Editorial: Time to Celebrate Milestones
wo important and intertwined anniversaries are being celebrated: the 100th year of trucking in the United States, and the 70th birthday of American Trucking Associations.
We start counting the age of trucking from 1903, when the Automobile Club of America held a contest to decide whether motorized cargo vehicles had progressed sufficiently to replace the familiar horse-drawn carriages as the prime conveyor of the nation’s commerce.
Twelve motorized vehicles — one powered by electricity, four by gasoline and seven by steam — squared off against a group of wagons in New York City, which is still a difficult venue for cargo carriers.
While this wasn’t a formal race, the durability shown by the motorized vehicles is seen by many as the dawn of the age of trucking.
And 30 years later, on Oct. 1, 1933, two small groups representing portions of the still-small trucking industry merged to form American Trucking Associations, with headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C.
TA grew out of a merger of the Federal Trucking Associations, representing state trucking organizations, and the American Highway Freight Association, which was composed of motor carriers.
The merger was sparked when the groups agreed to work together to meet a 1933 demand from the National Recovery Administration to devise a set of rules to govern the industry as the nation recovered from the dark economic times of the Great Depression.
President Franklin Roosevelt signed their proposal into law in early 1934 as the Code of Fair Competition for the Trucking Industry. This code governed rates and operating territories, and ushered in the era of tight government regulation of the industry.
From these humble beginnings, trucking has grown into the behemoth of the freight industry. Trucking hauls about two-thirds of all the freight in the United States, and accounts for more than 86% of the money spent on freight, generating almost $600 billion a year in revenue.
The industry also employs some 9 million people and has been a major contributor to the national economic boom that has marked the post-World War II era.
We will commemorate these two noteworthy milestones at the 2003 ATA Management Conference & Exhibition in San Antonio later this month. We hope to see you all there.
This story appeared in the Oct. 6 edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.
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