A.M. Executive Briefing - April 18
This Morning's Headlines:
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Freight Patterns to Change
A Morgan Stanley Dean Witter survey of companies and domestic carriers indicates that business-to-business e-commerce will reduce the size of shipments while increasing their speed, boosting parcel and express delivery firms as well as LTLs. The survey, polling 30 carriers and some 250 firms in the Fortune 1000, also predicts that the U.S. truckload sector will consolidate.Two years hence, the amount of transactions done by telephone, fax machine, or in person will fall from 67% to 32%. The railroads will take the biggest hit, with 21% anticipating shipping by rail, but they could boost that with real-time shipment monitoring.
Mack Will Appeal $50 Million Verdict
After an Alabama jury last week ordered Mack Truck to pay $50 million to a woman whose 33-year-old truck-driver son was killed in a fiery wreck, the truckmaker's attorneys are planning an appeal.The plaintiff's lawyers said the fire that killed Tonnie Witherspoon would not have occurred if Mack had equipped the truck with an inertia switch to shut off the power system during the jackknife. Mack lawyer Edward G. Bowron said the inertia switch is not an industry standard but would not comment on whether Mack outfitted its vehicles with the switch after the accident. Associated Press (04/18/00)
Users Prepare for New Clearance System
High-volume, low-risk freight entering Canada from the United States is expected to clear Canadian customs faster under new automatic clearance procedures that demand changes from carriers, Canadian importers, and drivers.The new Customs Self Assessment program would allow electronic clearance for carriers with appropriate EDI systems and no blemishes on their records, drivers who have passed Canadian customs background checks, and importers who give the agency complete audit trails. Those involved are now getting ready to take part in the voluntary program, which will go into effect a year from now.
Two complaints that have surfaced are that only freight originating in the United States qualifies – the customs agency says it plans to add Europe and Japan in the future – and that LTL trucks may contain goods from participating shippers and others. This produces "an anti-LTL bias that hasn't been addressed," said Canadian Trucking Alliance Vice President Massimo Bergamini. Journal of Commerce (04/18/00) P. 1; Tower, Courtney
Teamsters May Run Own Election
U.S. attorneys have reportedly agreed in principle to the Teamsters' proposed election rules and procedures, which would allow the union to hold elections free of federal oversight for the first time in more than a decade.The rules, expected to get a federal judge's OK this week, are stricter than the government's rules for the past three Teamsters elections, said union President James P. Hoffa. The union would start electing delegates this year to its national convention in June 2001 if the proposals are approved. Heavy Duty Trucking Online (04/17/00)
Ex-GOP Big Wig Gets 27 Months: Extorted From Trucker; Took Part in Stolen Rig Ring
A federal court judge in Uniondale, N.Y., has sentenced onetime Suffolk County GOP chief John Powell to 27 months' imprisonment, the shortest sentence for which he was eligible, for extortion and involvement in a truck-theft ring.Powell's political ascendancy came to an end when he was arrested in late 1998 by FBI agents; he was convicted of extorting $20,000 from a trucker at the landfill in Brookhaven a year later. He was not tried on the stolen-truck ring charges because he entered a guilty plea to racketeering.
Powell, who was also fined $300, was ordered to pay $16,000 in restitution, was sentenced to two years of probation, and could go to a halfway house after 15 months in federal prison. New York Daily News (04/17/00) P. 8; Gearty, Robert
Driving Busy Roads? Watch Out for Debris
Debris on Interstate 95 and connecting roadways in southeastern Florida caused 121 accidents – with 73 injuries – in all of 1998, and flying objects impaled three people, all of whom survived, in the last twelve months.A great deal of the objects in South Florida fall out of trucks, which are ticketed for freight that is not properly secured, while sand and gravel must be covered. The items found on roadways there range from chairs to auto parts and from surfboards to construction equipment. Elsewhere in Florida, tire "gators" make up most of the freeway debris. Sarasota Herald-Tribune (04/17/00) P. 3B; Grimes, David
Police Arrest Teamster in Trucker Beating
Authorities charged 44-year-old Teamsters member Scott Archie, of Elkland, Mo., with second-degree assault in the steel-pipe beating of a trucker delivering goods for Associated Wholesale Grocers to a convenience store. The AWG trucker was accompanied by a security guard for Falcon Global, who caught the assault on videotape; the guard said the two men who beat the driver shouted slogans against the grocery cooperative, which locked out more than 1,000 union members April 1. Associated Press (04/17/00)© copyright 2000 INFORMATION, INC. Terms of Service
