Mar 01, 2017 • Community

Nebraska Troopers Ride With Truckers to Spot Unsafe Drivers

Tired of truck drivers wrongfully receiving blame from the public regarding safe driving? Well, Nebraska’s “Trooper in a Truck” is sure to help change that misconception.

Nebraska Trooper in a Truck Program

According to the Nebraska Trucking Association, Nebraska State Troopers will ride along in the cabs of commercial motor vehicles while looking for unsafe driving behavior from nearby automobiles. When a trooper spots someone committing a violation or driving recklessly, they will radio a nearby trooper to assess a citation.

“Having eyes in commercial motor vehicles allows us to see things we wouldn’t normally see from a marked patrol unit,” said Lieutenant Kurt Von Minden. “It’s also an invaluable tool to work with truckers to help tackle the issue of public safety on our roadways. We’re very grateful for the relationship we have with the trucking industry and value their help.”

80 Percent of Accidents are Caused by Cars, Not Trucks

Trucker Path Partners with Bennett International Group [p](MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., May 23, 2017) – Trucker Path, creators of America’s most popular apps in the trucking industry today announced that it has partnered with Bennett International Group, LLC in order to promote efficiency for its drivers.[/p] [p]In connection with the partnership, the Trucker Path app will be installed by default on all Bennett tablets used by its drivers. The utilization of Trucker Path saves drivers an estimated 11 hours per month, while wasted time searching for safe parking can cost the trucking industry $5.1 billion annually.[/p] [quote]“Bennett Motor Express is an established leader in the freight and logistics industry. They have embraced technology to help in their efforts to recruit and retain owner-operators and we are certain that the Trucker Path mobile app will continue to bring value to Bennett by providing their owner operators with cutting-edge technology”, said Leigh Foxall, VP of Sales at Trucker Path.[/quote] [p]Trucker Path is a trip planning app for truck drivers features over 8,000 locations where drivers can find available truck parking updated in real-time, check the status of a weigh station, compare diesel fuel prices and find nearby repair centers or truck washes.[/p] [p]The crowd-sourced app has over 800,000 monthly parking updates initiated by 530,000 active users. Drivers can filter parking searches with locations such as TA & Petro, Loves, Pilot & Flying J, independently owned truck stops, rest areas and even Walmarts that are verified to allow overnight truck parking. The app also provides a list of a location’s amenities, parking history, nearby restaurants and reviews from fellow drivers.[/p] [quote]“It’s hard to find a place to park for me because I am larger than a regular 18-wheel truck and I use Trucker Path all the time to find a place to park. I typically can only run during daylight hours and my truck takes up two or three spots,” said Bennett heavy haul driver Heath Utter. “I look at a place's details to see who has the biggest lots and I look at the updates to see how many spaces are left.”[/quote] [p]Bennett International Group began in 1974 and has since expanded internationally, providing heavy hauling and various specialty transportation and warehouse services. Similar to Trucker Path, Bennett elicited input from drivers to shape the necessary course of actions to progress its offerings.[/p] [quote]“We decided to start installing the (Trucker Path) app based on driver feedback. It was our drivers that introduced it to us, ” said Chris Hanie, Driver Tech Support for Bennett International Group, LLC. “By offering drivers apps to get real-time information, from fuel discounts to load alerts to detailed route planning, it helps them to be hyper-efficient when they are not behind the wheel. Our goal is for all our drivers to have this app on their devices.”[/quote] [p]Trucker Path is a leader in delivering advanced technology to the trucking industry. Its trip planning navigational app has over 1.5 million installs and is the highest rated app in the industry on both Google Play and the App Store.[/p] [video id="NSSOwFRJaQw"] [p][b]About Bennett International Group, LLC[/b][/p] [p]McDonough-Ga.-based Bennett International Group is a woman-owned, Women’s Enterprise Business Council (WBENC)-certified, diversified transportation and logistics company. Through its nine affiliated operating companies, Bennett International Group delivers integrated transportation and supply chain management solutions worldwide.[/p] [p][b]About Trucker Path[/b][/p] [p]Silicon Valley-based Trucker Path released a crowd-sourced navigation app for truck drivers in late 2013. With advanced mobile technology, the crowdsourced Trucker Path application has grown to become America’s largest community of truck drivers with over 530,000 active users or 30 percent of all Class 8 truckers. The exponential growth of the app led to the release of Truckloads, an online marketplace connecting freight companies with carriers for both web and mobile devices, in March 2016. By April 2017, Truckloads became the most downloaded mobile app for freight matching with over 300,000 installs. The Trucker Path team strives to improve efficiencies in the freight transportation industry while making life on the road easier, enjoyable, and more profitable for truck drivers.[/p]

May 23, 2017 • Community

7 Tips on Healthy Eating For Truck Drivers [h2] Healthy Eating for Truck Drivers [/h2] [p]It's never too late to rediscover healthy eating habits especially healthy eating for truck drivers. Here are seven tips to help promote better nutrition and healthy eating for truck drivers.[/p] [p]Sure, it's easy to swing by a [a href="https://app.appsflyer.com/com.sixdays.truckerpath?pid=Social Facebook"]truck stop near you[/a] and grab a few cheese-smothered chili dogs, but that offers no nutritional benefits to healthy eating for truck drivers. The goal should be to create healthy habits and make it a lifestyle. These habits should be deeper than just what you eat, but also when you eat and how your shop for your food.[/p] [h2]1. How Often Should I Eat?[/h2] [p]Before we talk about shopping and cooking we should talk about something extremely important: eating. Our society and the trucking industry has been organized around the idea that people should only eat about 3 times a day. For healthy eating for truck drivers, this is not necessarily the best choice. [/p] [p]While this might be more efficient in terms of consuming maximum calories in minimum time and getting back on the road, it is not always the best plan for your health. Instead, aim for around five smaller meals each day. This might seem crazy but it is necessary to metabolize food more efficiently.[/p] [h2]2. How Our Body Processes Food[/h2] [p]Your body is designed to absorb calories, use them for energy and then burn them off. In order for your body to make use of the food, what you eat has to be broken down into a form of sugar called glucose. This is a natural process and for most, the human body does this quite well. You have probably heard people talking about their “blood sugar level”, and what they are referring to is the amount of glucose in their blood.[/p] [giphy]<iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/kVVEP6SmfEXvy" width="480" height="269" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></iframe>[/giphy] [h2]3. Why Should I Care About My Blood Sugar Levels?[/h2] [p]Your body has a normal range for the amount of [a href="https://thehungryhauler.com/"]glucose in your blood[/a] (between 4.0 and 11.0) and it has a beautiful system for managing that level. Hormones like insulin keep your blood sugar from getting too high and becoming toxic, and another awesome compound, glucagon keeps your sugar from getting too low and making you pass out. It is something like a highway with really good guard rails that keep a truck from running off the road.[/p] [p]The only problem is that it is possible to overwhelm this excellent system and cause a wreck. Actually, many people are overwhelming it every day and causing small “fender benders” that lead to a total cataclysm later in life called diabetes.[/p] [p]So why does this make eating only three times per day (or fewer) a bad idea? Because you can end up constantly overwhelming the system with extreme blood sugar highs and lows. If you wait to eat until you are extremely hungry and have very low blood sugar, your body will send the signal that you are starving, and when you do eat it is often much easier to overeat unhealthy and convenient food. Healthy eating for truck drivers requires you to eat when you're hungry and avoid a severe dip in blood sugar.[/p] [h2]4. How Much Should I Be Eating?[/h2] [p]Some people conclude that the solution is to simply eat drastically less overall and there is a grain of truth to this. While dramatically reducing your caloric intake does cause the body to burn stored fat to stay alive, it can signal your body to store everything you do eat, which results in rebound weight gain when you do return to a more normal diet. Starving yourself is not the answer.[/p] [p]Thankfully there is a much better way. Simply, eat a reasonable amount of food more often. Eating five or six smaller and healthier meals per day is like steering down the middle of your lane instead of bouncing your truck off the guard rails all day. This practice will help you feel more content and stop your body from deciding to store fat for hibernation. Of course, if you eat more often and end up eating more food overall you will still have trouble being healthy. The objective is to eat an appropriate amount of food, in a more sustainable way. Typically, 2,000–2,500 daily calories are suggested; however, consulting a healthcare professional is the best way to understand what an appropriate daily caloric intake means for your individual health needs.[/p] [giphy]<iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/xtgZt3jZelFqU" width="480" height="269" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></iframe>[/giphy] [h2]5. What Are the Benefits to Eating More Often?[/h2] [p]There is also an enormous safety benefit to eating more often and avoiding the blood sugar spikes: you are less likely to feel drowsy at the wheel. Most people have experienced the after dinner slump that makes it all but impossible to keep your eyes open after a big meal. That might be fine after Christmas dinner when you are lounging on the couch at home, but at work, behind the wheel of an 80,000 pound-plus rig, it can be a disaster.[/p] [h2]6. How Do I Plan My Meals?[/h2] [p]You might be wondering: how on earth is it possible to eat five or more meals per day? Who has the time to stop for food that often? There is a way to make your diet much simpler, more healthy, easier to sustain over the long term, and much less expensive! The key is to learn to shop for your own food and cook for yourself on the road. It is much easier than it may sound, and the rewards for your health and happiness are amazing! It will even allow you to have more freedom to implement your doctor's specific recommendations.[/p] [h2]7. Eat What You Want. Sort of[/h2] [p]Anyone who has dealt with eating healthier has heard the term portion control. Controlling what, how much, how often you eat and making sensible, sustainable choices is the path to solving many of the health risks of the trucking lifestyle. To eat healthier you don't have to give up all of your favorite foods and consume a spinach and carrot based diet like a rabbit. Instead of going to the extreme, eating a balanced diet will keep you “between the lines” and on the road to better health. Extremes are by nature quite unsustainable and will not help you. Just like over-steering on the highway to avoid a crash can actually end up killing you, bouncing from one diet extreme to another, like chili-dogs to rabbit food, will just leave your lifestyle in a bewildering wreck.[/p] [giphy]<iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/n2v0V9cSmTQnS" width="480" height="269" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></iframe>[/giphy] [p]The cornerstone of a healthy life is healthy eating for truck drivers. Eating healthy is difficult for truck drivers who are on the road for weeks at a time. Most trucks aren’t designed with a fully equipped kitchen or proper food storage. Even if you can manage to find space for some cooking gear, it is often difficult to consistently find time in a busy schedule to prepare a good meal. We all want to be around long enough to enjoy time with our families and loved ones. The best way to ensure this is to focus on eating healthier as a truck driver.[/p] [p]By: [a href="https://thehungryhauler.com/"]John Heslop[/a][/p]

Jan 10, 2017 • Community

34-Hour Restart Bill Signed by Congress [p]The Senate and House passed a bill addressing the 34-hour restart for truck drivers. It now awaits The President's signature of approval.[/p] [h2]How Does 34-Hour Restart Bill Affect Truck Drivers?[/h2] [p]The new bill prevents the 2013 requirements of breaks from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. on consecutive days in a 34-hour restart with a once-per-week limit.[/p] [p][a href="http://m.onelink.me/d5890481"]Truck drivers[/a] now have the ability to use the 34-hour restart as they wish without the weekly limit and will not be required to take consecutive breaks.[/p] [giphy]<iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/Wq6DnHvHchrTG" width="480" height="269" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></iframe>[/giphy] [p]Congress enacted the hours of service provision to include the consecutive breaks and restart limit in 2013. It also required a study by the FMCSA to determine if the proposed regulations of 34-hour restarts would be beneficial to drivers or not.[/p] [quote]“Drivers have little control over their schedules and the flexibility of the 34-hour restart is necessary to make sure they get needed rest and avoid driving under the worst conditions such as congestion and bad weather,” explained Todd Spencer, OOIDA Executive Vice President.[/quote] [h2]34-Hour Restarts Almost Eliminated by Congress[/h2] [p]This fix to the legislation prevented the elimination of the 34-hour restart which could have been the case because of a mistake in the language of the 2015 bill.[/p] [p]This is an inherent win for the trucking industry as the 2013 HOS provision was widely opposed by many, including the American Trucking Association.[/p] [quote]“Thanks to hard work by congressional leaders of both parties and in both chambers, we are one step closer to having an hours-of-service restart rule that makes sense and puts safety first,” said ATA President Chris Spear in a statement.[/quote] [p]The House passed the bill by a 326-96 vote and will require President Trump's approval after January 20 in order to last through the new year.[/p]

Dec 12, 2016 • Community