Editorial: Looking to a Better 2003

img src="/sites/default/files/images/articles/printeditiontag_new.gif" width=120 align=right>Clearly, 2002 has been a year that most of us would like to forget, or at least certainly not repeat. So last week's hopeful signs were a welcome relief.

After the economic gains of 1999 and early 2000, 2001 was a big disappointment. And despite early signs of improvement this year, all of the bad trends that took hold in 2001 continued to resurface as 2002 unfolded.

When the nation's economy stalled last year, freight shipments nose-dived — and for many companies things only got worse this year. Trucking bankruptcies occurred at a record level in 2001 and 2002, as black ink disappeared from the balance sheets of most fleets.

Meanwhile, insurance rates have continued to skyrocket, and diesel fuel prices are high again.

Business started to improve in fits and starts in late spring and early summer this year, but even that tenuous recovery seemed to stall soon thereafter. Recently, many fleets reported that business improved in the third quarter, but almost all of them have also warned that they expected things to be worse in the fourth quarter.

Let us hope that some of the good news we received last week is the beginning of a trend that will make 2003 a better year.

The national elections, in which the GOP swept to full control of the House and Senate, augers well for business interests in general, and trucking's interests in particular.

Trucking can look forward to a much friendlier reception on Capitol Hill, especially on the Senate side, where several Democratic committee chairmen were less than sympathetic to trucking's positions.

The Supreme Court helped trucking by supporting a claim by Yellow Transportation against Michigan over state operating taxes, which could have cost truckers as much as $300 million a year.

The court invalidated Michigan's attempt to get around a federal law to reform Single State Registration System fees.

And the Federal Reserve's decision to cut key interest rates by a half of a percentage point could breathe some new life in what appears to be a flagging economic recovery.

This news, coming in the wake of a very successful ATA Management Conference & Exhibition in Orlando, Fla., is heartening.

Let's hope that 2003 is the indeed the year of the turnaround, for trucking and for the U.S. economy.

This article appears in the Nov. 11 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.