I’m trained to drive with the highest level of caution, especially on a busy weekend like this one.
The same things that frustrate you on the road — bad traffic and crumbling infrastructure — frustrate me, too. But with a big rig and a trailer full of freight, the stakes are high. As aggravated as I may get from congestion, it’s my duty to stay calm and operate at safe speeds to ensure the safety of those around me and to make a successful delivery. Millions of drivers will be on the roads this holiday weekend, so you and I may be sitting in some traffic together. I keep my cool by focusing on what lies ahead: the next mile is always the most important.
One way to fix America’s congestion problem is by working to expand and improve our highway system. Like many of you, I’m anxiously waiting for Congress to make a greater investment in infrastructure. Increased funding for America’s roads and bridges will only help to ensure safe, efficient deliveries — something we can all celebrate.
I’m proud to be a professional truck driver, playing such an important role in our country’s economy. Trucks help deliver everything you can see or touch around you, from your picnic supplies at the beach to the fuel that helped you get there. Here in Utah, trucking delivers 67 percent of all goods in the state. Instead of viewing trucks as something getting in your way this holiday weekend, I hope you’ll view us as keeping your lives supplied and moving.
The summer travel season is one of the busiest times of the year, and I’m proud to share the road with you. I want drivers to know that when they pass me on the highway this weekend, they’re safe.
The most important trip I make is the trip home to see my family, and I know that’s true of everyone I drive alongside. Let’s work together this Memorial Day weekend to keep our roads and highways safe, our shelves stocked and keep Moving America Forward.
Jeff Payne, a professional truck driver from Cedar City, is a member of Trucking Moves America Forward.
Link: The Spectrum
Trucking plays a vital role in every community across America.
Our 3.5 million drivers travel 279.1 billion miles annually to deliver the goods that our towns and cities need to thrive – from groceries and medicine, to retail goods, school supplies, and more. In fact, roughly 70 percent of the nation’s freight is moved by nearly 32 million trucks on the road, day in and day out.
The problem is: these millions of hardworking men and women behind the wheel are traversing roads that receive a “D” grade from the American Society of Civil Engineers; moreover, the ASCE found nearly one-third of our roads are in “poor or mediocre” condition, and one in nine of the nation’s bridges are structurally deficient.
In other words, our roads are outdated and our bridges are crumbling – facts the trucking industry understands as well as anyone. And when failing infrastructure slows down trucking, it slows down America, too. Congestion, which is a symptom of our increasingly inadequate infrastructure, cost the trucking industry almost $50 billion in wasted time and fuel last year alone, a cost that affects the entire economy. In fact, as several of the country’s lawmakers have noted, due to the conditions of our roadways “American businesses pay $27 billion a year in extra freight transportation costs, increasing shipping delays and raising prices on everyday products.”
The costs associated with insufficient roads, bridges, tunnels and more don’t end there: The ASCE also found that by 2020, this deteriorating infrastructure will cost the economy nearly 1 million jobs and hurt GDP growth by $1 trillion. That includes deteriorating pavement and bridge conditions that alone will cost our economy $58 billion per year, and the resulting highway congestion that will cost us more than a quarter billion dollars.
So, what can we do about it?
Trucking is proud of the vital role we play in our communities and the economy (to which we contribute $726.4 billion in revenue every year). And we’ve been enthusiastic supporters of Infrastructure Week ever since we launched our industry movement – Trucking Moves America Forward.
We support the message and want to spread the word far and wide that to keep Moving America Forward, there’s no denying it’s time to invest and build. The trucking industry won’t sit idly when poor infrastructure puts our mission in jeopardy and prevents us from doing our jobs as safely and efficiently as possible.
As long as we need to, TMAF will stand strong, advocating for infrastructure spending that improves the highway networks most critical to the movement of freight and interstate travel, while prioritizing the safety of the motoring public in the process.
Importantly, we’ll continue to call on our political leaders at the state and federal levels to work with us to close the nation’s infrastructure investment gap.
Our hardworking drivers depend on structurally sound and safe roads to deliver America’s goods. Families, neighborhoods, hospitals, businesses and individuals like you and I – indeed the entire American economy – are counting on it.
And the 7 million-plus workers in the professional trucking industry stand in agreement with all of Infrastructure Week’s affiliates and supporters by echoing a unified, clear message: it’s #TimeToBuild.
Kevin Burch is the co-chairman of TMAF, chairman of American Trucking Associations and president of Jet Express Inc.
Working in the family moving business, Adam Lowy watched relocating homeowners trash tons of food upon arrival of the truck scheduled to haul all belongings.
Appalled by the waste, Lowy established Move For Hunger, a non-profit that has organized moving van drivers to collect food that homeowners would throw out rather than pack.
“This is such a simple idea, but one we missed for years,” said Bill Paxton, chief operating officer of Paxton Van Lines Inc. of Springfield, Va.
“This is a win for us to be a part of the effort to fight hunger and it’s a win for food banks, the hungry and the homeless because our trucks can collect and drop off the food to them,” Paxton said.
Nearly 40 percent of all food waste in the U.S. ends up in landfills, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The USDA’s Economic Research Service reported in 2015 that more than 48 million people in the U.S., including 15 million children, are living in food insecure households, meaning they don’t have access to sufficient nutritious meals.
Move For Hunger helped feed more than 1 million people last year, said Lowy, who quit his job at Lowy’s Moving Service, the Neptune, N.J. business owned by his father and two uncles, to launch the non-profit in 2009.
“I saw an opportunity to be able to salvage this food that would just be going to waste,” Lowy told Trucks.com. “We immediately got an incredible response and in the first month we collected about 300 pounds of food. It has just grown from there.”
While food banks typically receive donations at holidays, the food collected by the moving van companies comes in year round, especially in the summer when residential relocations peak. Food banks need supplies during the summer months when children, who may rely on food assistance programs for nutritious meals at school, are out of session and may go without food, Lowy said.
Move For Hunger provides its relocation company partners with cardboard boxes for moving customers to stock with non-perishable packaged and canned goods. The moving companies deliver the boxes to local food banks.
That network has expanded to include around 750 moving companies in North America. The organization has donated more than 7 million pounds of food to food banks since its founding in 2009.
Customers interested in finding a moving company that participates in the Move For Hunger program can type in their ZIP code on the organization’s website, which then shows them the closest moving partners in their areas.
The non-profit relies on moving companies and the trucking industry for donations. It is currently raffling a $90,000 2018 Freightliner straight truck as part of its “Big Truckin’ Raffle” to aid its food relief efforts. The raffle is open to the public and tickets are available for $500 each.
So far, more than 100 of the 500 tickets have been sold, Lowy said.
Move For Hunger also supports charitable races, where entry fees include food donations, food drives and other events throughout the year. The organization also works with a network of realtors across the country who talk to potential clients about Move For Hunger’s work.
Its moving company partners said it’s a morale booster for employees, who pick up and drop off the food donations, and organize other events throughout the year.
“Our agents have found it to be an extremely rewarding program to be able to help hungry families in their communities,” said Katie Gross, an Atlas Van Lines spokeswoman. Atlas is Move For Hunger’s largest moving company partner.
About a third of the moving companies affiliates agents participate in the Move For Hunger program, Gross said. Its agents have donated more than 1 million pounds of food in the past five years.
One Move For Hunger partner, Firefighting’s Finest Moving & Storage Inc. of Fort Worth, Texas, has collected more than 67,000 pounds of food, equivalent to 55,800 nutritious meals, for the Tarrant Area Food Bank, or TAFB.
“This is just part of what we do now,” said David Peterson, senior moving consultant and community outreach coordinator for Firefighting’s Finest.
The company also donates the use of its trucks throughout the year to pick and deliver food items to TAFB for companies, schools or churches that have food drives, but have no way to transport what they collected.
Firefighting’s Finest and Move For Hunger help struggling families in the Fort Worth area, said Anita Foster, a TAFB spokeswoman.
“Our mission is to make sure nobody has to go hungry,” Foster told Trucks.com. “For families who have fallen on hard times, we don’t want them to have to decide whether to pay their light bill, day care or eat. Move For Hunger helps us provide the basic human need to have enough food to eat.”
TAFB provides 500,000 meals to hungry area residents every week, she said.
Lowy said he is always looking for new programs to support Move For Hunger’s mission to reduce food waste and feed the hungry. Recently, the organization has started a program where college students who are moving out of their dorms or apartments for the summer can donate food that might otherwise be thrown away.
“I am excited to continue the work we started,” Lowy said. “The transportation industry has really gotten behind us and we are really making a difference in the lives of people every day.”
Link: Trucks.com
BARTONSVILLE, MONROE COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) – We’ve all shared the road with tractor trailers, but truck drivers have a very different view from behind the wheel than we do.
Adam Warner stands in front of the classroom like a teacher, but he’s actually a tractor trailer driver with Walmart. Adam’s teaching high school students how to safely share the road with truckers like him.
“It’s not easy. Most motorists are speeding and driving distracted,” says Adam Warner, Walmart truck driver.
These students are part of MCTI, or Monroe County Career and Technical Institute. When they graduate, each plans to work around trucks.
One by one, each student climbed behind the drivers seat of a Walmart tractor trailer. Jamie Cole couldn’t;t believe what she saw, or more like what she didn’t see.
“The blind spots are crazy! You never know who is around you, and you need to be cautious,” Cole says.
“It’s important to be safe, or else people around you will be put in danger,” says Joshua Wortmann.
Tracy Fox with North Central Highway Safety Network says this is important because many schools don’t offer driver education programs anymore.
Fox says, “They’re inexperienced so this is something that can help them”.
Link (with video): WBRE
Photos circulated widely last week of President Trump at the American Trucking Assns.’ (ATA) visit to the White House. What many may not have seen — or didn’t realize they were seeing — was a major ATA effort to raise the profile of trucking with the American people and motoring public.
Now three years in the running, ATA’s Trucking Moves America Forward (TMAF) program designs attention-getting trailer wraps intended as “moving billboards” promoting the trucking industry and the role of drivers in keeping the supply chain and economy — and everyday life — moving.
“These moving billboards, as we call them, are a great educational tool for the motoring public,” said Elisabeth Barna, ATA’s chief operating officer and a member of the TMAF executive committee, at the Mid-America Truck Show in Louisville. “They paint a picture that truck drivers are just like you and me — moms, dads, sisters, brothers — diminishing the notion of large trucks simply taking up space on the highways and instead, demonstrating the value that trucks deliver.”
She noted that at the time, ATA had sold 149 of the TMAF trailer wraps nationally and is now “well on the way to reaching a goal of 200 wraps on the road by the end of the year.” Barna also unveiled a round of new trailer designs at the show. The new designs, she said, “really bring what we carry and haul on those trailers to light, and these trailer wraps show how we make an impact on everybody’s everyday lives.”
In addition to the trailer wraps, the TMAF program also looks to engage the media in writing about trucking and connect with the public via social and digital media and marketing campaigns. The White House meeting last week was a big step in those efforts.
At the meeting, Barna explained, ATA was able to bring two trucks. One had a trailer with a U.S. flag, “and the other truck we decided to bring was one with a TMAF trailer because we thought it was so important to showcase Trucking Moves America Forward.”
“These two trailers were right outside the Oval Office on the South Lawn, which was a first,” she added. “And one of the reasons we were excited to be at the White House wasn’t just about ATA, but our entire industry. We were able to showcase what trucking is all about.”
One of ATA’s goals is to engage and work with President Trump and his administration on issues like infrastructure funding that affect the trucking industry, according to ATA President and CEO Chris Spear. The group also wants to emphasize trucking as an essential cog in the U.S. economy, which the new administration is focused on growing, and see that any changes to trade agreements like NAFTA — which also clearly would affect the U.S. trucking industry and many other businesses — are made with all due consideration.
But raising the profile and awareness of trucks and trucking among the American people is also part of the plan. It’s no small task, with many among the passenger car portion of the motoring public unaware of trucking’s critical contributions to the economy and exposed to trucks and trucking as more of an “us vs. them” situation as they encounter and perceive them out on the road.
Listen to what RoadSquad Radio had to say on TMAF’s three-year anniversary, following MATS 2017:
Industry Mascot “Safety Sammy” travels the country as a symbol of America’s most essential industry: trucking!
Industry Mascot “Safety Sammy” travels the country as a symbol of America’s most essential industry: trucking!